The Stories of the Mona Lisa - Piotr Barsony

An Imaginary Museum Tale About the History of Modern Art

Illustrated by the author

Translated from the French by Joanna Oseman

Sky Pony Press, NY: 2012

HC $19.95

56 pages

Goodreads rating: 3.31

My rating: 4/excellent

Endpapers: gray with blurry black 1" dots and plops of colorful paint dots as well

Title Page: all white, but font is in colors and type that look like pastel crayons were used

Illustrations: In the style of many different artists

1^st line: "Dad, will you tell me a story?"

My review on Goodreads:  I was at the Philadelphia Museum of Art today and before leaving, sat on the floor of the (incredible) bookstore checking out the many children's picture books about art and artists.  I loved this one. In it, the artist/author shows the different ways in which different important/famous artists would have painted the Mona Lisa if they'd used their own styles. I do wish that that premise might have been made a little clearer to kids (I knew that Monet, Picasso, vanGogh, Haring, Kandinsky and a dozen or so others had never painted any Mona Lisas, but kids might not understand that).  Otherwise, it was a topnotch book with a great explanation of some of the different art movements in recent(or somewhat recent) history.  I had to buy it. I've already read it twice.

Goodreads review:   This book is about the fascinating history of modern painting through what many consider the most famous work in the history of art: the Mona Lisa by Léonardo De Vinci. Piotr acts as the museum guide for his young daughter throughout the book, taking us on a journey through an imaginary museum. He describes famous art movements and artists, including: impressionism, cubism, expressionism, favism, minimalism, surrealism; Monet, Manet, Cézanne, Picasso, Bacon, Pollock, and more. All of the most famous painters of the modern and contemporary art movements are explained with their own Mona Lisa portraits, in their signature styles.   Throughout the book, Piotr acts as a guide, explaining to his daughter (and the reader) each genre of paintings in a clear, simple, and entertaining way. By the end of the book, we discover that he's actually the artist who's been painting all those Mona Lisa's and the results are spectacular. 

22. 61 Hours - Lee Child

Jack Reacher #14

audio read by Dick Hill

11 discs: 13 hours

2010. Random House Audio

383 pgs.

Written for adults

Finished June 7, 2013, on the road between Tucson and Dallas, TX

Goodreads Rating: 4.03

My Rating: 3.5 (It was very good)

Acquired: Paperback Books Swap (PBS)

Setting: Bolton, SD during a frigid blizzard

Goodreads:  Sixty-one hours. Not a minute to spare. A tour bus crashes in a savage snowstorm and lands Jack Reacher in the middle of a deadly confrontation. In nearby Bolton, South Dakota, one brave woman is standing up for justice in a small town threatened by sinister forces. If she’s going to live long enough to testify, she’ll need help. Because a killer is coming to Bolton, a coldly proficient assassin who never misses.

Reacher’s original plan was to keep on moving. But the next 61 hours will change everything. The secrets are deadlier and his enemies are stronger than he could have guessed—but so is the woman whose life he’ll risk his own to save.  In 61 Hours, Lee Child has written a showdown thriller with an explosive ending that readers will talk about for a long time to come.

My comments: I can't believe that right in the middle of bumper-to-bumper-Dallas-practically-stopped-rush-hour-traffic with about 200 miles to go I got to the end of this book.  I backed it up and listened again.  WHAAAT?  So badly did I want to get to a computer to ask a question or two. If I say more it will be to much of a apoiler!  The story started out slowly for me but got better and better - it totally kept my attention driving from Tucson through a huge part of the state of Texas!  And for the first time in many, many Reacher books, I figured out the back guy before he did!  Didn't take away from the story, though.

Goodreads has a poetry group whose members vote on a favorite submission each month. I really like the following June poems:

Union Line Cemetery

In a graveyard in Mississippi
Lie the bones of a woman I loved
And those of a man I did not,
Though I am more like him than her.

Down a paved road off the federal highway
Slicing diagonally from Mobile,
The road turns sharply as if
It was meant to dead end.

But as if someone moved the gates
The road bends, goes on precisely south
While the sun goes west away from the graves.

Marble benches wait through the undisturbed dust
For me to stop to pick sand spurs from my dress socks
And prick my fingers and remember I am alive.

While under clumps of low growing weeds,
Neat green grass and bare spots
These dead people rest in a Mississippi summer quiet,
As they do in winter beneath a midnight ice storm.

Dead, yes, they are dead.
But I am alive and they are why I am so.
They keep us, our families, ourselves alive.

