I woke up this Sunday morning, and discovered that H-Bomb was trending on Twitter. After reading about 10 minutes of posts, I was ready to allow myself to fall into a ball of anxiety. (For those of you who know me personally, that actually happens quite a bit.) But, to quote Senator Chris Murphy from a few months ago from another context entirely, this time I was literally on the verge of nuclear grade bonkers, because this world seems to be falling apart right before my eyes.
In an attempt to bring myself out of hysteria, I went to social media to find something positive to focus on. The thing is, both types of news trend on social media. You can read how the world is falling apart, and how the world is coming back together. I often tend to read bad news, followed by good news. Today's good news came from a FB post from Lois Lowry that led to a Facebook live video of Sean Astin.
Oh, how I love the Goonies. I was a Walsh myself before I became an O'Donnell. In fact, Mikey Walsh and I kind of grew up together. Seeing Sean Astin's character as an optimist who thinks that good can triumph evil, especially when working together with an unlikely team, helped the young version of myself become an optimist, too. I still am today, thanks to movies and books like the Goonies.
Today, I discovered that Sean Astin must be an optimist in real life, as well as in film. He went on Facebook live to say that it is his dream to turn Number the Stars into a film. He and his wife have been working on the project for 10 years, because in simple terms he thinks that the message of the books is "Sometimes, good wins." I whole heartedly agree.
The world DESERVES to hear this message.
Number the Stars is a masterpiece of literature. The themes woven through it are timeless, while the characters and symbols bring us to a time period that we should never forget. We cannot let history repeat itself, and this book is a wonderful example of war told through a child's eyes. If we can get children to see the world differently, then perhaps the world will be different. They are, after all, the keys to our future.
Whenever I see a student reading Number the Stars, I always ask them what chapter they are on. If they haven't yet read Chapter 14, I tell them to find me when they have finished it. Chapter 14 has to be my favorite chapter in all of children's literature. It's when fairy tale meets real life, when the character meets the Big, Bad Wolf. The path she takes is dark and scary, but full of memories of stories, and those memories fuel her to do the right thing, even in dark times. Little Red faces the Big, Bad Wolf, and good eventually wins.
The world would benefit from seeing Annemarie's story.
ADDITIONAL SIDENOTE:
Making movies of a film also tends to increase students reading that title. By making this film, it would introduce children to the long list of books written by Lois Lowry. That would be a hidden perk to a wonderful film. This literacy coordinator/coach would love to see her books in the hands of more students. In our district, it is one of the choices for our 4th grade mentor text. I highly recommend it. If the novel does become a film, using clips of the movie to compare to the text would be an excellent way to teach media literacy. I can visualize students reading, then viewing, Chapter 14, and having conversations about it. Chills.
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