I am captivated by the movie trailer for the same reasons I hated the book. The story is so epic and so utterly wrong! Anna is the worst sort of human in my eyes, but everything is so bold and rich, and amazing. I can’t wait.
Sometimes you just can’t ask why about love…..love is a choice but it’s a choice that doesn’t require any qualifications, it simply is.
Fans of the novel Anna Karenina know that there are as many kinds of loves as there are hearts. That perhaps is why the novel is so appealing….it is a story about love and love effects us all.
What kind of loves have you known in your life? Forbidden love? Dutiful love? Romantic love? Enduring love? Passionate love? Maternal love? Scandalous love?
In the novel Anna Karenina, we find all kinds of love and on November 30th (in theaters everywhere) we will see director Joe Wright’s vision of love on the big screen.
I for one have been waiting for the release of this film for months. I have been watching all the Facebook promotions and longing for the release date. The film opened to limited cities on…
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Cyber Monday
If you plan to do your Holiday Shopping at Amazon.com, I would appreciate it if you would kindly Click Here. Thanks!
If Scentsy products are on your list of needs or wants, please shop: https://akklemm.scentsy.us/Scentsy/Home
The Long-Awaited Lily
Well, it felt like a long time, because I was so anxious for it. In reality, Smith is quite the efficient authoress.
Title: Seed Savers Volume 2 “Lily”
Author: S. Smith
I read the first installment of Seed Savers early this last summer. I loved it. I was so excited to find a new “undiscovered” young adult author and immediately blogged about it. Illegal gardening, fresh produce, dystopian society, kids on the run… how much more exciting could it possibly get? Way more, that’s how much.
With the arrival of Lily, I expected to get “the further adventures of Clare and Dante,” but what I got was much more. Lily, a side character in the first book, Treasure, tries to continue the mission of saving seeds in her hometown after the disappearance of Clare and Dante. Rather than getting “Treasure” all over again, a common fault in sequels in general, Lily is a book all its own and full of secrets, secrets, and more secrets. Not only was Lily hiding plants from Dante and Clare, she has a past she wasn’t even aware of, a past that could change everything.
Smith succeeded, again, in writing a fantastic and educational adventure that I cannot wait to share with my nieces and nephews, and later with my daughter. It is so fun and refreshing to read something new, something real, that doesn’t have anything to do with vampires, werewolves, or zombies. Although there is a time and place for such fantasy fiction for young adults, it’s nice to know that there are authors out there that have something more on the brain than the latest (recurring) fad that has swept the nation and the world.
Seed Savers is about using your brain, questioning the world around you and how it should be, becoming a better person, and making the world a better place. These are things every kid should be encouraged to do. And for the adults reading these books, it reminds us that many kids want to when they are given the chance.
A Tidbit from Miss Golightly
“My dog and a book are ideal company when I feel sickly.” – Jennifer Joy Golightly
Dickens on the Strand is Coming Up!
Do you have tickets yet? If not, win some at Half Price Books in Humble!
3 Year Anniversary
WordPress has informed me that it is my 3 Year Blogging Anniversary. Who will bake my cake? I want one just like in the picture. Just kidding.
In honor of this milestone, I have added the Blog Stats widget to the right hand side of the page. Look at all those hits!
Today I’d like to use my anniversary as an excuse for fellow bloggers and readers to leave me a comment telling me how long they’ve been with me and how they came across me – if you remember. Also, what are your favorite features of Anakalian Whims, and what would you like to see more of in the following year?
While the Net was Sleeping…
Too many Sandra Bullock allusions for one heading? I think so, but I don’t feel like Starting from Scratch. Heehee, see what happens when I go without my internet for 3 whole days. The cheesy humor that only I find funny gets out of control. And this post isn’t even about Sandra Bullock.
