Synopsis:
In 1980s England, a woman who said she was fleeing from witches left her infant daughter, Earwig, at an orphanage with only a cassette tape to remember her by. Ten years later, the girl – renamed Erica Wig by the matron of the orphanage – feels she pretty much has the run of the orphanage and doesn t want to live anywhere else. That decision gets taken out of her hands when a strange couple chooses her despite her efforts to dissuade them. Erica finds herself as the “extra pair of hands” for a witch and an irritable demon-controlling fellow named Mandrake, but she quickly decides that she will learn to do magic and will eventually have the run of this house, too.
Earwig and the Witch, it pays to set expectations. Longtime Ghibli fans who go in hoping for a theatrical masterpiece on the order of
Spirited Away are setting themselves up for disappointment, and even expecting one of Isao Takahata’s risky Ghibli style experiments is setting the bar too high.
Earwig and the Witch is the first CG feature made under the Ghibli banner, and it’s clearly aimed at small children rather than an all-ages audience. Director Goro Miyazaki consciously chose the small scale and simple story to make the project manageable for the largely freelance team who produced it, while Ghibli’s traditional animators were working on the next project from studio co-founder Hayao Miyazaki. Knowing
Kacey Musgraves Stars in New Studio Ghibli Film
Full disclosure: I m a Studio Ghibli fanboy.
The acclaimed Japanese animation house has produced, in my humble opinion, the absolute best animated films of my lifetime - most of them helmed by legendary writer and director Hayao Miyazaki.
The studio s brought us beloved classics like My Neighbor Totoro , Spirited Away , Princess Mononoke (one my personal top 10 favorite films of all time), Grave of the Fireflies , and Howl s Moving Castle , and they ve cast some impressive American performers in the English dubs of the films.
Now you can add country darling Kacey Musgraves to that list.
Last modified on Wed 17 Feb 2021 13.02 EST
The year may be off to a dismal start, but Januaryâs best books for children are filled with adventurous magic. For readers of nine-plus, BB Alstonâs
Amari and the Night Brothers(Egmont) is a Chosen One fantasy with a fabulous protagonist: a whip-smart black girl from the projects. Amari is convinced her brilliant brother Quinton isnât dead, but the police have given up investigating his disappearance. Stumbling across a mysterious briefcase and an invitation to try out for the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, Amari discovers the everyday worldâs occult underbelly â and her own powerful magical gift. A splendidly imaginative debut, ideal for fans of the Percy Jackson or Nevermoor series.
I LOVE to read. No, that’s a bit of a lie. I used to love to read. My overloaded, sagging bookshelves were a testimony to a habit that was a large part of my life for many years.
I say “were” because I finally got around to clearing those shelves with all the free time I have under the movement control order.
As I pulled books off the shelves to put into “keep” and “junk” piles,
I recalled my reading journey, beginning at age nine when I read my first novel: Enid Blyton’s
The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat.