… A Wish for Wings that Work by Berkely Breathed
Children’s Book Selection
Right now, it’s not winter. It’s not snowing, and there’s certainly no expected visits from Santa Claus to my chimney. On the contrary, it’s mid July, humid, hot, and nary a cloud in sight. I open the freezer door to get a hint of some cooler temperatures. I do hear jingle bells ringing, but that’s because my daughter opened her craft box and is throwing the bells around the room.
I first discovered Berkeley Breathed when I read the comic strip Bloom County (a comic strip that earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1987), and later Opus. Bill the Cat, Opus the Penguin both became characters I looked forward to seeing each week in the funny pages. He ended work in cartooning in 2008 to work on children’s books.
A Wish for Wings that Work, published in 1991, is about Opus the Penguin’s Christmas wish – to fly. He is determined to fly. He watches the snow ducks fly each morning, he practices take offs, but is thwarted by his wings, penguin wings, wings not meant for flying through the air, but for flying through the water. In full hope and faith, he asks Santa Claus to bring him ‘wings that will go.’
This is a story about embracing who you are and embracing your dreams and how one doesn’t always cancel the other out.
This is a quality book. It’s one that I can read again, and again, (and I have!) and still enjoy it. And really, as parents, we have to like the book too! I am still touched by the beauty of both the story, and the art. Told in gentle meter, it’s easy to read and to listen to. The illustrations are what we would expect from Breathed, poignant, detailed, beautiful, and crisp. It was one of the first books that my daughter wouldn’t part with.
So celebrate some Christmas in July, scoop out some ice cream cones, and read about Opus and his Wish for Wings that Work. And maybe work on your own list for Santa.
Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights – as seen on Masterpiece Theatre.
First off, let’s get one thing very clear. This is NOT your mother’s Wuthering Heights. Nor is this the Wuthering Heights you may have been forced to sit through in tenth grade English class. This is a grown up, sexy, dark, haunting Wuthering Heights. Get your paper bags and your smelling salts, because this film may cause swoons and shortness of breath.
Book purists will be satisfied with the faithful interpretation presented here in the film. There are very few changes, the chief among them, being the ages of Cathy and Heathcliff when they first meet the Lintons, and then the ensuing courtship. In the book Cathy and Heathcliff are quite young, barely teenagers, when they first come upon the Lintons. The ensuring courtship seems to take place not far from that age, which might seem a little awkward. In the film, both Cathy and Heathcliff are portrayed a slightly older, thus when the courtship and proposal happen, there’s less squirming and questions about age. Any other alterations in the film are minor, artistic, and true to the characters and storyline. (Remember few movies are EVER exactly like the book.)
While the book is an undisputed classic, it shines in this film. Yorkshire and the moors which figure so heavily in the book are given enough respect in the film to become characters in the film itself. The camera work, the location, the cinematography, everything is just beautiful. It is not beautiful like a Hollywood sound stage. This film was actually made in Yorkshire and on the moors. So what Bronte herself was talking about, what she had grown accustomed to living among, we are able to see and witness. It is a desolate beauty, a beauty that is wild, and sad, and haunting all at the same time. (On a side note, the actress who plays Cathy – Charlotte Riley – is the first Yorkshire woman to perform the role. So both what we see and hear is authentic.)
The book’s prose allows us to understand there’s some attraction and jealousy between Cathy and Heathcliff, in the film that love affair, an affair that destroys all around them if they cannot have each other, comes to life with such heat that you might just find your wall paper peeling. (Keep in mind that when one of them gets spiteful, the coldness of heart might be enough to freeze the paper in place. So don’t redecorate just yet.)
Ladies, kick the men out of the house for a spell, schedule slumber party, or take advantage of a camping/hunting/fishing/…. trip and curl up for a spell.
It runs 141 minutes. It was a Masterpiece Theatre mini-series. It’s not rated. But if it were, it would certainly not be R, nor would it be G.
No comments:
Post a Comment