Boys in the Boat
Note: I wrote this back in October. Since then, this girl has gone through all the 80s fantasy hits and now she’s in a Chronicles of Narnia phase for Christmas.
The latest movie series my daughter is hooked on is Lord of the Rings. I’m not sure exactly how we got there outside of her having a curiosity about my D&D games, but she’s been glued to it and picking up on so many characters and concepts in the films.
She saw a Halloween decoration of a witch holding a crystal ball and said “she has a palantir like Saruman!” She’s unquestionably a Lord of the Rings nerd.
This journey has been fun to go on with her. While I loved the books in middle school and enjoyed the films when they released in high school, I actually lost a my fascination with Middle-Earth as I got older. In this case, Lord of the Rings is something we are discovering together instead of something I’m eagerly pushing on her.
A combination of my own life experiences and talking her through the more complicated scenes has helped understand the story in a deeper way as well. I always loved the idea of these small hobbits on big adventures to change the world, but the larger themes are hitting hard right now. I don’t know if you knew this, but Tolkien wrote some great stories.
Her four-year-old attention span can only handle a half hour to forty-five minutes at a time, but the movies break down well into episodes.
After the first movie, I asked my daughter what her favorite part was. She said “when the two boys sailed away together in the boat.”
Get this girl a Tumblr account, am I right!?