The Man Who Walked Between the Towers…And Other Inspiring Tales

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers…And Other Inspiring Tales

Posted on November 7, 2011 at 8:00 am

MPAA Rating: Not rated
Profanity: None
Alcohol/ Drugs: None
Violence/ Scariness: None
Diversity Issues: Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters: 2011
Date Released to DVD: November 7, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN: B000G1R3Z8

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers… and More Inspiring Tales is another delight from Scholastic, who take the best children’s books and turn them into superb short films for beginning readers and their families.  The title film is based on the Caldecott book written and illustrated by Mordecai Gerstein about the 1974, feat by French aerialist Philippe Petit, who stretched a tightrope between the two towers of the World Trade Center and spent an hour walking, dancing, and performing high-wire tricks a quarter mile in the sky.  The DVD also includes three more true stories:

    • Snowflake Bentley, the story of the boy who loved snowflakes and grew up to teach the world about their properties and beauty through his photographs,
    • Miss Rumphius, about a woman who believes that our purpose in life is to make the world more beautiful and who finds her own way to contribute to that goal, and
    • The Pot that Juan built, about a man who transformed his local village’s economy with production of his useful and lovely ceramics.

I have one to give away!  Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “wire” in the subject line and tell me your favorite inspiring character.  Don’t forget your address!  I will select one winner at random a week from today.

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A New (Old) Book from Dr. Seuss

A New (Old) Book from Dr. Seuss

Posted on November 1, 2011 at 8:00 am

On Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow reviews a new collection of stories from Dr. Seuss, published for the first time in book form: The Bippilo Seed and Other Lost Stories.  Doctorow says, “The illustrations are classic Seuss and full of wit and irreverence, though the ratio of words to pictures is a lot wordier than the typical Seuss, owing, I suppose, to the constraints of the original magazine publication.”  He especially recommends The Great Henry McBride, “about a young fellow who can’t make up his mind on a single career and demands that the world accommodate his wish for excitement and novelty through his whole life.”  And there’s an audio book, with Neal Patrick Harris, Anjelica Huston, Joan Cusack, Jason Lee, Edward Hermann, Peter Dinklage, and William H Macy as an “indispensable companion.”

 

 

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Teeny-Tiny and the Witch Woman…And 4 More Spine-Tingling Tales

Teeny-Tiny and the Witch Woman…And 4 More Spine-Tingling Tales

Posted on October 28, 2011 at 8:00 am

Date Released to Theaters: September 26, 2006
Date Released to DVD: October 27, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN: B000H0M47U

Teeny-Tiny and the Witch-Woman… and 4 More Spine-Tingling Tales is a perfect Halloween treat for the littlest trick-or-treaters, with stories that are more fun than scary.

Teeny-Tiny is the story of a boy who outsmarts the witch who wants to eat him and his brothers and sisters for dinner.  The Witch in the Cherry Tree wants to eat a family’s freshly-backed cakes and David and his mother must find a way to outsmart her.  The Boy With Two Shadows finds out what can go wrong when you promise to help a witch.  In Space Case, a space traveler makes a friend on Earth.  And in King of the Cats, an old man tells his wife about the strange procession of cats he saw in the Louisiana bayou.

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The Worst Witch

The Worst Witch

Posted on October 17, 2011 at 8:34 am

B
Lowest Recommended Age: 4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating: NR
Profanity: None
Alcohol/ Drugs: None
Violence/ Scariness: Spooky Halloween themes
Diversity Issues: None
Date Released to Theaters: 1986
Date Released to DVD: October 16, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN: B0002JP5EK

Thanks to my godson, Theo Leiss, for reminding me of this Halloween treat! The Worst Witch is based on a pre-Harry Potter series of books by Jill Murphy about a school for young witches.  Fairuza Balk, who would later play a teenaged witch in “The Craft” (and who was already a gifted young actress) plays Mildred Hubble, who can’t seem to get anything right until only she can save the day before an evil witch destroys the school.  Diana Rigg plays the school’s headmistress and her evil twin sister and Tim Curry provides one of the highlights as the Grand Wizard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmG80v473AI

 

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