Archive for June 15th, 2009

To coincide with the release of Captain America #600, Marvel has announced that the original Captain America, Steve Rogers, is slated to return to comic books in the new mini-series "Reborn".

Once upon a time (not so long ago), I was an awkward adolescent perusing the bookstore.  Back then, the young adult section consisted of one lonely shelf.  My options were pretty limited: either the pseudo-horror of R.L. Stein or the Love Story-esque teen romances of Lurlene McDaniel.   By the time I was about 12, I decided that adult books were more suited to my tastes, and I abandoned the world of young adult literature altogether. 

Fast forward to 2009.  The young adult genre is hot, crowding out picture books and middle-grade series in the stores.  More and more adults are openly reading young adult books, and the stigma attached to such behavior is gone. 

The recent resurgence of the young adult genre can be attributed, in large part, to the success of the Harry Potter books; more recently, the Twilight series has kept the trend going.  And I, for one, have made no secret out of the fact that I’ve enjoyed these types of books.   But the Twilight series is by no means great literature.  But what I’ve discovered through my recent exploration of the young adult literary world is that there’s better stuff out there, intelligent, thought-provoking stuff that would make great reading for any preteen or teen.

When was the last time you went into a movie completely ignorant of its content when it started, yet halfway through you thought “This may be the best movie I have ever seen”?

Flourish was like that for me. And while the thought was an exaggeration (but as exaggerations come and go it was one of the minor ones), Flourish sure was one of the best movies I have seen of late and among the most entertaining. (Relish in how soothing it is to hear me say this, when I have a habit of smashing such pop-culture gems as on Children of Men, Quentin Tarantino, Uma Thurman, the Spiderman-Franchise… need I go on?)