Winnie the Pooh returns to the big screen

This Friday, two big movies are being released. One, which most of us have been waiting for, is the final Harry Potter film. The other is ...Winnie the Pooh. Yes, Pooh, Piglet and everyone in the Hundred Acre Woods are back in a new Disney film, with new adventures for children young and old.


 Pooh first appeared in 1926 in A. A. Milne's short story collection,  Winnie the Pooh, with illustrations by E. H. Shepard. The character got his name from a stuffed bear that was owned by Milne's son, Christopher Robin (who was the basis for the Christopher Robin character. In fact, most of the toys featured in the tales were owned by Milne's son.) A second collection of stories, The House of Pooh Corner, was released in 1928. In the 60's, Disney acquire the rights to characters and since 1966, when Winnie the Pooh and the Honey was released,  they have produced countless products, including animated films, TV shows, stuffed animals and so on. ( By the way, I'm a Piglet fan with a hint of Eeyore and Roo.)  In 2009,  an authorized sequel, Return to the House of Pooh Corner by David Benedictus with illustrations by Mark Burgess, was released. ( I'd read this book, and both Benedictus and Burgess do a great job of capturing Milne's writing and Shepard's artwork.)

One more side of everyone's favorite silly old bear is the musical side. Besides the music of the Disney films and TV shows ( which, over the years,  has been done by Richard and Robert Sherman, Carly Simon, and for this new film, Robert Lopez, the songwriter of the Tony-winning musical ,The Book of Mormon), singer/ songwriter Kenny Loggins wrote a song called " The House of Pooh Corner" in 1970. In 1994, he not only rewrote the song, but also decided to put out children's album called Return to Pooh Corner. ( A sequel was released in 1998, featuring the song " Your Heart Will Lead You Home" which Loggins co-wrote with the Sherman brothers for The Tigger Movie. Both albums are great for bedtime, whether you have children or not.)

Most of the books and music items that I have mentioned are available at the library for you to check out. Please use the library catalog or an librarian to see which branch (or branches) have theses items ( especially the Disney-related Pooh books, which are by various authors).


And now to close with a quote from the 1977 film, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh:

Tigger: T-T-F-N: ta-ta for now!

Review-Hunger Games-Suzanne Collins

 So I was very hesitant  about reading the first book of Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games series because I'm not really a huge science fiction fan. But it has sort of become the Harry Potter of this century and with  the film adaptation of the book coming to the big screen next spring, I decided to give it a try.

The Hunger Games is  set the future, in a place called Panem ( one of the many cool names in this book), consisting of a gleaming city known as the Capitol and twelve pleasant-like districts. ( Actually there was a district 13, but it was wiped out during an uprising against the Capitol.) To keep  the districts in line ( and as punishment for this uprising), the Capitol selects one boy and one girl from each district to compete in the Hunger Games, a life-or-death competition broadcast for all to see. When Katniss Everdeen  (see the names are getting cooler) hears her little sister's name selected, she volunteers to take her place. Once in the Games, Katniss learns she will have to do more than outlive her competitors ( and possibly falling in love with Peeta
Mellark, her co-tribute from distract 12 who's had a crush on her since age 5) to survive the Games.

Two words: Awesome.  It's a page turner with a lot of adventure, romance, humor, sadness, and violence ( and pretty vivid violence, so not really for the squeamish). Collins creates a world that is wonderful and wicked at the same, full of strong characters with great names. I really love that the story is told from Katniss, who is both strong and girly from beginning to end. I also love Haymitch Abernathy ( his name may be better than Kat), former Hunger Games victor of long ago and Katniss and Peeta's wise but drunken mentor. Foolish and arrogant, he knows the secrets of surviving the Games, plus adds humor to this gruesome and page- turning adventure.  And now that I have finished book 1, I so plan to request the other two books in the series as soon as I can.

Hunger Games-Suzanne Collins ( we have it  in children's and young adult)
Ages 14 and up
Lexile: 810
***** ( 5 stars)

I mentioned at the beginning of this post  that a film version of this book will be coming out next spring. Since the movie's announcement, fans have created their own wish list of the cast ( and some have even created music videos and posted on Youtube. The choices for Haymitch are very interesting, including big franchise actors.) The main three characters have already been cast. Jennifer Lawrence of Winter's Bone will be Katniss, and yesterday, it was announced that Josh Hutcherson of Journey of the Center of the Earth will be Peeta, Katniss's love interest and fellow contender, and Liam Hemsworth of The Last Song  will be  Gale, Katniss's best friend. Being a budding fan of the series, I'm going to throw in my dream choices for some of the other characters ( Note- these are my choices, not who will be actually in the movie) .

Effie - the chaperone of district 12, she's perky but a strict cookie with pink hair. Sounds a bit like Elle Woods of Legally Blonde, so the best choice would be Reese Witherspoon ( and I think she has the coloring for pink hair).

Haymitch-. In picturing Haymitch as a ruggedly handsome space cowboy, Nathan Fillion of the sci-fi western Firefly  came to mind.  But, thinking that a big name might be needed  in some form( and  perhaps someone who's been in kid movies but  would not overshadowed the main young actors), Jack Black would be perfect because Haymitch is similar to the character he played  in the King Kong remake of 2005.