These Books Among Us

Hello again! Since this month I am on the theme of Fairy Tales, I thought I would continue from book adaptations to television and movies. Below are going to be some that I have seen along with the ways they are adapted and the genres they come from. Let's start off with television, shall we. I think the most obvious adaptation as of late is ABC's Once Upon a Time. One cool thing about this is that it is on the channel owned by Disney, so they can use licensed characters without any repercussions. That was both a blessing and a curse. This show started back in 2011 and started off as a show set in the modern world where a town is full of fairy tale characters who are trapped in our universe by a curse of the evil queen. Now this show was really fun for the first few seasons. The cameos of the other fairy tale characters was really cool and the introduction of the new villains was well done. The later seasons, however, I was not as big of a fan of. Once they started having f

Hey everyone! Welcome to the new year! This year I am going to try to incorporate themes into my weekly posts for every month. So let's see how well that goes, shall we? To get us started, let's get in the mindset of fairy tales.   If you are like me, you love fairy tales. They were told to you when you were growing up, turned into awesome animated films, and probably taught you lessons about right and wrong, right? Well, same with me. Most people grow up on the Disney versions of these stories. They are often filled with happily ever afters, the villains getting their just desserts (killed-they get killed), and some variant of the animal side kick being embarrassed at the new couple kissing at the end of the film. But the original tales were a lot darker. Most of them had very heavy themes throughout and very graphic violence for being something to share with children. And that was the point, back when these were first circulated. They were to scare children into

If you are a millennial, you grew up with Harry Potter. Whether you read the books, or saw the movies, or did neither, you cannot doubt that Harry Potter surrounded your life. The franchise was everywhere.  Some may say that it was not a good thing, that it was too dark for children and too full of the devil's magic, but most would agree that it taught us, as a generation, something good about being human. For me, Harry Potter got me into reading. The novels introduced me into the joys of reading for more than just school work and that I could, hopefully, make a career out of it later in life. It also taught me that it's okay to love books. Hermione was my role model; still is actually. She is who she is and does not try to change herself for anyone's personal enjoyment. When I would get bullied for reading so much, for being a bookworm, I remembered Hermione and stood my ground. I wouldn't let some ass who was bigger than me tell me that I couldn't do what I love

As most of you reading this know, there seems to be a trend in the "hero complex" in young adult, middle grade, and children's novels. Stories like Percy Jackson, Hunger Games, and Whichwood all have younger people saving the world. But why has this become the norm for a lot of current writings? Well, let's explore that together. First off, what is the superhero complex and how can we try to identify the features of it in our literature and our lives? The superhero complex is often when a character has a desperate need to protect the people around them. They do not necessarily think of their own safety in the matter, only that they must protect. This person will have an inherent desire and compulsion to help people. There is also a need to do it all alone, to hopefully trim down the list of casualties. Many of the identifiable features of this include over protection, a disinterest in self preservation, and being quite controlling over any and all situatio

Hey guys! So I am going to go into my thirteen reasons why I think Young Adult novels are good for the world. These are going to range from the trivial to being more serious reasons. So without further ado, here we go. 1. Young adult novels are good for all ages. For actual young adults, they can help through times of change. Many of the characters are the same age as the young adults reading them. And while their problems may be on a much larger scale, there are still the social issues they have to navigate through in their own lives that the young readers may be going through in their own school. 2. Adults can relive their youth. Yeah, I know, this one's pretty cliche. But it's true. Maybe they're re-reading one of their favorite series from when they were in high school and it brings back the warm and fuzzy feelings they had getting their friends into the book. Maybe they are reading about young adults who had the same issues they were going through when they wer

If you ever went to school with other people, you probably saw bullying. It may have happened to you, or a friend, or a classmate, but it was there. It seems like it has always been there. No matter where you turn in literature or film or television, there seems to always be an underdog that the "popular kid" will pick on, belittle, and physically hurt. So this is in our media and our real lives. Obviously. So what is this post about. Well, I can tell you it's not going to be a mushy post about me talking about my experience with bullying and it's not going to necessarily be me calling out people who have bullied, no matter how much I want to. No, this post is going to be directed at the people who stand by. Now before you exit out of this tab, let me just tell you that I am not going to lecture you and tell you that you always have to step up and intervene in the most direct sense. I am not telling you that you must be the hero and get yourself hurt for someone