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Kenneth Branagh in Murder on the Orient Express from 20th Century Fox

A Review of Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express

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I’m just going to say it: I loved Kenneth Branagh’s recent film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s classic mystery novel, Murder on the Orient Express. Partially this is due to the fact that it was visually stunning. But what did I expect? That a lavishly furnished steam engine, winding its atmospheric way through snow-capped mountain passes, carrying a richly costumed cadre of some of the finest actors of our generation would be difficult to look at? Being familiar with Branagh’s penchant for over-the-top-ness, I expected a spectacle, and ladies and gentlemen, this film delivered. It was beautiful…

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night sky with milky way above mountain

Dawes, Art, and Good Criticism

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So, I’ve been listening to an album recently, and it has me thinking about the purpose of “art.” The album is perkily titled, We’re All Gonna Die, and I’m thoroughly obsessed with it. I’ve spent hours unpacking the lush orchestration, focusing this time on the perfectly liquid bass parts, next on the engrossing and sensitive drum tracks, and then on Taylor Goldsmith’s quietly pitch perfect voice. I just can’t seem to get enough. But, being a reader by nature, I also can’t help but be confronted with the sadness written into each track…

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close up of quilt

Of Possible Impossibilities

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I feel a little bit like cheating writing this after reading Ian’s recent post on The Bronze Bow, but I, too, had an interesting discussion in my literature classes recently while trying to decide on where to place the climax of a story. I’ve been slowly teaching my students the elements of fiction, and chose The Quiltmaker’s Gift by Jeff Brumbeau in order to talk about characters. The Quiltmaker’s Gift is a picture book about two people. The first is a powerful, greedy, unhappy king who fills his castle with gifts that he constantly demands from his subjects. The second is a wise, old, magical quiltmaker who lives in a house on a mountain in the clouds and gives away her quilts to the poor and needy. She won’t sell them, not for any amount of money…

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open Bible

Literary Education and the Reformation

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As the Western world observes the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation – just kidding; I know most people are trick-or-treating instead – I am struck by its lasting effect on all things literary. It is amazing how, no matter what we believe theologically, we read and teach in a world informed by Martin Luther and those crazy 16th century theologians…

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desert path

Foreshadowing and the Judgment of Christ in “The Bronze Bow”

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The climactic moment of the children’s classic, The Bronze Bow, is a simple smile. As I was preparing to teach this work to a room full of eager Junior High students, I was refreshed by Elizabeth George Speare’s elegant style and careful attention to detail. Master that she was, she brought her novel to a perfect crescendo, using all her considerable literary tools to highlight one shining moment of turning: the climax…

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back of graduating student in cap and gown

What is a Literary Education?

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The capacity for self-knowledge is the thing that makes us human. Since education is the cultivation of mature humanity in students, we conclude that education happens when a student catches a glimpse of himself as a thinking creature. In the best case scenario, this glimmer of self-knowledge leads him further, to understand himself as an imperfect creature – a sinful creature, desperately in need of Grace…

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close up of algebra worksheet

What Mathematics Can Teach Us About Literature

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Missy and I spend a lot of time showing parents how to teach short stories with pictures by means of simple questions like “does the main character succeed?” This approach has helped thousands of teachers get young students started in literary reading with children’s classics like Mem Fox’s Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, Patricia MacLachlan’s All the Places to Love, or Jane Yolen’s Owl Moon. But what, we are often asked, should older students do? Are there other methods necessary to develop students at the high school level?…

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illlustration of Mr. Toad speeding down the road in a car

Me and Mr. Toad

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I recently began re-reading The Wind in the Willows for the umpteenth time, and, as classic novels are wont to do, it communicated to me in an entirely different way than it has before. I’ve been struck over the years by a lot of wonderful things in this little book, from Mole’s once-earned-never-lost loyalty, to Rat’s effortless hospitality, and Badger’s deep and abiding self-confidence. But one thing I hadn’t realized until now is that Mr. Toad and I are remarkably similar…

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girl walks down stairs toward mist with flowers towering over her

Flowers, Seeds, and Students

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I can’t stop thinking about the passage in C. S. Lewis’s The Weight of Glory that I wrote about in my last post, where he cautions us against idolizing our memories of the past: “they are only the scent of a flower we have not found,” he says. I am sure he chose that image because of a flower’s beauty, but I wonder if he also had in mind how fleeting that beauty was designed to be…

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black and white skyline of Paris with Eiffel Tower

Teaching the Past with Woody Allen

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Woody Allen’s 2011 movie Midnight in Paris has it all: a star-studded cast, fantastic music, beautiful settings, and great camerawork. However, its greatest feature is the story itself. The protagonist is aspiring writer Gil Pender, who stumbles into a magic vortex that allows him to travel back to 1920s Paris, a place and time that he considers the high point of Western culture…

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