Mission
Adapting Eve & Adam - Intentions and Principles
by Jerome Tiller
Issues regarding intentions and principles loomed while adapting “Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Eve and Adam”. I was concerned that Eve’s character could change if I added new material to combine two separate stories by Twain. But I gave myself leeway to add material because I had no intention to change Eve’s character. Heck, I would not intentionally change any aspect of any character created by Mark Twain. My sole motive in adding new material was to keep dialogue going between Eve and Adam from beginning to end. I tried to keep Eve’s character in line with Twain’s Eve by closely considering what Eve had to say in her diary before the fall, along with the few things she had to say...
Promote Pleasure Reading in Young People
by Jerome Tiller
Studies by the U.S. Department of Education have shown the overall amount of pleasure reading by young people has steadily declined. There are many theories why this is so, including those that point to trade-offs and time constraints; young people abandon pleasure reading to focus instead on digital devices or to use what once had been free time to expend extra effort in meeting the regimented demands of an achievement culture.
Yet everyone knows that young people will seek and find fun wherever it can be found – it’s their natural instinct. Then what if they were to find more fun in pleasure books at their reading level? Like the fun they once found in the picture books of their...
Yet everyone knows that young people will seek and find fun wherever it can be found – it’s their natural instinct. Then what if they were to find more fun in pleasure books at their reading level? Like the fun they once found in the picture books of their...
Fiction can enlighten while it entertains
by Jerome Tiller
In our last post, shade was thrown on the idea that fiction can enlighten a reader. The post also contains the suggestion that reading to be informed is worthwhile while reading fiction merely entertains - and that it doesn't do such a very good job of that compared to numerous alternatives.
Setting aside the opinion that reading fiction is an inferior way to entertain oneself, let’s deal with the issue of enlightenment. First of all, we probably need to clear up what might be some confusion in terminology. Knowledge and enlightenment are not synonymous. Insofar as information contains real (not fake) facts, acquiring and storing information adds to one's knowledge. Enlightenment is the result of 'getting it' - the 'it'usually being understanding that...
Setting aside the opinion that reading fiction is an inferior way to entertain oneself, let’s deal with the issue of enlightenment. First of all, we probably need to clear up what might be some confusion in terminology. Knowledge and enlightenment are not synonymous. Insofar as information contains real (not fake) facts, acquiring and storing information adds to one's knowledge. Enlightenment is the result of 'getting it' - the 'it'usually being understanding that...
Illustrations Enhance the Appeal of Classic Stories
by Jerome Tiller
The idea was that we would add illustrations to classic stories to enhance their appeal. Middle-grade readers would see the books on a library or classroom shelf, fan the pages, see the vivid, often humorous illustrations, and give the old stories a try. The stylish prose in finely crafted stories by master authors would then captivate middle-grade readers. They would attain a greater interest in the language of their lives - that which they hear and speak and write. And literature! Our thin, little books with illustrations might be the first plunge many middle-grade readers take into the deep world of literature. The books might even serve to spur life-long habits of reading fiction for pleasure and enlightenment in some middle-grade readers who give...