Deb­bie Ja­cob

East­er va­ca­tion is the per­fect time to curl up with a good book. You'll get home ear­li­er with­out that school traf­fic so you have time to pick up a book and read. If you're a stu­dent, I know you weren't plan­ning to beat text­books dur­ing the hol­i­day or, worse yet, lie around wor­ry­ing about those ex­ams that are just around the cor­ner in May. Even if you're in ex­tra lessons, you'll need some down time to re­lax and lose your­self in a whole new world-a place you can dis­cov­er in a good book.

Don't for­get that read­ing is a great way for stu­dents to sharp­en their minds and build valu­able con­cen­tra­tion skills along with com­pre­hen­sion skills and an­a­lyt­i­cal skills. There are so many cool books that are now be­ing made in­to movies. East­er va­ca­tion is the time to read those books that in­spired the movies you'll want to see. Here are some great books to choose from this East­er hol­i­day:

1. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins-This has been a pop­u­lar read for some time in my school. In The Hunger Games a teenage girl, liv­ing in a post-apoc­a­lyp­tic Amer­i­ca, vol­un­teers to take her sis­ter's place in the 74th an­nu­al Hunger Games. This is a thrilling read if you like ac­tion, sci-fi and fan­ta­sy.

The movie hype for The Hunger Games has been un­be­liev­able and there are many on­line sites to vis­it. If you click on the site be­low, you'll find many of the best links to The Hunger Games movie. Click on http://www.bing.com/ed­i­tors-picks/cat­e­go­ry?q=the+hunger+games&qpvt=Hunger+Games to find links to movie trail­ers.

2. If you want to see what books are be­ing turned in­to movies, check out chas­ingth­e­frog.com. This site lists movies ac­cord­ing to the year they've been re­leased, and the site is up­dat­ed to 2012 movie re­leas­es. Re­cent movies based on books in­clude The Lucky One, from a Nicholas Sparks love sto­ry about a ma­rine who falls in love with a pic­ture of a girl. It is a good, light read for any ro­man­tic soul. Here's the Web site for chas­ing the frog: http://www.chas­ingth­e­frog.com/moviebooks.htm

3. The Life of Pi-Based on a nov­el by Yann Mar­tel, The Life of Pi tells the riv­et­ing sto­ry of a boy's jour­ney across the ocean with a set of zoo an­i­mals. The boy is alone on a tiny raft af­ter a ship­wreck. This is one of the strangest books I have ever read, and it should make a great movie.

No one who has ever read this book seems to know what to make of this sto­ry, and the same goes for those who tried to make it in­to a movie. Orig­i­nal­ly, M Night Shya­malan was go­ing to di­rect the movie, but he backed out. Now Ang Lee, who di­rect­ed Crouch­ing Tiger, Hid­den Drag­on, Hulk and Broke­back Moun­tain, has tak­en over di­rect­ing the movie.

4. The Great Gats­by-The mod­ern clas­sic by F Scott Fitzger­ald has been turned in­to a movie star­ring Leonar­do Di­Caprio and di­rect­ed by Baz Lurhman of Moulin Rouge and Romeo and Juli­et fame. (Lurhman gave Romeo and Juli­et a mod­ern twist by hav­ing the sto­ry take place in Venice, Cal­i­for­nia.)

In The Great Gats­by, Jay Gats­by, a rich man who lives in the past, is smit­ten by Daisy, a past flame who mar­ried for wealth. Gats­by pro­pels him­self in­to the world of the rich to im­press an un­hap­pi­ly mar­ried Daisy, but he nev­er fits in­to her world. Mia Far­row and Robert Red­ford starred in the last movie makeover of this book.

5. Great Ex­pec­ta­tions by Charles Dick­ens-This seems to be the year for clas­sics, and this Eng­lish clas­sic should make a com­pelling movie with Ralph Fi­ennes as Abel Mag­witch, an es­caped con­vict in the sto­ry of Pip, an or­phan strug­gling to make his way through life.

6. An­na Karen­i­na by Leo Tol­stoy-A very rich­ly tex­tured love sto­ry. An­na Karen­i­na deals with her love­less mar­riage by falling in love with Count Vron­sky, who doesn't turn out to be the man of her dreams. Keira Knight­ley, the queen of pe­ri­od pieces, is go­ing to be An­na in the movie. This is a mas­sive book, but don't be in­tim­i­dat­ed by the size. The trans­la­tions feel sur­pris­ing­ly mod­ern.

7. Break­ing Dawn: Part 2 by Stephanie Mey­er-If you haven't read the teen, vam­pire Twi­light se­ries you're re­al­ly be­hind sched­ule, be­cause near­ly every teenag­er has read these nov­els about Bel­la, a girl who has to choose be­tween a vam­pire and a were­wolf for a boyfriend. Life some­times boils down to these dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions.

Al­though I didn't like how the se­ries end­ed, the se­ries it­self was an en­ter­tain­ing read. The Twi­light se­ries makes you con­tem­plate the ba­sic con­flicts of any vam­pire se­ries: mor­tal­i­ty vs im­mor­tal­i­ty and moral­i­ty vs im­moral­i­ty.

8. John Carter by Edgar Rice Bur­roughs-Many peo­ple don't know this se­ries by the au­thor of Tarzan, but Edgar Rice Bur­roughs' sci-fi sto­ry of an Amer­i­can Civ­il War vet­er­an who ends up on Mars cer­tain­ly makes a great movie with to­day's tech­nol­o­gy. There you have it, a va­ri­ety of books turned in­to movies that have re­cent­ly been re­leased or movies that will be re­leased some time this year. En­joy your hol­i­day read­ing.