This is the first John Carter of Mars novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of the Tarzan books. It was his first novel, published in 1917 and it’s a work of rip-roaring science fiction that has inspired many of the great writers in the genre.
Chapter 19: John Carter makes a new friend in prison but must face a day of fighting to the death in the arena.
The National Film Board of Canada produced this cartoon adaptation of a story by E.B. White. He did the narration too! It’s a far-fetched tale of logical and methodical silliness that ends in an eruption of accidental death and mayhem. Simply marvelous.
Chris Roth animated this little video spot for a new children’s book coming out in August. It’s message is all about books being books and they don’t have anything more to them than the story they’re telling. I love a good e-reader perfectly well, but I still want a real book more than my e-reader. Every good book should have a cover. It’s as simple as that.
In 1962 John and Faith Hubley won an Oscar for this short that features a conversation between jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie and George Matthews. It’s about two construction workers down in a hole having an intense discussion about accidents that goes totally nuclear. Fascinating Cold War film that is still just as relevant today.
From an Italian master of short film memory, Fabio Scacchioli, comes this beautiful 23-minute work that expresses the illusion of solid permanence and the heroic attempt to build a reality based on fragments of memory. Even found memories and images can become part of one’s own person. This fleeting and subtle idea becomes more discernible as the film progresses. The impressive imagery revolves around the recent earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy and compares the desolation of a town reduced to rubble with the lives that once literally danced through home movies. It is a film about looking for ghosts.
This book contains pirate battles, violence and death. Please use your judgment before playing for very young children.
Here’s the concluding podcast chapter of our fantastic pirate adventure novel written for young readers. It’s got hidden scrolls, time travel, ships, battles, navigation, gold, islands, jungles and helicopters in it.
Description:
Young Jack Spencer sees his father’s boat-building business destroyed by a powerful land developer. Then Jack unearths three ancient scrolls that propel him on a dangerous adventure through time in search of a pirate treasure.
When Jack finds himself aboard the pirate ship Revenge with Captain Jameson’s crew, he enters a life or death world of ship battles, jungle islands, prison escapes, gold, and treachery.
Set during the golden age of Caribbean piracy, Pirate Jack combines rollicking adventure with the moving story of a boy’s love for his father and a courageous effort to save a way of life.
This book contains pirate battles, violence and death. Please use your judgment before playing for very young children.
Here’s a free podcast of our fantastic pirate adventure novel written for young readers. It’s got hidden scrolls, time travel, ships, battles, navigation, gold, islands, jungles and helicopters in it.
Description:
Young Jack Spencer sees his father’s boat-building business destroyed by a powerful land developer. Then Jack unearths three ancient scrolls that propel him on a dangerous adventure through time in search of a pirate treasure.
When Jack finds himself aboard the pirate ship Revenge with Captain Jameson’s crew, he enters a life or death world of ship battles, jungle islands, prison escapes, gold, and treachery.
Set during the golden age of Caribbean piracy, Pirate Jack combines rollicking adventure with the moving story of a boy’s love for his father and a courageous effort to save a way of life.
This is one of the great gifts from Italy to the children of the world. Carlo Collodi’s 1883 masterpiece, The Adventures of Pinocchio, is the story of the wooden marionette who desperately wants to be a real boy. His adventures are full of mischief, wonder, sadness, joy, treachery, danger and all the exuberant life of a real Italian boy. This is the English translation by Carol Della Chiesa.
This is one of the great gifts from Italy to the children of the world. Carlo Collodi’s 1883 masterpiece, The Adventures of Pinocchio, is the story of the wooden marionette who desperately wants to be a real boy. His adventures are full of mischief, wonder, sadness, joy, treachery, danger and all the exuberant life of a real Italian boy. This is the English translation by Carol Della Chiesa.
Crusoe builds his friendship with Friday, teaching him English, Christianity, hunting with a gun, and working with tools. The two men develop a deep and trusting bond once Crusoe gets over his struggles with suspicion and doubts about Friday’s intentions. We find ourselves at that part of the novel that best illustrates what many critics of Defoe’s novel say is a glorification of English colonialism and empire. To be sure, that is part of what is going on in the book. However, there is more to it than that. Defoe, at times, seems close to sowing seeds of doubt about the English world he lived in and its beliefs about its place in the world. Pay very close attention to the conversations between Friday and Crusoe. They move in directions entirely unanticipated by Crusoe. He is constantly surprised by how loyal, intelligent, and civilized Friday turns out to be in his very deepest nature.
Shakespeare: The Animated Tales was a BBC television series of the 1990s that produced 30-minute versions of Shakespeare’s plays with animation done by well-known Russian animators at the Christmasfilms studio. This version of ‘The Scottish Play’ stars Brian Cox.
Click the continue reading link for parts 2 and 3.
From New Zealand comes this completely nonsensical cartoon about a man who stops in for a drink at a saloon and goes on a wild horse ride that has him seeing visions of the Devil. Directed and animated by Bob Stenhouse in 1985.
That’s Marilyn Monroe reading James Joyce’s Ulysses. That look on her face – a mix of befuddled interest and confused determination – is exactly how I read Ulysses. Monroe apparently kept a copy of the book in her car and stuck with the damn thing for a long time. You’ve got to wonder about this woman. She probably should have stayed far away from Kennedy and stuck a little closer to the things she really liked.
Strangely enough, it happens to be June 16th which is worldwide Bloomsday, when Ulysses is celebrated with public readings.
Cannibals come to Crusoe’s island and make him believe there is a possibility of confrontation. But in this section of the book Crusoe meets his companion, Friday. He considers this man to be his servant and slave. An odd assumption since it is actually he, Robinson Crusoe, who is the intruder in Friday’s part of the world. This must have something to do with the way certain nations operated in those days and, in some cases, still do.
At any rate, Crusoe begins to teach Friday English and becomes more assured of their friendship.
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