Childhood favourite

Moxie · Post by **Moxie** » Sat Nov 22, 2003 2:23 pm

In sixth grade I fell in love with the work of a children's author & artist named Chris Van Allsburg. You've probably seen the movie based on his book "Jumanji". The first book I read of his was "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick", which is a collection of fabulous pictures accompanied by a simple title and one line, under the premise that they are snippets of stories written by a man (Harris Burdick), left with a publisher as samples, only for him to never return. Of course, their real intention is to spark the imagination of children, and they did just that for me. We used them in my class as basis for stories of our own. Then I read another book of his, called "The Polar Express", where a little boy is awakened on Christmas Eve in the middle of the night by the sound of a train just outside of his house. He ends up taking the train with other children to the North Pole and meets Santa, who gives him a single bell from his sleigh. The boy loses the bell on the train ride home, but finds it again under the tree the next morning. When he realizes that his parents cannot hear it ring, and then as they grow up and his sister loses her ability to hear it, he understands that only true believers have the privelidge. But he never loses the ability to hear the magical bell himself. It's a beautiful story, and it remains a favourite of mine (I adore children's literature). Yesterday, I was at the mall with my Mom having lunch, and as we walked past the theatre I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw a poster for a coming attraction. They've made it into a movie! I was so excited I almost pulled a Moxie right there amongst the shops

.

Post by **eddiecanuck** » Sun Nov 23, 2003 7:58 pm

Yeah I saw that a while ago. The trailer is amazing. They actually have a CGI Tom Hanks in it. It looks really good. Too bad it's still a year away. Oh well, guess we have something to look forward to, movie wise, next year.

Moxie · Post by **Moxie** » Mon Nov 24, 2003 11:28 am

It actually might be two years away, from what I've read. The November 2004 release in tentative. If it's not perfect by then, they're going to wait until the next holiday season. I can respect that. And yeah, the CGI Tom Hanks is fabulous! The preview gave me goosebumps (or Pigeon Pimples, as Colin & I like to say

)