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Saturday, December 27, 2008

The Joys of YouTube

So, there's kind of a stumper that's been plaguing the back of my mind for several years. Tonight I figured out what it was (triumph!!) and found it on YouTube (double triumph!!).

I remembered a video that I watched in class in elementary school (I believe it was first grade, but who knows). The video was about a group of kids that lived in a place where the sun came out only very rarely. On this particular day the sun is supposed to come out for the first time in many years and the kids lock one of the girls in the closet and she misses it.

Well, I picked up Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass this evening. And right there on page 31 it says:

I have two pages left of a Ray Bradbury short story. It's about this girl who lives in a world where the sun almost never shines. She hasn't seen it in five years. Then these bullies lock her in a closet when the sun is about to come out...

"That's it!" I shouted, and I promptly went to the interwebs to find that the name of the Bradbury story is "All Summer in a Day" and that it was made into a short film in 1982. And the short film is available on YouTube: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Do go and watch it if you are so inclined, though I must warn you that it's pretty much the most depressing thing ever. I am certainly going to find the original short story at the library tomorrow.

Oh, and I'm really digging Every Soul a Star. Even though I'm only on page, well, 31 because I got so excited when I saw that reference that I had to put down the book and look up all this stuff. I'm returning to it presently. :)