KatMullen

This week I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone , the first of the Harry Potter series. I thought that it would be nice to read a physical copy of the book as all of the other Novels and stories I’ve read for this class have been either an audiobook or an e-book. It was a lot of fun when I went to the Ringling library to find it as I got to see a lot of other children’s literature that I remember my mom reading me before bedtime as a child.             However, I’ve never actually read any of the Harry Potter books before and I didn’t watch the films until maybe two years ago. I remember Harry Potter’s popularity increasing when one of the books was released, but at the time I wasn’t allowed to watch or read anything from the series based on my family’s religious beliefs at the time. Due to this, I think the story lacks most nostalgic effects that I believe many other people my age experience when reading, listening, or watching them.             I really enjoy some of the

"He went upon the troll's back to the hills of Faraway" (J. R. R. Tolkien "Perry-The-Winkle") This week I read many of the poems from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Lud in the Mist . They each present fascinating adventures in different forms. I think that the couple lines from "Perry-the-Winkle" perfectly sum up Tolkien's idea of adventure. It beautifully sums it up in a limited way that allows for the imagination to fill in the beautiful, fantastical details. The idea of the "hills of Faraway". Somewhere for not only the characters to escape to, but also for the reader's mind to escape from the mundane of day to day life. I enjoyed many of the poems from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Some of them I found harder to follow than others. Their metering often threw me off. I wanted all of the stanzas to follow a smooth rhythm that I could easily follow but they often fought against that. In my head, I tried to read them

            For this week’s reading, I read Black Maria by Diana Wynne Jones and the first two comics of Redlands by Jordie Bellaire and Vanesa Del Rey. I enjoyed most of the book except for the end when things started to wrap up. Maybe it’s ironic because Mig loves happy endings. But I felt like some of it was too predictable and too coincidentally perfect. When Mig’s mom and Antony Green got married it just seemed awkward and unnecessary. It felt motivated simply by making everything absolutely cheerful. Although, after all she had been through, Mig’s mom probably deserved at least that much. There were moments where I could hardly stand to read what Aunt Maria put Betty through. Throughout my life, I’ve experienced some powerful female relatives mistreat other family members in a way that resembled aunt Maria’s rule over Cranbury. This made the story seem very real to me at times, and thus, very painful. I think it’s interesting that I was more interested in reading this po