Read Any Good Films Lately?

How many of you can still recall a favorite childhood book? Perhaps you remember the smell of the paper, the look of a particular typeface, the way a combination of words made you laugh or cry or feel fear?

We remember these books, sometimes decades later, because reading is so intensely interactive. Words on a page force us to draw from our own lives to create mind pictures, image sounds, conjure smells. No film experience can duplicate the sheer power of the printed word. Still, in this hyper-visual world of ours, more and more educators and parents are finding films an effective way to lead children into the world of books.

As a writer of books for both children and adults, I have a vested interest in exciting children to want to read. A couple of unrelated experiences have caused me to appreciate how films and books can form an unlikely but mutually beneficial alliance. The first happened in my agent's office. We were discussing market trends and she showed me five new contracts she'd received for the novelization of popular movies. I didn't understand why anyone who had seen "Star Wars" or "Rocky" would want to read a book written, almost word-for-word, from the movie. She assured me that these novelizations, commissioned by the film companies, sell in the hundreds of thousands. The reverse, novels into films, works as well. Pride and Prejudice, An Independent Woman, Little Women. Every bookstore owner can tell you how these recent films created "new" best-sellers of dusty classics. My second book/film experience happened during a "Books and Breakfast" program I ran at a local grade school. Each morning we fed at-risk children a nourishing meal while an adult read them chapters of a book. Witches and Pipi Longstockings were particular favorites, and the librarian said she had a waiting list of "Books and Breakfast" children wanting to check out these books. Almost all the children in the program, many of them struggling readers, had already seen the movies. Now they had "heard" the books. This combination heightened their interest and enthusiasm and gave them the courage to attempt to read the books themselves.

I now have my own book/film experience to add to the mix. A few years ago, wanting to play around with a new genre, I decided to write a screenplay based on one of my books. I picked one of my favorites, a book dear to my heart, There's No Such Thing as a Chanukah Bush, Sandy Goldstein, now in its fifteenth printing.

What I learned early on were the great differences between the mediums. What works on the printed page does not necessarily translate well into film. My challenge to keep the film visually interesting and the story moving meant it was often necessary to change or eliminate parts of the book, sometimes favorite parts. I had to, as writers say, "kill my darlings." The flip side of this is that the film process offered visual opportunities that would have been either impossible or boring if put in the book.

The "Chanukah Bush" adaptation differs from the original. Neither better nor worse than the book, the film is a separate entity that stands on its own merits. It is as if I began the same journey twice, beginning and ending at the same place, but taking different paths. Each version gently draws children into the often difficult world of a Jewish child at Christmas time. The same message — learning to take pride in your culture and to share your traditions with others — is clear in both the book and the film. The humor remains but takes different shapes. The quirky thoughts of my book, protagonist become visual jokes on film.

I have had children ask me questions about differences they noticed between the film and the book. One of the most common, something I hadn't noticed, has to do with the color of the main character's clothes at a Christmas party. Children want to know why Robin's dress was black in the book and blue in the film. I delight in the fact that these children are careful readers who notice details and question inconsistencies. And, discussing this simple physical discrepancy leads easily into examining other differences between books and films. This, in turn, opens a dialogue of similarities, ways in which movie and book teach us to show concern for other children's feelings and to respect beliefs different from our own.

* Susan Sussman, Chicago, is an award-winning author for children and adults. Her works include Hanukkah: Eight Lights Around The World and Hippo Thunder. This article is reprinted with permission of Pyramid Media, from Media Talk, November 1997. The newsletter, Media Talk, is available on the Internet at http://www.pyramidmedia.com

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Finally, as an author used to reaching one mind at a time, I am still adjusting to the effects of having my work seen by large audiences. Thousands more children have viewed the "Chanukah Bush" film than have read the book. It appears obvious that this mix of film and book, is, in its way, a symbiotic relationship in which two vastly different life-forms co-exist to their mutual benefit. Happily, once children become familiar with the filmed story, they are eager to read the book. For me, there is no more gratifying thought than somewhere a child is opening the pages of one of my books and falling into the world inside.

Editor's note

The "Chanukah Bush" film can be ordered by calling 888-426-8592.

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