I wonder if in a few years when I am dead,
Ashes tossed in the Mississippi,
Will I hold anyone connected or only be dust,

Forever blown about where the delta turns to sea?

~Anthony Watkins

I really like this one, too:

Drought

The oaks that line the road
kown it didn't rain yesterday
or the month before,
that there have been summers
when the lake bottom cracked
and a noon sun lit the wheel
of an old toy in the sand
at the bottom of a well.

A woodpecker knocks on the
leaning ash black ants are eatiing
from the inside out.
Dust rises.
A thirty-something blonde in a mail Jeep
reaches out and
the rusted hinge creaks.
Her blue eyes,
Like an oven set on broil,
measure me
from boots to sweat-soaked shirt.

~M. Flynn Ragland

Shopping in Colorado Springs

I found these "notes" I'd written two years ago, in April, 2011, which I want to remember.  So I know this is waaaaaaay out of order, but I want to be able to access it (now that I've reread it I'm ready to head back to Colorado)!  I'll look for photos later.  This is solely for my own memory and no one reads this blog but me, so I guess it doesn't really matter....

Boy, we’ve been to some really cool places in Colorado…both in Pueblo and in Colorado Springs.  I don’t want to forget the people or the places, so I’m going to make a few quick notes.

                Pueblo, CO, first thing Wed. morning (April. 20^th) we went to Colorado Fiber Arts.  This was a #5 shop.  The owner was in Mexico, vacationing for the week, but Wynne (Winnie), who works and teaches there, was superb AND superbly helpful.  First she showed me the short, short Addi’s that people who don’t like to knit on four needles are using to knit socks. (People like me).  She has recreated a pattern and gave it to me.  She also gave me a copy of the scarf/shawl pattern that they had a gorgeous grey shawl made as a sample.  Wynne lives in Canon City but stays with her 91-year-old mother three times a week and works at the shop.

                Wynne also told us about a great bakery downtown (I had a yummy “sticky orange roll”), a stamp store in Pueblo that would be fun, and a couple of fiber arts stores in Colorado Springs that were too good to miss.  She was just lovely, and so was the shop.  I could have spent a lot more time looking around, and will hopefully be back another time to do so.

                Next stop was Colorado Stampin’ & Scrappin’ where I was greeted by Margaret, the store’s owner.  She is an incredibly knowledgeable stamper who showed me all sorts of tricks to get me restarted with stamping and embossing.  She was wonderful…and funny.  She had a difficult time walking and used a small shopping cart (which contained her purse and portable store telephone) to aid her.

I purchased a new VersaMark stamp pad, 6 stamping powders (metallic gold, metallic “super russet”; three DUO colors:  blue-green, green-yellow, and red-blue; and one called “interference violet”, which can be used on its own or added atop another to change its tone a bit), Stamp N Bond adhesive powder, a rubber stamp that was a lady’s face, a cylinder of three foils, and a heavy formica table pad on which to stamp.  I came away with some instructions and a lot of ideas.

                We then hit 25N for a quick ride to Colorado Springs.  We went to Van Briggle Pottery, where they have been making fine pottery since the end of the 19^th century.  I bought a beautiful vase with a lovely gold-brown glaze that includes a greenish and a mauve hue.  Really lovely.  It’ll look great with my Mata Ortiz, Navajo, and Hawaiin pots on my sideboard. 

                After checking into the LaQuinta, we drove over to a lovely area on Colorado Avenue which was blossoming with all sorts of lovely flowering trees.  Although it was overcast, the sun tried to peep through the clouds throughout the afternoon.  We did finish our time here with sprinkles falling, but it was not a problem at all (except that Fran got cold). 

                Bon Ton Café:  homemade vegetable soup and salad for Fran, hash browns and club sandwich for me.  Quite satisfying.

                The first gallery we went into, right across the street, was very cool, and the gal working there knew her artists quite well.  Funky birdhouses by a Scottsdale artist were there, I’d seen them in Bohemia in Tucson.  There were also gorgeously painted and reasonably priced pine furniture from Texas….I would love a piece for my house.  $300 would purchase a gorgeous end table with door.  All the people that work on each piece sign the back of it.  This collection also included tables and chests.

