There is nothing like being in a school library before school starts.
Teachers start coming in, long before their contracts start, to set up their rooms and begin planning for the year to come. Even though the librarians start work a week before the teachers, there is precious little time to work for the library itself which is why I found myself cataloging a load of new material for a very busy librarian at an elementary school this week.
The librarian at this school runs a fun "Books to Movies" reading club every year. She was telling me of her plans to use The Dark is Rising as her first book in conjunction with the movie The Seeker: The Dark is Rising, aka Will's Excellent Adventure, when it comes out.
Wow, have you heard about the brouhaha surrounding the movie I ask?
I ended up feeling badly because she is now pondering using another book to start the year. I don't think she has read the story yet so I told her not to decide until she had.
The club is really popular so it would be a chance for lots of kids to experience Cooper's work. Maybe learning that the movies are not faithful conveyors of a beloved story is a good thing to teach kids.
Maybe it is not so bad to reward feckless studios who are counting on librarians to promote their offerings in scenarios just like this one?
Maybe the movie is going to be so alien from the storyline that it will not spoil the book for them.
What do you think?