Enola Holmes: Page and Screen

If watching Stranger Things made you a fan of  Millie Bobby Brown, if you love rebellious female heroines, or if you devour all things Sherlock Holmes, then Enola Holmes may be the character for you. A film adaptation centered on Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes’ younger sister is now available on Netflix, so there’s no better time to discover the mystery book series by Nancy Springer.

The series is six books in all, starting with The Case of the Missing Marquess, first published in 2006. As in the recent film, the book’s action starts when Enola discovers her mother is missing. It’s up to her to travel to London and find her, while solving a few other mysteries and avoiding her older brothers at the same time.

I am excited about this series and its film adaptation for a number of reasons. Nancy Springer wrote some of my most favorite books when I was younger, full of fascinating, sympathetic characters, plenty of action and humor, and covering a wide range of genres and situations. Secondly, I am a self-confessed Anglophile, and I love the Sherlock Holmes character and universe. Throw in a spunky, clever, determined heroine, and I am 100% on board. The fact that the Enola character is played in the film by Millie Bobby Brown, whom I love in Stranger Things, is just a bonus. If you like mysteries, historical fiction, and comparing books to their film adaptations, I definitely recommend you check out the Enola Holmes series by Nancy Springer.

Lego: The Hobbit

lego the hobbitI must admit that I love any kind of adaptations of books and movies. Find me a funny book about one random character in a famous movie or even a graphic novel about a classic book that I could never make it through in school and I will be a happy camper. Imagine my happiness when I discovered movies that had been made into videogames! SCORE!

Having just been to see the new Hobbit movie (and succumbing to my deep love of anything Lego-related,) I decided to check out Lego: The Hobbit on Xbox 360. (Want to check out this game, but don’t have an Xbox 360? No problem! The library also has it in Wii U, Playstation 3, and Nintendo 3DS.) From the creators of Lego: The Lord of the Rings (also available in different platforms – just search the catalog by the videogame name), came Lego: The Hobbit, a game inspired by the first two films in the Hobbit trilogy, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug. This game allows players to follow and play along with Bilbo Baggins as he leaves the Shire and rambles through Middle Earth in order to help the dwarves in Lonely Mountain. Traipse around with Thorin Oakenshield, Gandalf, Bilbo, trolls, orcs, and dwarves as you encounter different quests set up to challenge your abilities to conquer the dwarves’ powers.