Random News: Harry Potter Beyond the Books

Hello Lovely Readers,

Thank you for sticking with us through the break. As most of you will have heard this past week JK Rowling released a new short story/article about what has happened after the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The original article is supposedly written by Rita Skeeter, so it has her usual snark to the reporting of information, and was posted on Pottermore. However, as not everyone has an account here is a link where you can read the article in full. Or if you are too busy to read the whole thing, Buzzfeed has an article that points out some of the most relevant information from the short story, and you can read that here.
While many fans celebrated this new information and new additions to the cannon from the books others have not been as happy. An article that talks about some people who aren’t as happy can be found here. I have to say I am very split on the new story. I am always happy to read new things that Rowling write, however, I really dislike all the information that comes after the Battle of Hogwarts. As I have talked about with several of my friends, Rowling has refused to allow the fans to take any ownership of the story after it is over. As I have mentioned previously I have a lot of problems with the Epilogue, because it limits my interpretations of the story and what happens later, and I am not the only one. So for anyone who is like me, I read the story, thought it was neat, but it will not factor into my idea of what happened after the last battle!
There was also a really great article that reminded me that no matter how fans reacted to Rowling’s new stories there is something in the story that has reached out to so many of us. A young girl who just lost her whole family and was injured herself by a crazy gun man, has drawn from Dumbledor’s quote about, “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light.” You can read about her remarkable recovery and spirit here.
So what about you guys, what did you think of this new story? How do you feel about Rowling still dictating how the story goes after the last book?

Until next time,

Random News: Kids aren’t Reading

Hello Lovely Readers,

As some of you who have been following this blog for a while will know, I am a huge advocate for people to read, especially younger people. So it was very distressing this week to read several articles that talked about how rates of young people reading for pleasure are dropping. Frances and I have talked about how important books were to us when we were younger. Most of my closest friends from primary and high school favorite books and authors, and we would pass on our favorite books to each other. For me, I cannot imagine not reading for fun. In university when I had less time, I started to feel rather unhappy, and realized it was because I had mostly stopped reading for fun. By reading just a couple pages of something I choose helped me sleep better and made me feel better. So all this combined with the news is distressing to me.

The first article is from Yahoo, and you can read it here. The main point of the article is that while children are still reading for pleasure, the number is lower than it was 10 years ago, and worse, it seems proficiency levels are dropping. While this may not take into account different ways children are reading (such as online, although it appears e-readers were included), it is very worrying.

Worse it seems from the Yahoo article and one from NPR (which you can read/listen to here) teens are some of the worst effected. According to the article, “Nearly half of 17-year-olds say they read for pleasure no more than one or two times a year — if that.” This again is a drop from where it was in the past 10 years. While further research is needed, some are speculating it is the rise in other technologies that are taking away from reading time, even if those same technologies can be used to encourage reading.

Thankfully it wasn’t all doom and gloom this week, instead there was a great piece from CNN on how LeVar Burton (from Star Trek) has devoted his life to encouraging children to read, which you can check out here. I know he was a big fixture in my childhood with Reading Rainbow, which I was sad to realize stopped airing in 2009. Luckily, he is still working in the area, and has even developed the “Reading Rainbow App” which has been helping to encourage the use of the new forms of technologies to make reading more interactive.

For those like me who used to watch Reading Rainbow, I thought you would appreciate the theme song. It brought back so many memories for me, and I still knew all the lyrics!!

What do you guys think? Is it time to start worrying about how much children and teens are reading? How do you try to encourage the younger generations, and even the older ones to read? Are there and groups/charities/outreach programs that you recommend? I think this is a very important issue and I know I will be looking into ways to help out!

Until next time,

Random News: While you Read and Speed Test

Hello Lovely Readers,

Since last week I have been on a real reading kick. Don’t get me wrong, I am reading all the time, but I actually took more time for myself this week to just enjoy reading, not critiquing or trying to figure out how I would review the book. It has been amazing, and I hope soon I can have a day of just lounging with a cup of tea and some books. Hopefully if you are stopping by you are also a fan of just reading, and I thought I would share some fun lists I have found that deal with reading.

The first is 25 Proper Ways to Read a Book. I love this list because I am one of those people that always finds a strange place or way to read a book. My favorite when I can is to read upside down, however that is always a bit strange if someone walks into the room where I am reading! From the list I loved the one about reading books while reading books (honestly it may have been because of Darren Criss’s shirt though), as I am almost always part way through several books at any moment!

The second find was 12 Sings You’re Really Into Your Book. This is something that has become harder for me lately, every once in a while I hit a slump where the books I am trying to read just don’t catch my fancy. However, my favorite from this list has to be “Talking only about your book whenever an opportunity arises to talk to someone else.” This is how the blog began in the first place, Frances and I are almost always talking about books. Our favorite thing to do is insist the other person read a book so that we have someone else to talk to about it!

My favorite of these finds though has to be 11 Faces You Make While Reading. I can’t help the faces I make while reading, and worse while I am listening to an audiobook while walking. I have just accepted that some people will just assume I am a bit strange! It was so tough to choose one as a favorite, but I think, “When the male protagonist makes a bad, bad choice.” Honestly I make the same face no matter what gender the protagonist is, and sometimes I have to yell at the book (I can’t stand the protagonist doing something stupid).

The last find is one of the more interesting to me. Earlier this year I posted a link to s site to help people speed read. Now I have found a test for how fast you read. You can access it here. While I found it amusing, and I enjoyed the statistics after it, I also am not sure how accurate it was. I was speed reading, versus the normal speed I use when reading for pleasure (for those curious people I scored 1001 words per minute). Also I found that I recognized several of the passages that they used (which meant on a cheat round I scored 3078 wpm), which meant I knew the comprehension answers without having to read at all. So while it is fun, don’t put too much stock in it!

Until next time,