Worth a Watch

My pedagogy professor showed this TEDTalk to us in class last week. I thought I'd share it with you (or possibly only myself, since I'm not sure how wide my readership is). I see a lot of my students, and even myself in Adichie's discussion of the single story. It's something I know we need to break out of, while realizing that there is fear involved in abandoning that which we've always known in order to embrace something else.

 

Final Thoughts on Skeleton Creek

I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the novel as a whole, especially since my memories of the Blair Witch Project weren't the most pleasant. I am going to have to admit that I did get a little frightened by the story and decided that I'm wasn't going to read any right before bed, even though the story kept me engaged the entire time. This is another one of those titles (along with I, Q: Independence Hall and Quantum Prophecy: The Awakening, that I bought last year at the New Mexico Library Association Conference and just got around to reading).

I thought quite a bit about the difference the videos make to the story, and I came to the conclusion that it was the videos that pushed this novel to the edge of the thriller category. The only other author I've read that has made me feel that much nervous anxiety is Stephen King. I was completely freaked out when I read It.

When I was hunting for the videos, or rather, trying to get the website to work, I stumbled upon a couple other websites that are related to the Skeleton Creek universe. On the companion website, Sarah Fincher's webpage, there's a link to the Skeleton Creek Investigations fan page on Facebook. I was slightly surprised by this, though I shouldn't have been. I'm not an avid Facebook user--there are a few friends I keep track of through this interface, but it's not something I check regularly. Skeleton Creek Investigations has 4,867 fans. This may not seem like a huge number, but think about the viral influence of sites like Facebook and MySpace. 

The character Sarah Fincher has a MySpace page, but it hasn't been active since September 2009, which is near the time Ghost in the Machine was released. Unlike the Facebook group, Sarah Fincher's page only has 55 fans. Makes me wonder if kids are making the move away from MySpace and toward Facebook. Or the production people realized that the MySpace page didn't get many hits and moved their efforts toward Facebook, where there were more followers.

On the Skeleton Creek Is Real website, the author claims that Patrick Carman's book and the events therein really happened. I haven't had the opportunity to read through the blog that goes along with this website, but I plan to. I think the Skeleton Creek following is significantly bigger than the 4,867 people who are following on Facebook. I can't help but wonder if Skeleton Creek will have a following (possibly more short-lived) similar to the MuggleNet fandom for Harry Potter. Comments on Skeleton Creek include links to other sites of interest to fans of the show. One comment links back to the Facebook page, which apparently continues the story by giving clues to fans, and the fans have to figure out a piece to the puzzle. 

The final link that I found particularly interesting (and posted on my Twitter feed earlier this week) is Skeleton Creek Analytics. I couldn't find any information about the author of this website, but he took the passwords to the videos and analyzed the choices the author made in the context of the larger picture of the novel. I've read two of the postings thus far (and they're only for the first book so far) and the author makes some interesting connections. The site was only started a month ago, so I'm guessing the author isn't done yet. I'll be interested to see what else he has to say.

Carman did a fantastic job of keeping readers from one novel to the second. There is no resolution at the end of Skeleton Creek. In fact, the characters are left in the most precarious of predicaments that I'm going to get made fun of when my family and I travel to Las Cruces on Monday and I have to pick up the second book so I know what happens. So you'll be hearing about The Ghost in the Machine here soon, dear readers because I am a book addict and cannot help myself.

The final thing I'm interested in is how this book would play out as a read-aloud. Would the integration of video help hold the attention of reluctant readers? Many of mine didn't really care for When You Reach Me, and many of the novels that have recently made my Top 10 list are too long to function as good read alouds.

Initial thoughts on Skeleton Creek

Skeleton Creek, by Patrick Carman caught my interest at the NMLA conference in 2009 because it's a novel that integrates video. Not a novel that was made into a film, but a novel where the video is (supposed to be) integral to the continued understanding of the plot.

