Nothing signals the end of summer like the sound of the school yard bell.

The relaxed pace of the past two months is returning to the structure and frenzied rhythms of the school year.

Today, both of my children started school.  My oldest is starting his second year at El Camino College; my youngest is going to 4th grade.  The grade levels are different, but the concerns are remarkably similar.  Having just the right clothes, meeting old friends and making new ones, and getting to school on time.  With Kid the younger, the time issue normally boils down to what time my daycare provider drops her off, which is always on time, everyday.  Kid the older has unfortunately inherited my family's fractious relationship with time (no one in my family has EVER been on time, ANYWHERE) so the challenge for him, as always, will be to organize himself in order to make it to his first class in a somewhat timely fashion.

My daughter is taking those first tentative steps toward being a teenager.  At 9, she is what is now called a Tween, that sweet spot between childhood and teen years where children become acutely aware of themselves, and start to define their relationship to the world around them.  Good grades and test scores, as well as a somewhat conservative manner of dress, has marked my daughter as a Nerd.  She is comfortable with this, as being one of the cool kids doesn't fit in with her somewhat solitary nature.  I envy her self confidence.  At her age, fitting in and being accepted as part of the crowd was already becoming important to me.  It's just not an issue for her, and I love that!  She has a sense of freedom that I hope to emulate someday.

My son is now roughly the same age I was when he was born.  He has had a rough time with education.  He dropped out of high school due to learning difficulties, and is just now trying to get his education back on track.  I am encouraged by his enrollment in college, and by his attempts to find a job.  Like quite a few of his contemporaries, getting both needed classes and a job, require a mix of tenacity, networking and occasionally, dumb luck.  He's out there daily, searching online for work, and showing up to those desperately needed core classes, hoping for that coveted "Add" slip.  In short, he's trying to pull it together.  He's also hoping to turn his unusual personality and penchant for humor into some type of career in entertainment.  We will certainly see how that works out.

My role in all of this?  Human calendar, traffic cop, transportation manager, cheerleader, coach and anything else that I need to be at any given time.  Especially with the organization issues we tend to get into.  We just spent the better part of the evening looking for my son's wallet.  I wish I were kidding.   He couldn't find it this morning, so just opted to go without it until we had time to search for it later.   But for the most part, we got through it today.  No major issues (other than the missing wallet), and soon all will be quiet again in the house as this first day winds down, and we all get ready to head into the next year of our life.

When I was younger, I was a huge reader.

As I got older and more "busy", I ended up reading less and less.  But every once in a while a novel would capture my interest, especially if I heard or read that a movie was being made from it.  I would always rush to try and read the novel before the movie was released. Or conversely, I would watch a movie, then when I found out it was based on a book, I would find and read the book to compare it to the movie.  And without exception, I have found that the book was always better than the movie.

To me, books give you more insight into characters lives and motivations.  You get a much richer background, and get to create your own visions of who and what the characters are.  You can open a book, and let your imagination take you wherever it may.  I remember lolling away many hours, lost in another time and place, completely shutting out the world around me.  It was comforting to be able to get away from my drab, day to day reality, and escape into someone else's life. 

I am always initially excited about a books translation into a movie or TV show.  I am interested to see how the various cast and crew translate the written words into concrete visions, both for those who have read the books, and for those who are viewing the program for the first time, and likely have no knowledge of the book.  As much as I love a good literary experience, I also enjoy a well crafted movie or TV show.  A well written movie draws you in, and keeps your attention until the very end.  A well written TV program keeps you coming back week after week, never boring you, and always telling you something new about the characters.  Theoretically at least, if you have good source material, you will likely have a good end product.

Or not.

I understand the television and movies are limited mediums.  You only get 45-60 minutes  for television, and a minimum of an hour and a half for movies to tell your story.  There is often so much ground to cover, that there is no hope of cramming all of the information, characters and motivations in the book into such a small times frame.  So the movie and television industries do the best they can, and hopefully, the fans of the book (or books) are satisfied.  My experience has been about 50/50.  Half of the adopted books have been wonderful, faithful adaptions that enhanced my view of the printed material.  The other half left me wondering if we had we read the same book.  But I do applaud the time screenwriters take to read an entire book, often more than once, and try to adapt it as faithfully as possible to the screen so that those who are not avid readers might get to enjoy a story they might not otherwise have known about.  Who knows?  The movie might actually get them to the book.

I am trying this approach with my daughter.  When my son was younger, he and I used to love the British cartoon series Redwall that played on PBS on Sunday mornings.  I found out later that it originated from a book by Brian Jacques.  I always told myself that at some point I was going to get the book for my son.  While my son did eventually get into reading lots of fantasy and science fiction, Redwall slipped off both of our radars for quite some time.  Fast forward to about a month ago when I was perusing a used book store that popped up not too far from us.  Sitting right next to each other on a shelf were the first six books in the Southern Vampire Mysteries (upon which the True Blood TV series is based) and Redwall.  I scooped them up immediately, and while my son was definitely interested in the vampire books, he figured my daughter might be more into Redwall.  When she came home from camp, I introduced her to Redwall, reading the first chapter with her.  She seemed to be okay with it (the chapters are pretty short), but what really piqued her interest was my son finding Redwall on Netflix, and allowing her to watch the first few episodes.  Now she is more interested in finishing the book.

Not a perfect way to get your child into reading for pleasure, but it's a start.