                Just down the street was Arati Artists Gallery, Inc.  This was a coop of local artists, and the woman “on duty,” was a wire worker and beader.  Darn but we didn’t get her name.  (Arati is east Indian meaning “send a little light (or beauty) into the world.)  Incredibly reasonable prices – I got a horsehair vase by Dan Masimer for $6 and two cool little pots by Darlene Wells for $3 and $4!  What deals…and they’re beautiful.  There were also silk paintings by a woman who has macular degeneration.  She actually forms the pieces of silk into a sculpture like a flower or sunburst, adds dyes, and frames them.  A couple had the leftover piece of silk draped from the corner of the canvas.

                Needleworks by Holly Berry and Holly Berry House Originals was our next stop, at 2409 West Colorado.  OOOOOEEEEEE.  The left half of the store was yarns and patterns and samples and needles….the right half was baby and boutique-y gifts, and out back….well, here were Kathryn Read’s rubber stamp designs. Englas, one of the rubber stamp artists who work here, gave us a demonstration and really got our creative juices going.  I ended up buying two large rubber stamps and some transparent art glitter that can go on any color and keep that color.  She showed us how to emboss with gold, paint inside the lines with Twinkling H2O’s by Luminarte (which they were sold out of!), and create beautiful works of art.  Fran really loved it, and it looks like she might be enticed into trying it out!  So cool! 

                As I was leaving the yarn part of the store, I noticed a big container of Tamari Balls.  There is an instructor that gives classes on the first Friday or Saturday of the month.  I’d love to come on up during the summer for a class, and gave them my email address so I can keep informed about both the stamping and yarn classes.

                Across the street was Kathleen McFadden’s Range Gallery.  What a cool lady!  She’s a photographer (who gives lessons) and her studio shows her wonderful, natural photos….weathered trees, ancient school bus, donkey’s full-face….images from the central coast of California(where she used to live) and in black and white.  She has a series of oak trees mounted on cotton rag paper with UV protection for $325.  They’re long and would look great over my couch – and she can ship anywhere.  She was the one who told us that living in Colorado Springs is great, reasonably priced, and extremely dog-friendly.  There’s even a sticker that businesses put on their doors so that people know they can bring their own dogs in without a problem.

                Fran’s niece, Terri, joined us then, and we continued wandering down Colorado Avenue to Pyramide Boutique.  Batik fashions and jewelry, made by cottage industry companies, were featured.  Fran found a dress for a family wedding this summer.  Terri found a Bright green cotton shirt.  And I found a black scarf with white swirls and a necklace that almost matches my favorite silver bracelet.  We spend about an hour trying on clothes and yakking with the owner.  Such fun!

                By the time we left the boutique it was drizzling and it was also time to eat.  We walked over to Pizzeria Rustica, where we ate Neapolitan pizza with homemade goat cheese, grilled mushrooms, zucchini, and sundried tomatoes.  What an excellent afternoon!

21. Taken - Erin Bowman

#1 in what I'm sure will be a series

Genre: Fantasy

Goodreads Rating: 3.78 (over 1400 ratings)

My Rating: 4.5 Liked it a whole lot

Acquired: TPPL

Setting: Eastern US in the future

1^st sentence/s: "Today is the last day I will see my brother."

My comments:  4.5. Good story. Really good story. I'm sure this is the first in a series, and I'll be the first in line to grab the next one. Erin Bowman has set up a love triangle, a move to a new setting, and the possibility of adding new characters to an already strong list. There are so many dystopian novels out there now that it boggles me how many new plot ideas and scenarios authors can come up with. I really liked this one a lot.

Goodreads Review:  There are no men in Claysoot. There are boys—but every one of them vanishes at midnight on his eighteenth birthday. The ground shakes, the wind howls, a blinding light descends…and he’s gone.  They call it the Heist.  Gray Weathersby’s eighteenth birthday is mere months away, and he’s prepared to meet his fate–until he finds a strange note from his mother and starts to question everything he’s been raised to accept: the Council leaders and their obvious secrets. The Heist itself. And what lies beyond the Wall that surrounds Claysoot–a structure that no one can cross and survive.  Climbing the Wall is suicide, but what comes after the Heist could be worse. Should he sit back and wait to be taken–or risk everything on the hope of the other side?

This Moose Belongs to Me - Oliver Jeffers

Illustrated by the author

2012, Philomel/Penguin

HC $16.99

32 pages

for: kids...even older ones....or ESPECIALLY older ones!

Goodreads rating: 4.03

My rating: 4.5

Endpapers: a long, blue colored pencil line drawn across the page, turning at the end of each row, so that it looks like the string Wilfred unwinds so he won't get lost in the woods.

Illustrations: "The art for this book was made from a mishmash of oil painting onto old linotype and painted landscapes, and a bit of technical wizardry thrown in the mix here and there."

