Reader Traci Z. from Arcata, California has sent in more book/movie combinations to be considered by mother-daughter book clubs. Here’s what Traci has to say:

“My 2nd grade daughter and I just read Tuck Everlasting (by Natalie Babbitt) and then watched the movie and talked about the differences.

We also are reading The Story of Helen Keller (by Lorena A. Hickok) and has been a really great conversation piece. I know I saw the movie once when I was young but haven’t looked for it yet. Also Island of the Blue Dolphins (by Scott O’Dell) was a good one—lots of tears for us though, but so good.

We are so excited to try out your 2nd/3rd grade list and for some ideas from another mom who blogged about her mother daughter reading list. I didn’t realize I wasn’t the only one reading books with her daughter! It has been such a bonding experience for us and so empowering for my daughter. I’ve been trying to read female strength books and it seems to be having a posititive effect!”

Thanks to Traci for sending in the suggestions. I hadn’t thought about reading a book about Helen Keller then watching The Miracle Worker with Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke. There’s also the newer version with Patty Duke and Melissa Gilbert. I could only find Island of the Blue Dolphins in VHS, but there may be copies at the library too for anyone with VCR players.

Reading a book then watching the movie as a group is a great way to talk about key elements of a story. You can talk about the differences between the two, and whether the message of the book matches that of the movie. Moms and daughters can talk about whether they liked the book or movie better and say why. Comparing and contrasting two forms of the same story can also highlight the major themes. Here’s a list of books that can tie-in with a movie night.

The Book: Boy/Going Solo by Roald Dahl

Several movies have tie-ins: Mathilda, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches
All of these movies are good companions to these either Boy or Going Solo because discussion can center around themes from Roald Dahl’s life that are repeated in his books and the movies about them.

The Book: Ella Enchanted

Anne Hathaway is quite fetching as Ella, but there were major changes made to the story when it was adapted to the movie. Do those changes enhance the story?

The Book: Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

Discussion on environmental activism and the role kids play in that.

The Book: In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

This story about sisters resisting a Latin American dictator should be interesting for older girls to talk about.

The Book: Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Watching the movie after reading the book should be especially interesting as Boyce wrote the screen play as well as the book. Talk about why you think he made the changes he did.

The Book: The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot

Lots of differences to discuss between this book and the movie.

The Book: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Your biggest challenge may be deciding which version of the movie to watch.

The Book: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

This movie stays pretty true to the book except in one key issue.

The Book: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares

Remember, this book is recommended for ages 12 and up because of sexual situations.

The Book: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

This may be especially appropriate for girls who are on the verge of starting high school.

The Book: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Schools are starting to incorporate The Lightning Thief into studies of ancient Greece because of the Greek Mythology. Plus it’s fun to read.

Yesterday Catherine and I went to see The Secret Life of Bees with her book club. It was a school holiday and Madeleine joined us, since we had previously read the book with her book club too. We enjoyed the movie, and there were quite a few tears flowing during the show. We also had an interesting discussion comparing the movie and the book over ice cream afterward.

First I have to say we all liked the book hands-down better than the movie. The book is beautifully written, and it brings up issues of racism, familial love and acceptance of people for who they are. It’s not tidy, and by the end you know that the characters will go on trying to make sense of the times they live in and their reaction to them as well as to personal events in their own lives. There was lots of information about bee life that tied in as a wonderful metaphor to what the characters were experiencing.

While we liked the movie, we were very aware of things they changed from the book that made it flawed for us. For one thing, the movie seemed to add the bees as an afterthought, which seems strange. There were lots of scenes with August and Lily in bee clothing, but most of the bee talk seemed more informational about keeping bees and not metaphorical. Three other major differences between the book and the movie made up the bulk of our complaints about how the movie could have been better.

In the movie Zach ends up beaten up by white men for sneaking Lily, a white girl, into the colored section of a movie theater. This placed the blame on Lily and Zach for what came next. In the book, I was worried that something like that would happen because the two were so close, and I was glad when it didn’t. We all  thought it was much better for the story for Zach to end up in jail, suspected of assaulting a white man even though he had done nothing. It showed how people tend to see faces different than their own as all looking the same, hence stripping the identity from an ethnic group. If you can get in trouble because all black people look alike to white people, then your individual actions cannot be counted on to set you apart.

