books should stay books.

I just received a movie tie-in package for “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” delighting the children’s librarian in me, but disgusting the part of me who hates crass consumerism. Sure, I liked the book and all, but who besides 13-year-old girls needs a full “movie scrapbook”? Maybe it’s because I’m not thirteen, or because of my intense hatred for most movie adaptations of books. (Prisoner of Azkaban, yes; Lemony Snicket, no.)

Maybe I’m alone, but I prefer books with their original covers, without added “photo inserts” of people who look nothing like the characters I imagined. I sulked for weeks when I saw that Ron Weasley wasn’t as pointy-faced as I pictured, and hey, Hermione is NOT THAT PRETTY.

Oh, marketing. I love when you send me free books, but I hate when I am made to feel like a mindless consumer who has nothing better to do than ogle movie tie-ins. You are the reason why kids read YuGiOh books instead of the Hardy Boys.