1^st line: "Wilfred owned a moose."

My comments:  I so enjoy this wonderfully creative writer and illustrator.  Each book I read tickles me even more than the previous one!  This one, about sharing friends, is doubly fun because of the moose angle - my favorite animal if I had to have one!

Goodreads summary:  Wilfred owned a moose. He hadn't always owned a moose. The moose came to him a while ago and he knew, just KNEW, that it was meant to be his. He thought he would call him Marcel. 

Most of the time Marcel is very obedient, abiding by the many rules of How to Be a Good Pet. But imagine Wilfred's surprise when one dark day, while deep in the woods, someone else claims the moose as their own..

Movie - Mud

PG-13 (2:10)

Limited release 4/26/2013

Viewed Wed. afternoon during inservice week at the Loft, by myself

RT Critic:  99% Audience: 88%

Cag: 3.5/ Liked it, but I've been watching a lot of action flics lately and this was a little slow....

Directed by Jeff Nichols

Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions

Matthew McConaughey, Sam Shepard, Reese Witherspoon, Sara Paulson

My reaction:  This "coming of age" story was a really good movie.  Love.  What is it?  How often does it destroy?  They seem to be making movies longer lately, and this was certainly one of them. (The new seats at the Loft helped, it was in the upstairs theater and the old seats were unsittable for more than 20 minutes!)  The two young men playing the leads were wonderful actors. The setting, on the river in Arkansas, seemed pretty bleak, and the acting was wonderful.  There were a number of places that I coulnd't understand what Matthew McConaughey said, but that didn't impact the story.  The made one of his front teeth a little crooked and chipped, what a perfect addition to his ultimate characterization of this character. And YAY SAM SHEPARD!

Rotten Tomato Summary:  Mud is an adventure about two boys, Ellis and his friend Neckbone, who find a man named Mud hiding out on an island in the Mississippi. Mud describes fantastic scenarios-he killed a man in Texas and vengeful bounty hunters are coming to get him. He says he is planning to meet and escape with the love of his life, Juniper, who is waiting for him in town. Skeptical but intrigued, Ellis and Neckbone agree to help him. It isn't long until Mud's visions come true and their small town is besieged by abeautiful girl with a line of bounty hunters in tow.

20. If You Find Me - Emily Murdoch

2013, St. Martin's Griffin

248 pgs.

Written for young adults

Finished 5/29/2013

CRF

Goodreads Rating: 4.09

My Rating:

4.5 Really loved it

TPPL

Setting:  Contemporary Tennessee, deep in the woods of the Obed River National Forest and in a small Tennessee town

1^st sentence/s: "Mama says no matter how poor folks are, whether you're a have, a have-not, or break your mama's back on the cracks in between, the world gives away the best stuff on the cheap.  Like, the way the white-hot mornin' light dances in diamonds across the surface of our creek."

A quote I'd like to notate and remember:  "Then I hold on to the edge of the counter for support and cry until I'm all cried out.  I reckon a good cry has been a long time in the making, and I cry until I'm empty, but a goo empty, like the speckled shells left behind by flapping quail babies." (p. 149)

My comments: This is the first novel that I've read in one gulp in a long time. The first person narration was superb, I haven't been able to get inside a protagonist's head like this in awhile. The story was heart-breaking, totally believable, simple-yet-deep. Couldn't put it down, even though I knew exactly where it was going. It didn't matter, it was the WAY the story was told. AND, this was Ms. Murdoch's first (published) book. Super cudos!

Goodreads Review:  A broken-down camper hidden deep in a national forest is the only home fifteen year-old Carey can remember. The trees keep guard over her threadbare existence, with the one bright spot being Carey’s younger sister, Jenessa, who depends on Carey for her very survival. All they have is each other, as their mentally ill mother comes and goes with greater frequency. Until that one fateful day their mother disappears for good, and two strangers arrive. Suddenly, the girls are taken from the woods and thrust into a bright and perplexing new world of high school, clothes and boys.

Now, Carey must face the truth of why her mother abducted her ten years ago, while haunted by a past that won’t let her go… a dark past that hides many a secret, including the reason Jenessa hasn’t spoken a word in over a year. Carey knows she must keep her sister close, and her secrets even closer, or risk watching her new life come crashing down

Movie - Ironman 3

PG-13 (2:20)

Wide Release 5-3-2013

Viewed with Sheila at ElCon on Memorial Day, 5/27/13

RT Critic: 78%  Audience: 83%

Cag:  3.5/Liked it at least three times more than Ironman 2!

