First-time preschoolers can get a head start, kids returning in the fall can get a refresher, and everyone in the family can have fun with this terrific new DVD of counting stories from my very favorite series by Scholastic. I was especially glad to see that the stories include some very big numbers (this one may be useful to older kids and adults trying to understand the bailout and deficit figures) and one about money that makes it clear that counting is fun, money is nice, but “enjoying your work is more important than money,” and “making money means making choices.” Again, some good lessons for everyone.
The DVD includes:
CHICKA CHICKA 1,2,3 (By Bill Martin Jr. and Michael Sampson, illustrated by Lois Ehlert, sung by Crystal Taliefero) When one hundred and one numbers race each other up the apple tree, bumblebees come buzzing. Which number will save the day?
EMILY S FIRST 100 DAYS OF SCHOOL (Written and illustrated by Rosemary Wells, narrated by Diana Canova) School begins and as the days and weeks go by, Emily and her classmates learn new ideas and expand their world.
HOW MUCH IS A MILLION? (By David M. Schwartz, illustrated by Steven Kellogg, narrated by Bruce Johnson) Marvelosissimo the Mathematical Magician explains the concepts of a million, a billion, and a trillion.
IF YOU MADE A MILLION (By David M. Schwartz, illustrated by Steven Kellogg, narrated by Bruce Johnson) Marvelosissimo the Mathematical Magician explains various forms of money and how to use it.
In the grand tradition of Alice, Dorothy, Milo, and the Pevensie children, Coraline enters a portal to a magical world that is both thrilling and terrifying, one that will both enchant her and demand her greatest resources of courage and integrity. And it will teach her that she does being given whatever she wants is not what she thought — that what she thinks she wants may not be what she wants after all.
Coraline (voice of Dakota Fanning) is bored and lonely. She and her parents have just moved into a new home and she does not know anyone. Her mother (voice of Teri Hatcher) and father (voice of John Hodgman, who plays the PC in the Mac commercials) are distracted and busy with work. While they type away furiously on their computers about gardening, they never actually go outside and plant anything. Coraline meets her neighbors, a pair of one-time performers (voices of Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French), a man training singing mice (voice of Ian McShane), and a boy her age named Wybie (voice of Robert Bailey Jr.), to whom she takes an immediate dislike.
She explores her surroundings and finds a mysterious locked door. Her mother tells her since the house was converted to make apartments it only opens onto a brick wall. But when she tries it herself, it opens into a tube-shaped corridor that leads to a place very like but also very unlike her own home and neighborhood. Everything is brighter and more colorful. The mother and father tell her that they are her Other parents. They sound just like her real parents and they look like them, too, except that they are utterly devoted and attentive and generous, and except for their eyes, which are sewn-on black buttons.
The Other world is enchanting for a while, with all kinds of diversions and performances. Many, like the Other parents, echo the places and characters from home. But then it begins to feel too synthetic and a little creepy. When the Other mother asks her sweetly to replace her eyes with buttons, Coraline goes home. But home is not the same. Something has happened and she will have to return to the Other place for an adventure that will require all of her courage, perseverance, and some growing up, too.
Coraline must follow the storyline and grow disenchanted with the Other place but we have the luxury of reveling in it. The creepier it gets, the more mesmerizing the visuals, ravishingly grotesque and dazzlingly inventive when the Other Mother suddenly elongates, her cheekbones sticking out like flying buttresses and her arms and legs getting spider-y. This is the first stereoscopic 3D film made in the painstakingly meticulous stop-motion system in which no more than 2-4 seconds can be completed each day because every frame requires as many as a thousand tiny adjustments. The 3D effect is all-encompassing and utterly entrancing as we feel as though we are inside the Other world as its uneasy false cheeriness slides away and we discover what is really going on. Like her parents, Coraline has been separated from authenticity of experience, in her case because she is a child. But the journey to the Other world shows her that she has what she needs to become more fully herself and to find a more vivid and vibrant life in the place she once thought of as drab and uninvolving.
So just how does a wide-eyed sponge who refuses to be snarky or cynical or topical win over the cable-wired world? How does it happen that, in Thompson’s words, the global “territory that had once been dominated by Mickey Mouse was now being rehabitated by SpongeBob SquarePants”?
Hillenburg — whose Nickelodeon office sign has read: “Have Fun or You’re Fired” — believes the success is anchored by SpongeBob’s sincerity and purity. Some businesses tout their Commitment to Excellence; Hillenburg and his creative team insist upon a Commitment to Innocence. “He’s an innocent who’s an oddball,” the creator says.
Partly, “I think ‘SpongeBob’ is born out of my love of Laurel and Hardy shorts,” says Hillenburg, citing the kidlike relationship between SpongeBob and sidekick Patrick the starfish as the show’s comedic core. “You’ve got that kind of idiot-buddy situation — that was a huge influence. SpongeBob was inspired by that kind of character: the Innocent — a la Stan Laurel.
The latest Shaun the Sheep movie is “Sheep on the Loose” The people who created “Wallace and Gromit” are behind this wonderful new series about a sheep who does not follow the flock — but sometimes gets the flock to follow him. And you never know who and what will turn out to be animated. Witty and imaginative, these DVDs are a delight for the whole family.
The first person to send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Sheep” in the subject line will get a new Shaun DVD. Good luck!
