| Blog Entry - Saturday, April 21st, 2007 | Add / Read (4) |
I was doing some blog reading this morning, allowing myself the luxury of reading more than just a quick browse through the blogs on my daily read list in Bloglines. As I do sometimes, I had my attention caught by an entry on a blog I don't read all that often, and followed links from there. It makes for a topically related walk through other people's brains. Today's voyage was primarily about science-fiction and fantasy. I've loved sci-fi/fantasy since I was first a reader - I remember reading the Lloyd Alexander Prydain books and the Tolkein's The Hobbit around fourth or fifth grade and got sucked in completely. I was already a reader, but I think that these books made me the unstoppable, want-to-read everything person I am today.
Anyway. I digress. My point was that in my blog-wander this morning, I found some interesting things you might want to peek at:
When I taught "The Tell-Tale Heart" this year, we did a great "Producing Poe" exercise (based on this PBS lesson plan), where the kids decided how they would produce a movie of the story, from music to lighting and actors. They were focused on picking a mood and evoking that mood through all their choices. Perhaps next year, a nice capstone to that lesson would be to show this video of the 1953 animated version of the story. Eerie and spookily done. (via SFSignal.com)
The Internet Review of Science Fiction (IROSF), where they're trying to create a true literary magazine dedicated to SF (currently free). One story from the current issue that caught my eye -- "Telling Stories of Your Life: The Use of Second Person Narration in SF," an essay about point of view in science fiction, especially second person. This topic is of interest to anyone discussing point of view in literature - and might be a good hook if your students like science-fiction (or if you do!). An earlier related article discusses voice in more general terms.
An amazingly cool online exhibition of science fiction at the University of Delaware: From Verne to Vonnegut, A Century of Science Fiction. This annotated, illustrated list is the best in sci-fi, categorized for your reading inspiration.
Two wide-ranging discussions (by wide-ranging, here I mean appearing on blogs across the blogsphere), one on how and what to suggest to kids who have been hooked into reading through the Harry Potter books (Here and here). Harry will be done this summer, and it would be a true shame to let those readers go - so these bloggers have started categorized lists of suggestions. Here are a few of mine:
SCIENCE FICTION
12 AND UNDER:
YOUNG ADULT: Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card; Piers Anthony's Bio of a Space Tyrant series; Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide books; Glory Road, Starship Troopers, and most everything else by Robert Heinlein
ADULT: Old Man's War/Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi; David Weber's Honor Harrington series; Dan Simmons' Illium and Olympos; Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky; most anything by Spider Robinson, although I particularly like the Callahan books
FANTASY
12 AND UNDER: The Dark is Rising sequence, by Susan Cooper; The Prydain Chronicles, by Lloyd Alexander; Watership Down, by Richard Adams
YOUNG ADULT: Summerland, by Michael Chabon; Old Kingdom books, by Garth Nix; Heir of Sea and Fire books, by Patricia McKillip; The Belgariad series, by David Eddings; Robert Silverberg's Majipoor Chronicles; Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn books, by Tad Williams
ADULT: A Song of Fire and Ice series by George R.R. Martin; Anne McCaffrey's Pern books
ALL AGES: Neil Gaiman books, like Stardust, Good Omens, and American Gods; C.S. Lewis' Narnia books; JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books; Orson Scott Card's Enchantment; Robert Aspirin's MYTH books are a serious giggle
The other discussion was on how sci-fi had been ghettoized as a genre and how it's breaking out now (here, here, here, here, here, and here). I've never thought sci-fi fantasy was a ghetto, but I know that many people have looked askance at my reading it over the years.
Author: Libby Ingrassia
Posted at: 09:37:50 AM
