The Secret World of Arrietty

I have recently taken my granddaughters to the theater to see The Secret World of Arrietty. Aside from the sticker shock of the cost of movies and snacks......Admission was $22.50 for 2 children and 1 senior. Two small cokes and one small popcorn set us back $15.00. We had previously had lunch at McDonalds with two happy meals, one double cheeseburger, one large fry and one Big Mac (for their Pawpaw) about $18.00.

We met the girls' cousins and other grandmother at the theater. So two retired grandma teachers.. 8, 6, 5, and 3 year old girls, and a 4 year old boy entered the Secret World of Arrietty.

I remember reading The Borrowers as a child, but don't have any memory of it circulating much during my 16 year tenure in the elementary library. Perhaps the movie connection will give it another boost. I promised the oldest grand I would purchase it for her and we would read it together. We've been trying to work on Anne of Green Gables, but that's been a stretch.

I think maybe the language of books from the past is much more complex than popular fiction. We even discussed this yesterday in church as we were studying the book of Galatians. I wonder if people had to puzzle out what was being told them by the Apostle Paul as we did or were they just smarter.

Have just finished reading The Scottish Prisoner by Diana Gabaldon and was glad I read it on the Kindle. Nice to have the dictionary right there at hand. You know the tendency to learn a new term and then it show up in other things you are reading? I am a blog follower of Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson as many of you know....last week there was a discussion of the term cats-paw. It was very present in one of the chapters in The Scottish Prisoner. I often have wondered if those sort of discovered terms are always present in our readings but we just begin to notice them when we learn the new word.

I always thrilled me when a library student would speak out during a lesson saying, "that's one of our spelling words!" Nice to see them making connections. That's when learning is real.