Directed by Shane Black

Walt Disney Pictures

Robert Downey, Jr., Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow

Disney Intro:  Marvel's "Iron Man 3" pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy's hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?

My comments: As I said above, I liked this installment SO much more than the 2nd.  It was funny - lots of tongue-in-cheek comments by Robert Downy Jr. - the story was quite easy to follow, and the amount of fighting, though a lot, did not seem to overwhelm and take over the movie like the Avengers and IM2 seemed to.  Other than freezing my butt off in the theater, it was a very enjoyable couple of hours (and it didn't seem to be over two hours long!).

The Sky of Afghanistan - Ana A. de Eulate

Illustrated by Sonja Wimmer

2012 FSC, (all proceeds to Cometa Fdtn., wwww.fundacioncometa.org)

24 pages 

$15.95

TPPL

Goodreads rating: 3.60

My rating: 4

Endpapers: fluffy clouds on a brown paper-baggy paper showing fibers

Title Page: one kite, flying

Dedication:  "To the children who live in conflict zones, so that they can see their kite of PEACE flying high in the sky."

Illustrations: Beautiful.  They include subtle bits and pieces of Afghanistan - clothing - terrain - faces - children in daily life - simple drawings. They are done in browns with touches of color and fill the entire page - all are two-page spreads with the words in a cool font incorporated into the illustrations somewhere.

1^st line's:  "I look at the sky, I close my eyes, and my imagination begins to soar....

I fly between the clouds of the country i love: Afghanistan."

Ending:  "A place where harmony reigns, a place of togetherness...A place - please forgive me if my eyes fill with tears -- that leads us towards PEACE."

My Goodreads review:  "The sky can be full of kites, I think to myself, but it can also be full of dreams..."  This book is about the dreams a young Afghani girls has for peace in the country she loves.  It's more a piece of writing about hopes and dreams than a story, but that's more-than okay. It's really a simple wish, eh?  (And, I love the author's use of elipses!)

Goodreads summary:  Beautifully illustrated and undeniably moving, this is the story of a little Afghan girl’s dreams of peace. As her country is wracked by war, a girl’s imagination drifts toward the idea of peace for her people and for her country. Her powerful dreams soon take wing and fill the homes and hearts of those around her, uniting a people in their common desire for peace.

Arizona - My Adopted State

Books set in Arizona:

Picture books
Little Red Cowboy Hat - Susan Lowell
Mule Train Mail - Craig Brown

For kids/YA
Amelia Hits the Road - Marissa Moss
Fat Cat - Robin Brande


For Adults
All the Wrong Moves - Merline Lovelace (mystery)
At Ease with the Dead - Walter Satterthwaite (mystery)
Cowboy Rides Away - Thornton (mystery)
Dead for the Winter - Betsy Thornton (mystery)
Ghost Towns - Betsy Thornton (mystery)
High Lonesome Road - Betsy Thornton (mystery)
Mission to Sonora - Rebecca Cramer (mystery)
A Song for You - Betsy Thornton (mystery)

BETSY THORNTON Author Page

 NonFiction
The Spanish Missions of Arizona - Robin Lyon

Places to visit in Arizona 
Coronado National Memorial
Kartchner Caverns

Places to Visit In and Around Tucson
Mini Time Museum of Miniatures
Pima County Libraries
Postal History Foundation
University of Arizona Poetry Center

Mule Train Mail - Craig Brown

Illustrated by the author

2009 Charlesbridge

32 pages

HC $16.95 TPPL

Goodreads rating: 3.20

My rating: 3

Author's Note:  two informative pages at the end.

Endpapers:  FRONT:  birds-eye-map-type view of the Grand Canyon

BACK:  illustrations of the mailman/cowboy, his dog, and six mules

Illustrations:  pastel and colored pencils all the way to the edges, no white.  LOTS of brown, gives the sense of desert and sand, sand, sand....

1^st line:  "Anthony the Postman doesn't wear a uniform.  He wears a cowboy hat, chaps, and spurs.  Anthony doesn't drive a mail truck.  he drives a mule train.  He picks up the mail at the south rim of the Grand Canyon."

My Goodreads notes: This book is very simple and suited for younger children. I'm not sure how I want to say this, but it just wasn't .... exciting ... in any way. Although I enjoyed the illustrations, they were all similar to each other, nothing different or surprising. I plan to read it aloud during my Arizona unit, as a starting place for research into the Grand Canyon. I like the information in the author's note at the end.