It’s about the fact that my internet was down for 3 days and in that time the Kiddo and I went on a bit of a young adult binge. If you follow my blog, or my life, you know we read a lot of picture books. This last weekend, however, we just couldn’t help ourselves. After finishing Pippi Longstockings, the kiddo seemed more and more interested in sitting through me reading chapter books, and there were two in particular calling my name.
The Magician’s Elephant and Kenny & the Dragon had both been sitting on the shelves for quite sometime. I impulsively bought each from Half Price Books in hardback because the price was too wonderful, the illustrations on each were beautiful (and I’m a sucker for beautifully illustrated fantasy books), and I thought one day the kiddo would enjoy devouring these.
With The Magician’s Elephant I was moved first by all the deep blue hues. Rich blues and grays give the impression of a romantic gloom I find fascinating. Of course, after it was off the shelf and in my hands, the elephant sealed the deal. I adore elephants and half our lives consists of elephant art and books with elephants on the covers.
The fonts, the illustrations, the beautiful fairy tale… what is not to like about this wonderful book? Everyone should have a copy of Kate DiCamillo’s tale of family and keeping promises. It makes for a great Thanksgiving and Christmas season read, and I highly recommend sharing it with your children by the fire.
Kate DiCamillo is famous for Because of Winn Dixie, The Tale of Despereaux, and countless others. She has made quite a name for herself in the book-world as a trustworthy storyteller, but this is the first I’ve actually read of her work, and what a testament it was! My two year old sat through the whole book in one morning.
Of course, author Kate DiCamillo can’t take credit for the art, that is the fine work of Yoko Tanaka. She has quite a bit of published work and still manages to stay in the non-book art scene at galleries and group shows and such, according to her online bio which is actually more of a resume. I’m excited about keeping track of her future ventures as well, because I’ve really fallen in love with what she did for The Magician’s Elephant.
Tony DiTerlizzi became a part of our lives when I first grabbed a copy of The Spider and the Fly picture book. Of course, I was familiar with the dark tale, but DiTerlizzi’s art really sucked me in. It was not until later that I discovered he was the same DiTerlizzi who wrote and illustrated The Spiderwick Chronicles. What a clever, talented man! Where I previously lamented over whether the kiddo was ready for such a gothic tale as Spider and the Fly, Kenny & the Dragon is a story of friendship and book-love for any age. Again, everyone needs a copy. We will probably re-read this in the Spring or Summer.
Side note: I totally want a bicycle like Kenny’s, it’s so cool.
Oh Miss Langstrump, you’re a hot mess
Title: Pippi Longstocking(or Pippi Langstrump in the original Swiss)
Author: Astrid Lindgren
Growing up, I always loved Pippi Longstocking. As of some time around 1993, I’m sure I had read all the books and probably seen all the movie adaptations to date. I’d even won a costume contest dressed as her with my long hair braided around a coat hanger shaped to my head to keep the braids up and out. I was one of the few kids that didn’t have to add big black dots to my face with Mom’s eyeliner when wearing costumes, because I was completely covered in huge distinct freckles anyway. There was even one dead center on my nose, that I often imagined could be considered ‘potato shaped.’
Re-reading Astrid Lindgren’s stories to my daughter, however, I’m surprised that my own mother liked Pippi so much. The girl is a hot mess. All I keep thinking is what a rotten un-educated hooligan this child is… with absolutely no impulse control! There’s been more than a few times I’ve thought about reaching through the pages and giving the fictitious rug rat a good old-fashioned spanking. It makes sense, though, having only an absentee, pirate-like father who is supposedly king of cannibals and a mischievous little monkey as your only family, that you’d be outlandish and absurd; but sometimes while reading, I just want Pippi to calm down for two seconds and think while I catch my breath.
Lindgren had a lot of people feel that way when the book was first released. I didn’t know this before this last week, but a lot of people in Sweden were not very happen about Pippi Longstocking being the latest craze. Take the mentality of the parents of Junie B. Jones readers, and you’ve got a good idea of the Pippi drama back in 1945-1948.
