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How the Changing Image of Women in Film came about is found under this website's page of the same name.

 

Taylor Keiko Mochizuki and Sir Ruben Rainbow

in the Land of Sounds

 

​The idea of a story empowering children struggling with the pain of feeling less worthy than their friends manifested itself as I watched my brother being told he was difficult and stubborn when he was unable to sound out simple words. I watched him held back in school, as he watched his friends move forward. I watched a classmate humiliated in front of the class when he was told to stand up and read aloud (which he tried to do) when he, like my brother, could not grasp how to read.

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One of the reasons children's books and movies are often successful is that they give a parent a way to express a feeling of togetherness in a brief amount of time. Mothers and fathers buy children's books. They buy movie tickets.

 

​Today’s computer age cannot take away the memories and feelings of safety and excitement that happens when a beloved parent or grandparent reads to a child from the child’s own book. I remember sitting on my grandfather's knee as he read me the book Heidi. Today in most homes, both parents work. The time to read a book is often lost. Drawing close to a child through short 15-minute bedtime stories gives back the closeness in today's complicated world. And teaching a child to read before they start school gives a child a head-start in life and a brighter future.

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My brother was verbally abused at home; he was brought to tears many times as my parents tried to teach him to read. These scenes never left me, and in my work as a Social Service Director, I once worked at a facility for the developmentally disadvantaged. It was there, I developed a way to teach mentally challenged children to read. My writing the saga of Keiko and Ruben in the Land of Sounds followed.

 

I've now written two screenplays from the stories, in hopes of helping many more American children to read before they start school. Movies can achieve what many schools have failed to do--teach children to read.​ Keiko's Story is the universal tragedy of a child being shamed and their journey to overcome hardship in life (regardless of diverse situations). Forty-five million people in the US are functionally illiterate (Literacy Project Foundation).

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carla.hens@gmail.com

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