The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Today we watched a fantastic short animated film called The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. My friend Erin, who teaches a Grade 1/2 class (you can follow her class here: http://200awesomedays.blogspot.com/), forwarded the link to me today, and immediately, I knew I had to show it to the class. So much of our lives revolve around reading and writing, and The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a great fantasy story about people and books devoting themselves to each other. Apparently, we're not the only ones who think this film is remarkable, as The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is one of five animated short films that will be considered for outstanding film achievements at the 2011 Academy Awards®. After we watched the film, the students each wrote a response in their journal about how they felt about the movie, and what they thought it taught us about books. Here is one sentence from each of their written responses:

Books can make you smile. - Lexi
You can get an imagination from books. - Robyn
Books can make you smarter and know more words. - Cameron W.
It was cool seeing the lady fly and the books fly. - Cam H.
Books are fun to read. - Jacell
Books can inspire you because they have special things in them. - Logan
The short video was awesome because when the people read the books, they turned from black and white into colour. - Kaynen
Books can make you happy. - Mikayla
Books can do more than showing you how to do math. - Dylan
Books can make you smart. - Marie
The people were sad but when they opened the books they had a smile and they were not black and white, they were colourful. - Hailey M.
I really liked the video because there was lots of detail in it. - Joey
To me I like reading because it's interesting. - Gal
At the end of the movie, there was a girl. She was black and white, and then she turned colourful because the books make them brighter. - Markus
Books are good for your brain. - Jett
In the movie, the books were sad and happy. They were sad because close to the end, Mr. Morris Lessmore left them, and they were happy when he first met the books. - Braylin
The people in the video were black and white and then when they started reading the books, they had colour. - Ava
Books can tell stories. - Dasia
Books can have lots of feelings. - Sydney
There was this old book that fell apart, and then Mr. Morris fixed him. - Tyler
When Mr. Morris Lessmore went to look for the words from his book, he was searching for them and he found this library. He checked it out, and then he stayed there for awhile. - Jenna

You can watch the video below - enjoy!