Goodreads summary: "Mule Train Mail introduces readers to Anthony Paya, wearing a cowboy hat, chaps, and spurs, who leads a train of ten mules on a daily 3-hour trek down into the Grand Canyon to bring mail to the townspeople of Supai."

19. Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

audio read by Julia Whelan & Kirby Heyborne

15 unabridged cds

19 hours 

Random House Audio, 2012

422 pgs.

Written for adults

Finished

Genre: CRF/Mystery

Goodreads Rating: 3.96

My Rating: Liked it (3) 

Acquired: TPPL

Setting: Contemporary small-town Missouri

1^st sentence/s:  "When I think of my wife I think of her head.  The shape of it, to begin with."

My comments:  This book is about a psychopath and an idiot.  Period.  It takes a bit of reading (though not a lot, there are good clues along the way) to figure out which adjective applies to which character, but that doesn't really take long, especially if mostly all you read are mysteries. The author throws in a few u-turns, but once you get used to them you can see them coming.  The book seemed to take forever to read, the first "third"...the diary and Nick's thoughts... dragged on and on.  The second part went much faster and the last third dragged again. These two people deserve each other. It was entertaining, eye-rolling, cleverly written, and way too long.

Goodreads Review:  On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?

As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn’t do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?

Bluebird - Bob Staake

Illustrated by the author

2013 Random House Child

HC

Dedication: to John James Audubon

Goodreads rating: 4.12

My rating: 1.5 (I didn't really like it very much)

Acquired:  TPPL (The public library seems to be taking off the dust covers now when the same illustrations is on the cover of the book itslef.  I don't like the missing endflaps, which I like to read after I've read the book...)

Illustrations:   There are lots of boxes to pour over, until the end of the book, the only colors are shades of blue, gray, and white.  A small amount of brighter colors are added on the last few pages to accentuate the plot.  This part was actually quite clever...I guess...

1^st line/s:  None.  It's a wordless book.

My Goodreads review/comments:  I guess I'm one of the few people who aren't entranced with this wordless picture book.  The first 2/3 was okay, but - for me - well...boring.  Then, all of a sudden, right out of the blue, (Spoiler-of-a-sort coming) there's a shocking turn of events and then - what? - a spiritually uplifting ending?  I read it three times.  School just got out or I'd LOVE to give it to some of my 4th graders to see how they perceive it.  I hate giving "bad" ratings, but I'm being kindly truthful here....Let's say a 1.5 because I didn't HATE it....

Movie - The Reluctant Fundamentalist

R (2:08)

Limited Release April 26,2013

Viewed Sunday, 5/26/2013 at The Loft 

RT Critic: 55% Audience: 71%

Cag:  6/Awesome; Absolutely bowled me over

Directed by Mira Nair (director of Monsoon Wedding, one of my all-time favorites)

IFC Films

(from the book of the same title by Mohsi Hamid)

Liev Schreiber, Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland, and the wonderfully new-to-me Riz Ahmed (who stole the show, wow!)

My comments:  I had no idea what I was going to see, other than I'd taken the book out of the library and returned it before getting a chance to read it.  So when the credits came on at the beginning of the movie, I was really surprised....Hudson, Schreiber, Sutherland?  I loved the views of Pakistan, Istanbul, New York City.  What I realized when I came out was how tantalizing the "idea" of America and the "American Dream" must be to some, and I can see more and more why people from other countries hate the US.  It didn't get very good reviews from some, but I loved the way it was put together, the story it told, and the way the story was told.  So cudos to writers, actors, and director.  I loved it.

Fandango synopsis: We begin in 2011 in Lahore. At an outdoor café a Pakistani man named Changez (Riz Ahmed) tells Bobby (Liev Schreiber), an American journalist, about his experiences in the United States. Roll back ten years, and we find a younger Changez fresh from Princeton, seeking fortune and glory on Wall Street. The American Dream seems well within his grasp, complete with a smart and gorgeous artist girlfriend, Erica (Kate Hudson). But when the Twin Towers are attacked, a cultural divide slowly begins tocrack open between Changez and Erica. Changez's dream soon begins to slip into nightmare: profiled, wrongfully arrested, strip-searched and interrogated, he is transformed from a well-educated, upwardly mobile businessman to a scapegoat and perceived enemy. With time, he begins to hear the call of his own homeland. Taking us through the culturally rich and beguiling worlds of New York, Lahore and Istanbul, The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a story about conflicting ideologies where perception and suspicion have the power to determine life or death.: