Secret Life of Bees, the Movie

If I am alive, please believe that on October 17, 2008 I will be at an AMC watching the movie adaptation of Secret Life of Bees. Will Smith produces, Alicia Keys, Sophie Okonedo, Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Tristan Wilds and Jennifer Hudson will star. This info and that Gina Prince-Blythewood is pulling this movie together are just as exciting as the novel.

I knew Dakota would play Lily, just knew it Selah is ecstatic now that we live in Dakota's home town. I told her she doesn't live in Conyers anymore. But you know how bright-eyed girls are... :)

Here is a snippet of Sue Monk Kidd's Reflections about the movie...

An adaptation is not a clone of the novel. It’s the story rendered in a different artistic medium, and in order to translate it from one to the other, changes are needed... It[a change in Tristan's abduction] enhances the drama considerably. It wasn’t one of those things I wished I’d thought of, but I didn’t mind it. I could see the wisdom in it for the movie. All in all, though, Gina has been remarkably faithful to the story. In her note that accompanied the script, she wrote: “Your novel was my bible.”

Children Book Bonanza: P is for Princess

This morning I took Selah to her School's Scholastic Book Fair and I found some great buys. All books were half off and it was get one free, so I loaded up on hardbacks, especially the Caldecott Honors and Coretta Scott King Award books. Can't get enough of those, but the book that I can't put down is my spotlight for today, and perhaps...the start of a new bimonthly feature here at CFB and possibly a new blog. Children Book Bonanza. The book I'm so excited about is P Is for Princess: A Royal Alphabet (Sleeping Bear Alphabets)

Dr. Steven and Deborah Layne wrote this book. Please visit Dr. Layne's site if you want to help to encourage your children to love reading. I am a huge fan now.

The best advice he gave to me as a parent that you can download from his site free here is to schedule a reading night just like a soccer practice or ballet. I am book fool. I host a reader series and never thought of that. Bananas!

What I loved most about this book is that it's multicultural. It is a great geography primer. You learn about Russia, China, Asia, Africa, the Middle East. You learn about fairy tale origin, greek mythology in a way that isn't so overtop an eight-year-old would hate it. Love it!

Robert and Lisa Papp the artists did a wonderful job capturing the glorious beauty that reminds of what a princess should possess. Here are a few pics courtesy of his site.