Coraline: Movie vs. Novel

Okay, anybody who knows me personally knows I am hypercritical of children's novels that are made into movies. Let's face it very few can hold a candle to their book counterpart. Now, I know that some artistic liberties must be taken to make the book translate to screen but often times it is these edits and liberties that ruin the spirit of the actual novel and the movie is just a bad replica like dollar store soda. All that being said there are some notable exceptions and Coraline at least to me happens to be one of them.

Coraline the novel just happens to be one of my favorite books and one that I recommended many times to kids that I believed could handle it. So when I heard they were making a movie I was to say the least disappointed. I immediately thought that Neil Gaiman had sold out and that Hollywood was about to ruin another one of my favorite characters. Then I heard that Henry Selick one of the creative minds behind the "Nightmare Before Christmas" was involved my initial skepticism turned into curiosity. I liked the "Nightmare Before Christmas" is it possible that I could end up enjoying this travesty? The answer is YES. I have to say that Coraline the movie though still no comparison to the original was actually good.

Even though I normally do not approve of movies making to many artistic liberties and Coraline had many. I have to hesitantly admidt that these liberites were probably for the best. What I mean to say is even though they changed specific scenes and characters the flavor of the novel was not lost. Coraline was still represented, I was still creeped out and most importantly I still was inspired.

Dark Sons

Nikki Grimes's "Dark Sons" is a compelling story of loss and forgiveness as told by two young men. This novel, told all in verse draws the reader in with it raw emotion and dynamic characters.

"Dark Sons" follows the lives of the biblical Ishmael and his modern parallel Sam as they both experience a sense of abandonment when their family dynamics change. Grimes. takes the old testament story of Abraham and his sons and reworks it from another perspective. Ishmael voices his side of the story, the first son replaced by Issac and then forced to leave his home by the jealous first wife Sarah. The story's other protagonist Sam is a young African American boy whose father leaves him and his mother for a younger white women. The story follows Sam's feeling of anger and abandonment as his father remarries, has another child and, eventually relocates across the country to his final acceptance and eventual forgiveness.

I loved this novel for so many reasons and found it hard to put down for even a minute. It's heartfelt honesty and emotion was so powerful that I felt all of Sam and Ishmael's highs and lows. Dark Sons is a reminder to parents that divorce and separation is often harder than children than we think.