9th March 2013: 'Books! The best weapons in the world!'

I apologise in advance for the blurry photo today, it was taken on my phone, I now have a memory card reader, so I will be able to actually get photos from my camera onto the computer, a lot easier. Today I didn't do much, tidied my room, did some art for my sketchbook, and sorted some photos for my wall (which are now up). I then went out for a meal with some family which was pretty nice too. I've also been sulking at the fact I should be seeing Jessie J tonight, but she postponed her tour to October/November, when I'm due to be in Kenya...

So today's 'Super Blog Saturday' is about World Book Day... Which was on Thursday (7th March), last week... but also books in general.

In the photo above there's a selection of my favourite books from when I was younger ( I couldn't find 'The Story of Tracy Beaker' and The Dare Game was the closest I could get to it... So in this photo there is (left to right):
Looking For Button Moon...
The BFG - Roald Dahl
The Dare Game (but should have been The Story of Tracy Beaker) - Jacqueline Wilson
The Famous Five: Five on a Treasure Island - Enid Blyton
Danny the Champion of the World - Roald Dahl
Goodnight Mister Tom - Michelle Magorian
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (because that's the best) - J.K. Rowling

1 of those is from a TV programme, and all the rest were made into films, and some even becoming successful TV series'. It's nice for these books to have genuine illustrated pictures as their front covers (excluding Goodnight Mister Tom and Button Moon, but shush!) Nowadays, I walk into a bookshop and walk to the 'Teen' section and all I see is photos from films, and vampires and werewolves. Which leads me onto another thing, I don't particularly enjoy books like Twilight, all about vampires, werewolves and supernatural type of stuff. I'm sure you're all now thinking, 'but you like Harry Potter?' yes, I do, however, the Harry Potter books were released 16 years ago this year (UK) and I feel they were the start of something new, because they put a bigger twist on The Worst Witch books (1974) by adding in werewolves and ghosts and other awesome things. Then we had just under 10 years of Harry Potter hypes, or people in my generation did...
Then, in 2005, Twilight, brought to life from a nightmare, sorry, a dream that Stephanie Meyer (the author) had... Did she have to share it?! I struggle with the fact that it has been so largely manufactured and all these 'fangirls' on Team Edward or Jacob?! Has anyone got a bucket?

I found it interesting reading an article last night on the BBC website of people's comments that they'd sent in about World Book Day, and the positives and negatives about it... I used to love dressing up, and choosing a character to go in as for the day. It was great, and we got to read out some our favourite parts of the book, and share why we liked it so much. Now, the kids dress up as film characters, which ok, most would have originated from books, but they don't actually share why they dressed up as that character or anything?! I think it's a lack or imagination and struggle to imagine myself what we're going to end up doing in our spare times in say, 10 years time.

When we went on holiday, we used to take a book to read for the week (possibly two if we thought we'd get through it) and that's what we'd do in any spare time we had (or play monopoly/cards). I used to love reading Roald Dahl books and imagining and creating my own image with colours in my head of The BFG and all his dream concoctions and then imagining all the chocolates and sweets and all the vibrant colours from inside Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Laying down on the sofa and reading Enid Blyton books and wondering what the next adventure The Famous Five would go on.
Now, I find it hard to read most books from 'my section' of the shop, mainly because the story lines are so alike, so when something like The Hunger Games came up, I read all of them in 2 weeks, because they were so great, but it meant that I had nothing else to read for a while, apart from Jessie J and Cheryl's autobiography... 
I still, sit down and get lost in the idea one day my letter from Hogwarts will come and I'll be able to sit OWLs rather than the GCSEs, A Levels and doing a degree to get where I want to in life.
I've been finding myself doing what I used to hate people doing, buying a book because of the film. e.g. Life of Pi. It seems to be the best way of finding decent books at the moment. I also found myself looking at the '9-12 years old' section of Waterstone's the other day and finding Stig of the Dump, which I'll be reading soon!

One last note to finish on: there's nothing better than the smell of a new book, there's nothing better than the feel of a book in your hand, with the pages rubbing against your thumbs, and there's definitely nothing better than sitting with a lamp on in bed reading a book. That quickly leads me on to say, I'm not a great fan of kindle's etc. because they're not the same as the real thing even if they do cut down the amount of books in your bedroom/ on your bookshelves. 

and a Doctor Who quote to finish on: 'You want weapons? We're in a library! Books! The best weapons in the world!' - The Doctor. (3 weeks til it's back on my TV screen!!!!!)

What books do you enjoy? Do you find them through films? Do you prefer books/kindle?

evan. :)