Gianni Occhiline Mary Petty English 102 30 September 2013 Howls Moving Castle In 1986 the beloved children's

author Diana Wynne Jones published the book Howls Moving Castle. It became widely renowned and was runner-up for the annual Boston GlobeHorn Book Award in childrens literature. Then in 2004 the also widely renowned animator Hayao Miyazaki made the book into an animated movie which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Wynne Jones's novel allows Miyazaki to combine a plucky young woman and a mother figure into a single character in the heroine, Sophie. She starts out as an 18-year-old hat maker, but then a witch's curse transforms her into a 90-year-old grey-haired woman. Sophie is horrified by the change at first. Nevertheless, she learns to embrace it as a liberation from anxiety, fear and self-consciousness. The change might be a blessed chance for adventure, (Scott, web). The plot of the movie is so unlike the book, but the feel of the characters are still there, which a lot of fans of the book are very thankful for. The one thing that confuses most people about the book and movie are the covers on them. At first glance, there's no way they could even remotely be about the same thing, but if people are aware of either book or movie beforehand, they soon discover that they are about the same thing. Both images might not have much in common, but seeing them bring joy to the fans. The cover of the book shows what you can guess as Howls moving castle doing his thing and moving. You can tell its moving by the illusion that one of the four brick legs are up, as if its in motion. The castle seems to be made entirely out of brick which can be interpreted as it being

very hard to destroy or even get into. You can see many windows, a couple of chimneys with smoke billowing out of them, and one door that is open. Which shows a very bright room. There is also a very old women that seems to be chasing the castle, she's shown holding her cane up, which can be that shes yelling for the castle to wait for her. Her doing that could be the reason why the castle has the door open, for her to enter it. The castle scene is backdropped with a very calm looking green field with big puffy white clouds. The colors are somewhat bright, which gives the illusion to be mid afternoon. On the cover of the Hayao Miyazaki film, there seems to be two different scenes playing out. The top part of the cover shows a smirking bird-like man holding a frighten looking young lady, who happens to have gray hair, so she might be older than what she looks. Surrounding them are little red dots, which look to be little embers. The misleadings of the top portion of the cover would be that by the smirking look that the bird-like man is giving and the frightened look the women has on her face, that the man has just kidnapped her. And with the embers, maybe he burst through something that could have given those off. Now for the bottom portion of the cover, there shows a young boy standing outside, by the color of the sky it can be interpreted to be nighttime. He seems to be holding something in his hands which looks to be exploding, and giving off a little firework display for him. He seems to be surprised at this outcome, maybe he expected something else to happen with whatever is in his hands. Both portions of the cover are a very dark blue. The top one being of the dark blue feathers of the bird-like man, and the bottom one being a dark blue sky. Surveys in the U.S. and Europe show that blue is the colour most commonly associated with harmony, faithfulness, and confidence, (Heller, pg. 13). The birdlike man has that smirk on his face, out of the three most common associates, confidence seems like the one sprouting from him.

Taking from the past two paragraphs it is interpreted that both the covers having nothing in common. The first scene shows the castle and an old lady, while the second scene shows a bird-like man possibly kidnapping a woman, while a little boy is playing with fireworks. They also both are happening at different times of the day. The only thing that can be comparable to both covers is that there is a person on them, there is a shade of blue in the background, and that the titles are the same. Other than that, theres nothing at all. While comparing and contrasting both covers, people who have never had a chance to read the book and watch the movie would never know them to be somewhat of the same story. But for the people who have actually given either the book and/or movie a chance, they will be brought joy by the covers whenever they lay eyes on them.

Work Cited Scott, A. O. "Movies." A Cursed Teenager Turns 90. Let the Adventures Begin. The New York Times, 10 June 2005. Web. 30 Sept. 2013. "Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards." Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards. The Horn Book, Inc, n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2013. Heller, Eva. Psychologie De La Couleur: Effets Et Symboliques. Paris: Pyramid, 2009. 13. Print.

Howls Moving Castle By: Diana Wynne Jones

Howls Moving Castle By: Hayao Miyazaki