"Harry Potter Page to Screen: The Complete Filmmaking Journey" by Bob McCabe

531 pages


The first time I saw this, I flipped out. As someone who's obsessed with all things Harry Potter, I just had to get my hands on this massive book. Reading it was even more fun than I thought it would be. It goes through the entire process of making each movie, from selecting the cast to writing the scripts to bringing the incredible magic to life on screen. It's got the big-picture stuff, like the different directors' and producers' visions, as well as the details, like how they made each magical creature. There are tons of interviews and quotes from the cast and crew, plus memorabilia from the sets. Basically, this is the best coffee table book ever if you love Harry Potter.


Here are a few random things I learned while reading this book:

• At the beginning, there was discussion of animating the films instead of using real people (how different that would have been!)
• Daniel Radcliffe wasn't even going to try out for the role of Harry Potter; fortunately for him, his family ran into one of the producers at an opera and talked his parents into letting him audition
• Michael Gambon (Dumbledore) has never read the Harry Potter books (shame on him!)
• Emma Watson (Hermione) had a huge crush on Tom Felton (Draco) during the filming of the first several movies
• One crew member's only job was gluing individual hairs and feathers into stuff, like the boar's head in Hogsmead and Dumbledore's bird, Fawkes

"Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline

374 pages

The year is 2044. Things are not looking good in the United States, or the rest of the world for that matter. The Great Recession has devastated the planet, and almost everyone is having a tough time. In the real world, that is. Online, everything is different. OASIS is a sprawling virtual utopia where people are entertained, go to school, do business, and meet people from all over the world. James Halliday, the co-creator of OASIS and richest man in the history of the world, has just died. But he leaves behind one last legacy: a puzzle, embedded somewhere in the thousands of virtual planets that make up OASIS. Whoever solves the puzzle will win an unbelievable fortune, not to mention the fame and power associated with such a prize. Fast forward five years. No one in the world has found even the first clue to the puzzle. Like most of the world, seventeen-year-old orphan Wade Watts would do almost anything to be the winner. And he's got a better shot than most, as he's as obsessed with the 1980s as Halliday was. He's an expert on the 80s video games, movies, TV shows, and other cultural icons that the deceased genius used to create his challenge. And then, suddenly, Wade stumbles across the first piece of the puzzle. His work is far from over, however. In fact, the stakes get higher as Wade is pursued by a global corporation that will stop at nothing--not even real-world murder--to win the puzzle and gain control of OASIS. If they do win, they'll turn the available-for-all OASIS into a corporate money-making machine for the elite only.

This is definitely one of my favorite books from 2011. I've never read anything quite like it before: totally futuristic, but with a retro feel. It's so bizarre to be reading about the insanely awesome virtual reality technology being used to play Frogger or watch "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." I recognized a lot of the 80s stuff, but I missed some of the references since I was born in 1985. I had a lot of fun looking things up and adding old movies to my Netflix queue. I couldn't put the book down; it's nonstop action from page one to 374, but I didn't feel like it was too rushed, either. It's not often that such a thrilling book makes me think a lot, but this one certainly did. It brings up a lot of questions about virtual reality and the implications it can have on society. Is it unhealthy for people to live in a virtual world most of the time, or does it simply give people the opportunities to do things they can't do in real life? Does living in an online world cause people to care less about the real world? If so, is that good or bad? And who should pay for this thing--should it be free for everyone, or should there be a charge for it? All very interesting things to ponder, considering the increasing impact technology has on our lives. But, as much food for thought as this book provided, it's mainly just good, plain fun. I say it's a must-read for anyone who grew up during the 80s or is into video games, but even people who fall outside of those categories will enjoy it as well.

Sgt. Frog: Volume 4: Frog in a Bender

by Mine Yoshizaki, 179 pages

An elite platoon of frog-like aliens has come to Earth to prepare the way for a full-scale invasion. The mission: perform recon, subdue the masses, and call it in. Unfortunately for Sergeant Keroro and his men, they set up their secret base beneath the Hinata household.

The boy, Fuyuki, is all right as a conquered minion, being an easygoing, geeky kid and lover of all things paranormal. But his grouchy, athletic superior (a.k.a. sister), Natsumi, proves more powerful (and more beautiful, to Corporal Giroro's mind) an enemy than they'd expected to encounter. And then there's the all-seeing, intimidating General (the kids' manga-editor mother).

Before they know it, the frogs find themselves the ones submitting, with irresponsible Keroro's list of assigned household chores growing longer every time he cooks up a cockamamie scheme to usurp control (or score some awesome new Gundam models). Keroro goofs around and blows their invasion budget on toys while super-soldier Giroro meditates as far away from his embarrassing fellows as possible, mad sadistic genius First Sergeant Kururu invents twisted weapons for his own amusement (and tests them on whoever's unfortunate enough to be at hand), and spacey Private Tamama tries to keep his dual personality (one sweet, one not so much) in check and skips after his beloved commanding officer. There's a fifth one, but the others have forgotten him, poor thing.

It's a New Year, and following a disorderly celebration involving model glue vapors and copious amounts of alcohol, Keroro decides to take over a weather satellite, make it snow, and then conquer the Earth in a winter invasion. Only he hasn't counted on snow being so cold, on frogs being pretty much naked, and on snowball fights being quite so diverting (and distracting...and likely to cause froggy frostbite). They don't make it past the front yard. Other shenanigans ensue, including miniaturizing the gang in order to combat the micro-aliens giving Keroro a cavity, Tamama having to hide the reality of the platoon's failure from an over-eager fan from home, and Keroro temporarily switching bodies with the clever Natsumi (with predictably weird results).

Sgt. Frog is mindless slapstick and fun in small doses. Pop-culture-addicted Keroro's selfish ineptitude amuses as his subordinates alternately confirm and then relinquish their allegiance to him and his "prisoners" try to maintain some affection for him while keeping his perpetually generated chaos as contained as possible. *kero kero* :P