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Eleanor Luhar (47 KP) rated A Light in the Attic. Poems and Drawings by Shel Silverstein in Books

Jun 24, 2019

I recently decided that I need to read some poetry books, and this happens to be the one that I started with. I'm also planning on reading another of Silverstein's collections, The Giving Tree. I don't really know all that much about poets or poetry, so I may have just searched Goodreads for high-rated books...

Silverstein often uses prominent, simply rhyme schemes throughout this book of poetry, making them easy to follow and popular with younger children/teens. They flow beautifully, almost rhythmically, and are all rather short. They are mostly humourous poems, with little illustrations alongside them. These illustrations, also by Shel Silverstein, are also often funny, and help us understand the point/joke being made in the related poem.

These are all pretty easy-reading poems, nothing too thought-provoking or hard to understand. Quite a nice book to read in bed, or when you just have a little time to relax. There are definitely poems in here that remind me of stories and poems from my early childhood. I think I can give his 4 stars quite easily.

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Awix (3310 KP) rated The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971) in Movies

May 25, 2020

Playful, technically impressive and possibly very influential wildlife documentary. Scientist Nils Hellstrom, PhD (Doctor of Philosophy), MS (Master of Science), and WF (Wholly Fictitious), expresses his fears for the future of the human race, believing we are likely to be outcompeted by insects in every respect. Startling and occasionally grisly clips showing the lives of insects and other arthropods illustrate his thesis in great detail.

Well, Hellstrom (or more accurately writer David Seltzer, who went on to script The Omen twice) isn't a great biologist (he refers to insects as a species rather than a class), but the photography in the film is great and Lawrence Pressman's well-judged performance adds a lot to the impression the film makes: it's tongue in cheek, but still thought-provoking. As a gimmick to make people watch a wildlife documentary, it's an interesting one; you can sense echoes of this film's innovative use of music and narrative to add drama in many much more respectable nature documentaries (most of David Attenborough's blockbuster series, for instance). An oddity, but a good one.