Of course, in the end, I still like Pippi a lot – I can’t say the same for what I’ve read of Junie B. I adore her red hair, her freckles, her fearlessness, the fact that she can lift a horse above her head, the fact that she has a horse to lift above her head. She has circus talents to rival the world’s best, she’s spunky, and lives in an awesome house called Villa Vellekulla. She saves children from bullies and burning buildings, and is all around pretty good-natured, even if she does unintentionally mouth off to everyone all the time and plan to be a full-fledged pirate when she grows up.
Pippi Longstocking is the first of a series and is perfect for beginning of the school year. The story starts at the mid to tail end of summer and ends in November just in time for Pippi’s Birthday Party; so, if you read seasonally like I do sometimes, keep it in mind next school year if you have a kiddo starting kindergarten or returning for first, second, or third grade. Pippi starts the story as a nine-year old and kids tend to enjoy reading about kids their own age or bigger.
I was a little late in introducing my kiddo to Pippi Longstocking this year, but not in the grand scheme of life. She’s only two and very familiar, but we had a Pippi Longstocking and Pirates themed birthday party a few weeks before the concept and the character really sunk in for her. She was still wrapped up in Babar at the time of the party and I didn’t know how to go about dressing my kid up as an elephant and getting her friends to do so too. But we had a grand ol’ time wearing pirate clothes and pigtails…
How I Waste My Time
I am supposed to be reading The Old Curiosity Shop for HPB Humble’s December Book Club meeting. I love and adore Dickens so I’m actually very excited about this. Plus, the weather is perfect for it. But every time I sit down I find something else has made it into my hands and reading time. Yesterday I breezed through Unrecounted by W.G. Sebald and Jan Peter Tripp before starting and completing Sarah N. Harvey’s The Lit Report. Both were short, breezy books, but neither were on my immediate TBR pile.
Unrecounted is a coffee table book shrunk down to the size of a trade paper back, in my opinion. Housed in poetry, yet I find myself more captivated by the art. The book is a series of Tripp’s art and Sebald’s verse married together very simply in a manner you might see at an art gallery rather than in a poetry book. I enjoyed it immensely, but I would have preferred to walk through a perfectly lit hall with the images taking up half the wall, the verse on a plaque nearby, rather than flip through the pages of a book. Although it would be far less accessible that way, the emotional impact would be far greater.
The Lit Report is a fabulous young adult piece for older teens. In the style of So Many Books, So Little Time, the story follows a year in the life of Julia questioning the beliefs of those around her and defining her own world view while reading and walking her best friend through a secret teen pregnancy. Christians are not shown in the greatest light. In fact I doubt that the ‘Christians’ presented in this book actually are Christians as they tend to be people more focused on beating religion into others or attempting to save themselves from the wrath of God by burying themselves into activities of a highly questionable church, instead of simply believing in the Truth and love of Jesus Christ. The book is also pretty consistent with how most modern teens live and has its fair share of swearing , misbehavior, and (obviously) sexual activity (after all, one girl is pregnant). But the novel rings true as a supposed memoir of a girl’s life… while reading it you feel as though this could be someone’s experience somewhere – this could happen.
The Lit Report is something I wouldn’t mind re-reading with the kiddo when she is older and we can discuss the thoughts and opinions of the girls, their actions, and the actions of their parents. It has valid and necessary topics to discuss: the cruel dogmatic ways of some people who call themselves ‘Christians’ and how they influence the public’s view on what being a Christian means, sexual activity as a teenager, and of course how literature can be a part of your daily life. It is important to see what someone who ‘walks the walk’ looks like in comparison to somewhat who has hardened their heart and spouts biblical references at people out of context. It is important to know where you stand as a sexual being and what your expectations and standards are, and finally, how your decisions affect those around you. The novel really makes you stop to think what the author’s own life experiences with so-called Christians have been.
As for The Old Curiosity Shop, I am a few chapters in and it waits patiently for me on my night stand. Maybe tonight will be the night… or, maybe I’ll find myself wasting more time.