Also, in the movie, Our Lady of Chains loses part of her story, and part of her significance. In the book, she is depicted as being a carved ship’s masthead that probably started out as a representation of a white woman, but through her trials and tribulations the color of her wood turned black. One of the girls mentioned she was a great symbol to show that we are all the same inside, regardless of the color of our skin, and she’s a bridge to heal racial issues. In the movie, she was depicted as being originally carved as a black woman, so the symbolism is lost.

The ending of the book was also much more satisfying than the ending of the movie, although we all got the feeling it was intended to be just the opposite. I won’t detail the endings except to say that in the book it’s not tidy, which is more like real life and more satisfying somehow. The movie wraps it all up in a nice tidy package that trivializes what’s come before. It felt trite to many of us.

Regardless of noticing things we liked or disliked about the movie and the book, we all thought it was a great discussion for our mother-daughter book club.

My daughter and I hosted the meeting for her high-school mother daughter book club a few days ago. We only host once a year, and it’s always in January. We switched to a lighter schedule when all the girls entered high school and more activities started claiming their time. So we try to make the most of the one meeting at our house each year.

We opted for a book/movie combination of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape by Peter Hedges. It was a great choice. It was interesting to compare and contrast the two, since both the book and the screenplay were written by Hedges. Here are some of the points that came up during our discussion.

1. The movie is a lot more sympathetic to the characters than the book. The characters in the book are gritty and flawed and repulsive and totally engaging as well as entirely believable. Most of the characters in the movie are nicer, and the plot line is nicer to them. Particularly to mama and Ellen, the teenaged sister. The exception is Mrs. Carver, who seems more neglectful of her children in the movie than in the book.

2. The extra characters in the book help to round out the story. We missed the presence of Gilbert’s two older siblings, Melanie, the receptionist in Mr. Carver’s insurance office, and the never-seen-but-talked-about deceased second-grade teacher.

3. Becky seemed older in the movie, which both girls and moms saw as a plus. In the book she’s 16, and the girls especially thought it was “gross” that she wanted to be with a 24-year-old man. (What a relief!)

4. Both the book and the movie were wonderful for very different reasons. Some of us preferred the movie to the book, and some of us were just the opposite. But most of us liked them both.

The biggest problem I had was deciding what to serve, as the book’s descriptions of mama’s eating habits were not very appetizing. In the end I decided it didn’t really matter what I served. There is so much talk in the book about food, that I figured anything I picked would work. So I opted for spaghetti with meat sauce, bread with butter and green salad. Madeleine made chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is charming to read and to watch, and I highly recommend it for high-school-aged readers and their moms.

Here’s my official review of the book:

The characters in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape by Peter Hedges are gritty and flawed and repulsive and totally engaging as well as entirely believable. It’s a great study of a young man seeking meaning for his life and trying to decide when he can put his own needs before the needs of a very dysfunctional family.

Gilbert’s day-to-day life in small-town Iowa is mind-numbingly realistic, and you can understand both his frustrations at the life he’s living and the limitations that keep him living it. Gilbert feels trapped by a family that needs him, and there is so much truth that goes unspoken between him and his mother and  his sisters it’s almost painful to read. Over and over Gilbert has to decide between doing what he wants to do and doing what his family needs him to do.

Since Gilbert’s father hanged himself in the family’s basement, his mother has not left the house and has become morbidly obese. His teen-aged brother is mentally disabled, and it falls to Gilbert to help him with most of his personal care. Tension is always present, but as long as Gilbert doesn’t think too much about his situation or analyze his prospects for the future, life can go on as before.

When a girl who is very different from anyone else Gilbert knows arrives on the scene, he begins to question everything in his life, with consequences both heart wrenching and hopeful. This is a great book to read in a mother-daughter book club of girls in 11th grade up or an adult book club and then to watch the movie. Comparing and contrasting the two is very interesting, particularly since author Peter Hedges also wrote the screenplay.