Dragons rule

"Eragon,'' the movie, opens today with a tepid review in the Boston Globe by Wesley Morris. Meanwhile, "Eragon,'' the book by Christopher Paolini, is the No. 1 children's bestseller on the New England Independent Booksellers Association's weekly list.

What's interesting is how the fantasy novel (originally self-published by a teenager in Montana) got picked up by Knopf. Apparently, Carl Hiaasen's stepson, who wasn't much of a reader, loved the book when his mom made him read it after she picked it up in a bookstore while they were on vacation in Montana. Hiaasen called his editor and the rest is history, he tells Powells bookstore.