Shannon Costello

A dearth of interesting useless fiction in the house has forced me to turn - even on my sick-bed - to literature.  
I had some trouble with this work because of a long lapse between my reading of the first and second halves of the novel.
Cooper has his own lapses, however, which place a severe [...]

Not One Less
I think about this movie every time I see chalk. It was shown to a bunch of foreign language teachers visiting the American Film Institute Silver Theatre for a professional development session. Heat-warming story veils criticism of government. A thirteen-year-old girl agrees to substitute teach for a month at an [...]

While James Fenimore Cooper wrote for a living, he is counted among literary greats at least partially because his texts go beyond story-telling to the development of larger themes. CJ accurately points out a danger of reading introductions. I am reading Cooper from an edition that was apparently written before introductions existed, [...]

This is my latest essay on LW’s “The Princess”.

Individually and as a body, Christians have made a lot of mistakes. I am thinking about inquisitions and witch trials. I am thinking about hating people who think differently. These are the things Philip Pullman reacts to. They are valid objections, worthy of a thoughtful answer.
In his trilogy [...]

I was struck by the level of incoherence in the film The Seeker: The Dark is Rising, based on Susan Cooper’s books.
The agents of darkness disguised as policemen turn into flying crows as their empty clothes fall to the ground. It is unclear why they do not follow Will back into the mall. [...]

Demand for fantasy has been high since Harry Potter hit the shelves. I suppose this is why Susan Cooper’s 1973 novel is only now being made into a movie.
The Dark is Rising is one of a sequence of five fantasy novels about an epic battle between good and evil. Throughout human history [...]

I only checked out George Orwell’s 1984 because of its popularity in literary circles. And I only kept reading it because of its popularity in literary circles.
For those who have not read it, the sentence that sums it up is “Big Brother is watching you!” This sentence is so much a part of [...]