Reading Aloud: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
It is fitting that I am writing this blog as I watch the Golden Globe Awards since the idea for it came from a movie. Over the holidays we went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I just loved. There was something about the story that grabbed me right from the opening. It was clever, and I thought the execution was quite wonderful. There are stories that just strike a chord with me, and this was one of them.
I knew from our Books Into Movies feature on Bookreporter.com that it was loosely based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Thus the next day we went to Island Books on the Outer Banks to pick up a copy of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Stories so we could do our own exploration of the story. While we had seen a book with just this story in it we decided that we wanted to get the version noted above that had a number of Fitzgerald's stories in it. (Whenever I read something by Fitzgerald I am reminded of the letter I got at Teenreads.com a few years ago asking me if my husband was F. Scott Fitzgerald, a note that stayed up on my bulletin board for a long time since it always made me laugh.)
Instead of us each reading the story to ourselves, Cory, my younger son, ended up reading it aloud at the dinner table over the course of two evenings. (In a funny aside, the first night he did not eat dinner confessing to having eaten so many snacks all day that he had no appetite.) He's turning 14 in a few weeks so it's been a long time since there has been any reading aloud going on at our house. Thus this was a nice change of pace. He read with great animation and clearly was into sharing the story with us like this. While I am not a fan of audiobooks and always see myself as more of a visual learner than an auditory one, I enjoyed this experience.
It made me think that it might be nice at book club events for an animated reader to take on reading a page or so from the selected book, or even from the next month's upcoming title. There is an art to reading aloud, and it's not well done by everyone. I know since there are some authors who have not charmed me by their readings at store and book fair events. But there also have been some wonderful moments when an author has taken me someplace special reading their own words when they were a gifted read-aloud reader.
One more note. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button screenplay was written by the same man who wrote Forrest Gump, Eric Roth. On the car ride home Cory gave us a number of parallels between the two movies (Forrest Gump is one of his favorite films), which was quite fun. If you see the movie and know Gump see how many similiarities you note.
Good reading...good viewing....
I knew from our Books Into Movies feature on Bookreporter.com that it was loosely based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Thus the next day we went to Island Books on the Outer Banks to pick up a copy of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Stories so we could do our own exploration of the story. While we had seen a book with just this story in it we decided that we wanted to get the version noted above that had a number of Fitzgerald's stories in it. (Whenever I read something by Fitzgerald I am reminded of the letter I got at Teenreads.com a few years ago asking me if my husband was F. Scott Fitzgerald, a note that stayed up on my bulletin board for a long time since it always made me laugh.)Instead of us each reading the story to ourselves, Cory, my younger son, ended up reading it aloud at the dinner table over the course of two evenings. (In a funny aside, the first night he did not eat dinner confessing to having eaten so many snacks all day that he had no appetite.) He's turning 14 in a few weeks so it's been a long time since there has been any reading aloud going on at our house. Thus this was a nice change of pace. He read with great animation and clearly was into sharing the story with us like this. While I am not a fan of audiobooks and always see myself as more of a visual learner than an auditory one, I enjoyed this experience.
It made me think that it might be nice at book club events for an animated reader to take on reading a page or so from the selected book, or even from the next month's upcoming title. There is an art to reading aloud, and it's not well done by everyone. I know since there are some authors who have not charmed me by their readings at store and book fair events. But there also have been some wonderful moments when an author has taken me someplace special reading their own words when they were a gifted read-aloud reader.
One more note. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button screenplay was written by the same man who wrote Forrest Gump, Eric Roth. On the car ride home Cory gave us a number of parallels between the two movies (Forrest Gump is one of his favorite films), which was quite fun. If you see the movie and know Gump see how many similiarities you note.
Good reading...good viewing....
posted by Carol Fitzgerald at
9:22 AM
4 Comments:
What a nice inspiration for a bookclub in a "rut". My Married Ladies Book Club will enjoy trying this new idea! Thanks.
BeckyMc from Houston
Hi--I know the story is also available on line--it is only a few pages and could be printed out--and i may do that and the same with my three kids--have a read aloud night!
We often read aloud passages we really like or those that affect us at my book group(s). Sometimes hearing someone else read something can bring totally different meaning to a passage you may not have noticed.
A few months ago the kids and I were having ice cream and I had been reading Invasion of the Body Snatchers (by Jack Finney). I was towards the end of the book and really wanted to continue my reading but wanted to "be" with my kids too--so I explained the story and read the last 20 pages or so out loud. The kids were riveted and loved it--they are 7, 11 and 12 at the time--and the 7 year old still gets read to quite often, but not "grown up books", so this went over really well--I can do that!
We also listened to our first audio book back in October or so--Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates--absolutely great--we all loved it. The author reads it herself and has a great voice--she was the voice of one of the main characters in The Incredibles movie.
Anyway, sorry to go one so--just some thoughts there1
i was pleasantly surprised to find out that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the short story upon which the movie Benjamin Button was based, (they mention this in the opening credits)
Thanks for the nice write-up! I love reading aloud and actually run two read aloud groups dedicated to precisely that!
Check out by Shakespeare and Epic Poetry Read Aloud Group blogs at
http://shakespearegroup.wordpress.com
for more information.
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