Howl’s Moving Castle is a Doodle Fav in our house.
Have you every heard of the author Diana Wynne Jones? She wrote a series that begins with a book called Howl’s Moving Castle.
This is a fantastic story that my daughter loves.
Adventure? Check.
Good Conquers Evil? Check.
Strong, Brave Characters? Check.
Characters With Deep, Rich Backstories? Check.
A visually-stunning movie rendition lovingly created by Miazaki and his company Studio Ghibli? Absolutely!
I think what my husband and daughter love most about this movie is beyond the wonderful original music and wholesome story with gorgeous graphic design in every frame. The best part of this movie is that Miazaki took this English story and wove Japanese culture and myth seamlessly in as if it was written that way in the first place.
The Story
The story is briefly about a young girl who unknowingly stands up to a witch who places a curse on her. As a result, the young girl escapes into the waste, happens upon Howl’s Moving Castle, and eventually learns that to truly love another and let others love you, you must love yourself and be willing to do anything to help others. While not an obviously faith-based story, the underlying moral is certainly a Christian one.
Why Japanese?
My husband speaks and reads Japanese. He took lessons for years and years, long before our children were born. His interest was driven by a combination of a smart language to learn for an engineer in his field, and an interest in understanding a culture so very, very different from our own.
My daughter, also, is fascinated by Japanese culture and she has diligently gone about learning to read and speak and write this oh, so different language. Amazingly, she tells me that in spite of her dyslexia, she has little trouble learning the Japanese hiragana and katakana letters. In fact Japanese is easier for her than Latin or Koine Greek. If you have a dyslexic kid, you might try Japanese just to see if it works for your child as well as it did for mine.
Have you read this story in your homeschool? Do you have a different “fav” in your home?
