Interesting yet enlightening conversation last night with my kids.

Dragonlance_booksElizabeth wasn’t feeling well after dinner while watching, “Now You See Me” movie. She went to bed afterwards but the kids and I were going to watch “The Hobbit” which I had DVR’d earlier. I told them I had to return the movies we rented, “Now You See Me” and “The Conjuring.”

OMG – the Conjuring…I’m about five pounds lighter cuz is scared you know what outta me. 

While I was out, Joaquin was busy updating Emma on the Lord of The Ring trilogy since she had never seen them. Joaquin and I were big fans of the trilogy so he was the right person to get Emma up to speed. As we watched the movie, we started talking to each other about how the movie versions of the stories wouldn’t be as true to the books.

See, my kiddos read a lot.

Emma started to complain about how different the Hunger Games movie was from the books (she’s read them all) or Percy Jackson novels and Joaquin jumped in about the Harry Potter series and even Twilight movies as well. I even weighed in on how the only thing the same between the book and movie for World War Z – was the title.

“Hollywoodism” – is what I called it. How movie studios have to “sensationalize” the movies to get to a bigger audience. Kids didn’t understand so I tried my best to explain.

I told them how much more powerful the “theatre of the mind” was when conveying a story to the reader, because in a movie – most of it is filled in for you. Sight and sound. But in reading, a lot is left up to you. Thank you Steve Atkins – you gave me that term.

I told them how Stephen King scared the “you-know-what” out of me when I read Salem’s Lot when I was much younger. I told them as a writer, you needed to build up the scene with visuals using words and to let  your audience fill in the gaps with their imagination.  It was a very lively conversation which I so much appreciated with my children.

Children…one is gonna be 18 the other 14!

We got back to the movie and Joaquin asked Emma if she wanted to read some books about characters in the Hobbit. He said he still had some of the old books I had asked him to read as a child, I think he was bout 12? I asked which ones, and he said, “Dad, the Dragonlance books.”

 That brought back so many good memories. 

We paused the movie and Joaquin went to his room and pulled about 5 books he still had. Those are the ones you see at the top. One is so old that its cover is missing and the second split in two! Evidence of how many times the books had been read. Emma gladly accepted the books.

Makes my heart swell with pride to see this interaction between my children when it comes to reading books. But even more special because I am part of it.

Beto

PS – I know those books are the true Tolkien series – but it’s a start.

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