Bob Keeshan, better known as Captain Kangaroo, would not like my title. He wanted them to be referred to as “children” not “kids”. The reasons were obvious. “Kid” refers to a baby goat. It’s all about the words. It’s all about respect and propriety.
But Bob Keeshan, though a TV personality, was much more of a teacher than anything else. His show went on air before I was born, and I don’t remember a moment in my childhood that he wasn’t a part of it. He was like Mr. Rogers, but came into our lives even before Fred Rogers appeared on the scene. I watched the show in the mornings before school started, at a time when I walked all the way across our little Iowa farm town to get to school. He taught me important early lessons in life that were just as impactful as the math and language and social skills I was getting later in the day. Of course, I had to leave home for school before the show ended at 8:00 a,m. But just like school, watching and participating in any part of it was capable of teaching you something good.
A lot of what I was able to do successfully as a teacher is a result of how Captain Kangaroo taught me. He taught me to deliver information in small bites that a young learner with a short attention span could fully digest. He taught me how to capture attention. He did it with puppets, a moose, a bunny, and a dancing bear all thanks to Cosmo Allegretti, a versatile and multi-talented performer. He could focus attention by letting Mr. Moose drop ping pong balls on his head. Whatever came next after the moment of mirth was something I paid attention to.
He also helped us learn science. Mr. Greenjeans in his low-key, deadpan way would teach us about eating vegetables, how farmers cultivate plants, and how to handle various small animals like kittens, rabbits, and even ferrets. Mr. Greenjeans got seriously bitten by a lion cub on camera. He simply stuck his bleeding finger in his pocket and went on with the show. Yes, the man was a veteran in more ways than one. (He was a Marine in WWII.)
And Captain Kangaroo taught me how to share a book. I became very good at reading aloud to students because Bob Keeshan and the crew that worked for him showed me how to read with expression, separate dialogue from narration, and build the excitement with pace and voice modulation. They were experts at reading aloud.
So, I say this with no disrespect, only veneration. “I am a Kangaroo kid.” I watched the show and internalized it. I developed deep pockets like the ones in Bob Keeshan’s jacket that gave him the name Captain Kangaroo, and I stored many treasures from the Treasure House there that I would later share with my students.
![Clofillia, Josphine [Madame Clofullia, P.T. Barnum's "Bearded Lady of Geneva"]. Daguerreotype by Thomas M. Easterly, 1853. Photographs and Prints Collections. Missouri History Museum. Easterly 321. NS 17387. Scan © 2008, Missouri History Museum.](https://catchafallingstarbook.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/beardedlady.jpg?w=273&h=154 "beardedlady")
Only One Star?
There are certain books that simply have to exist in order for me to be me. I couldn’t be the person I am without The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain) by Thomas Mann, and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. These are all books that have an allegorical element, a trans-formative effect, that shapes how you think and how you live after reading them. Some of these books have not been made into a movie. Some probably still can’t be. Others have not been made into an effective movie. But, then, Disney in 2018 makes a movie version of A Wrinkle in Time that makes me relive the primary experience of the book all over again.
I was disappointed to see the critics being harsh about the movie. I had high hopes before going to see it. Yet, you couldn’t miss the one star rating on the box office rating system of the ticket and show time site I was using. But my daughter and I went to see it yesterday anyway. It was far above my highest expectations.
You see, the novel itself is magical. The essential characters of Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which have to be witch-like, super-real incarnations of inter-dimensional beings. It is the view of them with open-minded childlike eyes that makes the complex relationships of this story to reality apparent to anyone who thinks clearly like a child. It is the reason why this book is a young adult novel, written primarily for children, even though the concept of a tesseract is wholly mind-bending in a Stephen Hawking sort of way. It is the wonder with which the director of this movie lensed the dimension-tessering time witches that makes this movie the best version. Not like that failed attempt in 2003. That was almost there, but not quite by half.
Critics don’t like some of the special effects and the color schemes of some scenes. Many things about the final battle with evil are seen by them as inexplicably bizarre. They don’t like the over-use of extreme close-ups on the faces of characters. And they think the performances of some of the child actors are too wooden and unreal to carry off the story.
I wholeheartedly disagree.
This is a story that takes place in the heads of the people involved, including the viewer of the movie. The extreme close-ups pull you into the personal feelings and struggles of the main characters. Particularly Storm Reid as Meg. The story is about her struggle as an adolescent to be at peace with her own flaws and self-image while at the same time being responsible for finding and saving her father, as he has completely lost his way on his quest to “shake hands with the universe”. Meg undergoes a challenge to her self image as she is cruelly bullied by another girl in school. She has to come to terms with loving her super-genius little brother Charles Wallace. And she has to weather the changes that occur when she encounters a potential first love in Calvin. It is a coming of age story that really smart kids can relate to directly from their own personal experience.
This one-star movie with only a 40% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes is a far better movie than the critics would have you believe. It is doing quite well at the box office. Kids seem to love it. And in my wacky opinion, it is the best movie version of the book to date. I love this movie.
Leave a comment
Filed under art criticism, commentary, magic, movie review, science fiction
Tagged as A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle, movie review