My sister, my daughter, and I saw a musical in our local theatre venue— The Sound of Music. I remember seeing the 1965 film version as a child (and I am telling how old I am by that admission) and absolutely loving it. The performance was part of what they term their “Broadway Entertainment” series. The auditorium there seats 2000, so it is actually larger than most theatres on Broadway. The seating is a bit more comfortable, however.
I told my daughter that I was wary of not liking the stage version, but it was really good. The sets worked well, and the actress playing the Reverend Mother has one heck of a set of pipes on her! The actor portraying the captain was a very good singer, too. I do not believe anyone could do a better job of singing the part of Maria than Julie Andrews did, but the actress who performed for us did a good job.
While many of the songs from the movie were used, this touring version is actually closer to the original stage play that the film was based upon. Although my daughter was upset that they left out one of her favorites, “Confidence” the Baroness and Max sing in the stage play!
Our girls night out was great fun, from our happy hour beverages, to our meal at a hip restaurant, and the heart warming musical, with nary a naughty word, finished the evening.
Since I first began reading eBooks on my iPad, I’ve used Amazon’s Kindle more than any other app, because it works well and the content is both plentiful and inexpensive. An early favorite author was D.A. Boulter, whose novel Courtesan impressed me quite a lot. I’ve revisited his work from time to time, and recently I read the latest entry in the series that began with Courtesan, Trading For A Dream (The Yrden Chronicles Book 2)
.
is a stand alone book which occurs some generations before the events in the two available Yrden Chronicles novels. Trading For The Stars (The Yrden Chronicles Book 1)
recounts the story of Clay Yrden and Colleen Newborn who meet on a primitive planet, Erin.
There are many themes in science fiction, and the one about an alien who is trapped on earth entering a host body isn’t exactly a new plot line. However, in this young adult novel, Karen McQuestion taps into the “kids dealing with big stuff” storyline that seems to be popular right now. (Think “Stranger Things” on Netflix or even Stephen King’s, IT!
on the big screen.) Anyway, I didn’t find it difficult at all to get into this book and stay with it until the end. The main characters, Emma and her cancer stricken boyfriend Lucas, are believable, engaging, and their exploits are entertaining. Emma is particularly well drawn, and she is the point of view character for most of the novel.
won’t be the basis for a Hollywood block buster, but it would make a dandy film for the folks over at the SyFy channel. In the mean time, readers can find it in various formats, from $4.49 for the Kindle ebook to $10.95 in hard cover.
When I was a kid, I read The Heart of a Dog, a collection of short stories by Albert Payson Terhune, over and over. The collection of seven stories is good for adults more so than children. One of the things I did when I first began teaching was to read to my middle school students, and I did read a story, The Meanest Man, from this book to them. Although it was first published in the 1920s, these stories are still very interesting.
As a youngster, I loved science fiction. From being a little kid watching Fireball XL5 on television to reading the novels of 
at the cinema while in college (gosh, I’m old, right?) I really loved sci-fi. Actually, I still do, but this is a blast from the past post, so here goes.
is considered a turning point into adult fiction because this novel begins his exploration of themes that appeal to a more mature audience, including libertarian politics. Perhaps modern readers wouldn’t realize it, but the powered body armor in Starship Troopers was one of those prescient inventions that makes reading and watching science fiction so important to the development of technology.
was published a couple of years after Troopers, and while less “realistic” the novel takes some giant leaps into thematic explorations. The novel deals with the life of one Valentine Michael Smith, the first human born on Mars, and because he was orphaned he was reared by the natives of that planet, and later brought back to earth as a young adult human who knows absolutely nothing about his home planet or its inhabitants, hence the title. This situation is a fabulous set up for what science fiction does best: explore what makes humanity work (or not.) I used to read this novel annually, and I have never tired of it, because there are so many themes. Indeed, while doing a master’s degree in English, I wrote a pretty decent term paper on the topic of how Heinlein uses the world savior theme in the novel, and didn’t get thrown out of my fairly conservative program.
Visions and Revisions 