This novel, though I hadn't read it yet, was the starting point for my dissertation topic: roughly--a discussion of how change in book presentation changes students' literacy needs. Skeleton Creek is supposed to be a scary story. When my students ask for a scary novel, usually whatever I give them isn't scary enough for their tastes. Maybe it's because they don't visualize. Maybe it's because they're so desensitized by the visual media they've grown up with that the pictures they form in their heads don't compare to what a filmmaker can do with camera angle, actor positioning and music. I don't know. But I've watched one of the videos that goes along with Carman's book already. It reminded me of the Blair Witch Project, which is a movie that creeped me out.

A drawback to presenting a book like this is that if you don't watch the video, you can't move on. Well, I'm on my second day stuck where I am in the novel because of testing and no computers on, and class and homework. It's unfortunate because I really want to continue. I'm thinking about reading on and seeing how important the video is to the story. Especially since my district doesn't like to stream video and blocks everything (rightfully so, they just found an undetectable virus).

More to come.

Carman, Patrick. (2009). Skeleton Creek. New York: Scholastic Press.

My Introduction to Oz

In the midst of reading The Chosen, which is a wonderful book, I've decided to attack a Wizard of Oz project as well. I have one week before summer classes begin and I will be bogged down with the reading of educational materials. With this week, I want to examine as much of L. Frank Baum's Oz as I possibly can, ending the week with a rereading of Gregory Maguire's Wicked from a new perspective. It's one thing to read the Maguire and love it, it's another to know the story he draws from. For example, I listened to the first five chapters of the first book this morning only to find that there is a Munchkin character Dorothy stays with for a night called Boq. In the Maguire, Boq was a Munchkin who had a thing for the "Wicked Witch of the East," Nessarose. He was turned into, I believe, the Tinman by the Wicked Witch of the West (fondly called Elphaba... now where did Maguire come up with that name, I wonder).

Now I can't get Kristin Chenoweth's voice out of my head. I've seen the stage version of Wicked and let me tell you that Chenowith and Idina Menzel are mind-blowingly fantastic.

Anyway...

I want to conclude the week with a viewing of The Wizard of Oz (both with and without Pink Floyd, which I've never done before), and a viewing of Tin Man, starring Zooey Deschanel, who I love (her sister, too. Hooray for Bones.)

Love What You Read

Today, I StumbledUpon another possibly helpful website for those people who are struggling with what to read next. It's called StoryCode.com. Put in a book that you've recently read, review it, and the website will generate a list of books that you might like to read. Or, find the title of a book you've recently read, click on the recommendations button, and the website will generate a list of books that you might be interested in reading. Fairly neat concept, if you ask me. Interestingly, so I could see how it worked, I typed in The Chosen and it generated a list for me. Among those was Flowers for Algernon, which I highly recommend that anyone read. It's one of those heartbreaking books, like Where the Red Fern Grows. That was one of my favorite books as a kid. One that I probably won't read again any time soon since it made me cry. Same thing happened with Million Dollar Baby. I can't imagine seeing that film again, but god, if it wasn't powerful. I digress. Check out StoryCode.com if you're looking for something to read.

A Believer Aside

My latest trip down film lane led me to The Believer, a film about a young, Jewish, anti-semitist who was hell-bent on killing all the Jews. He spends the movie trying to reconcile his beliefs with his heritage. It's one of those movies that forces one to examine his or her own conflicting behaviors. Thinking, "I can't believe that guy wants to kill his own people," thinking it makes sense that Blacks end up in jail since I'm preconditioned to think that my own people are no more than less-than.

The film forced me to think about how I am going to teach the atrocities of the Holocaust to my students who have no frame of reference. Shindler's List wouldn't do it. People are so desensitized by film anymore.

What always gets me, and there was a character who said this, is when people say that the Holocaust didn't happen. That there weren''t as many people discovered buried in mass graves in the concentration camps as actually claimed. I've been to the museum in Washington, D.C. On the outside of the building is this poster. I think about it a lot. Maybe because I've got my own string of "other-ness" that is discriminated against. I don't know. Since I saw this movie and since I'm starting Anne Frank next week.

I have to encourage all you (non-existant) readers out there to, "The next time you see injustice... the next time you witness hatred... the next time you hear about genocide... Think about what you saw."