Book was way better than the movie

At an hour when my older kids are typically sound asleep, I had to hear their stream of consciousness discussion about why the movie they just watched was a little “jank.” If you are like me, I only recently learned what this word meant by looking it up on the website, Urban Dictionary. It is an adjective that means the following: of questionable quality, broken or ridiculously moronic. I doubt that my children know it means any of these things. This did not prevent them from using the word about 50 times in the 20 minutes it takes us to drive home from the theatre.

The movie was Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Since we finished reading the book together more than two weeks ago, there hasn’t been a day that passed that they didn’t mention that they wanted to see it on opening day. It wasn’t that they didn’t enjoy it, they loved it, but they both agreed that the book was waaayy better than the movie, and proceeded to pick it apart point-by-point and character-by-character. I had mixed feelings. I too was a little disappointed that it was so much different what we read but also secretly elated that they could recall so many details from the book.

By the morning, they completely forgot that they had called the movie “jank” only 10 hours earlier and asked if they could see it again at a matinee showing. With one bag of popcorn, one drink and a bag of M&M’s costing us $25.00, I think we’ll wait for the DVD release.

Reading by Kindle light?

I’m in the home stretch of reading Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief to the kids (which is great by the way, especially if you like the Harry Potter series). Even though we’ve graduated to books with no pictures, they love sitting over me and watching the pages turn as we weave through the story. The Lightning Thief is a real page turner filled with demigods, monsters, Zeus and his dysfunctional family.

My husband got me the Amazon Kindle for Christmas. It’s fantastic! I’ve been complaining about lugging books and magazines on the ferry everyday but resisted buying it because the price seemed far too exorbitant. After you spend 5 minutes with this easy-to-use wonder you will quickly forget about the damage done to your bank account. Books, magazines, newspapers, blogs and the classics for $.99!

So, here’s my conundrum. As we come to the end of The Lightning Thief, do I buy the sequel on the Kindle? It’s certainly the more eco-friendly option and I’m sure the kids can get used to the interface (after all, they mastered the Wii in a day and I still can’t figure out how to turn the thing off). It seems strange, almost wrong to read to the kids from the Kindle. Call me a purist, but my instinct is to keep buying and reading them real books. Anyone else have a perspective?