Drew and I mentioned back in December that we were reading A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. At that point I’m sure many people had never even heard of this first book in the Barsoom series. However now that John Carter has been released, it’s a little more difficult to get away from this Martian tale. I think there is a buzz out there about John Carter, which largely classifies it as a flop.
I know it happens all the time to books. You make a movie and lose so much of the original plot line in the process. Without going into too much detail, it seems to me that Disney missed the only good story line in the movie. A story about a father and daughter, of love and compassion. Instead Disney kept the focus on the main character of A Princess of Mars. Rather, in the movie Carter is not cocky at all as he is in the book, new characters were added to further develop a plot that might otherwise be mindless. All the while the more in depth story of the Martian culture is thrown to the side and secondary to the battles between two feuding cities.
Needless to say we read A Princess of Mars in preparation of the movie. I’m happy to have read the book and also seen the movie. If you are looking for a different, comical, and action packed movie…I say go watch it, with low expectations.
Remember the book we made for this December reading? Here it is to refresh your memory. We loved the leather cover but wished we could get the original artwork as well. We decided the laser cutter might just be the perfect tool to finish our book. Drew took the image, gray scaled it, and after a few practice rounds put the book in the machine.
And here it is cutting away at the leather cover.
And here is the final product. I love how it turned out, worn looking. It gives this 1917 book an old feel even though we just made it in the past three months.
drewanie 
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