3 books - 3 movies

The first book I read and watched the movie is The Devil's Arithmetic. The book is a historical, but science fiction novel chronicling the adventures of a young girl, Hannah, in modern-day New York City. At her Jewish family's seder meal, she is transported through time and ultimately finds herself fighting for her life in a concentration camp in Nazi Poland. The realistic details of the camp and the related plot developments are both astounding and disturbing. Eventually, Hannah grows to appreciate her Jewish heritage and sees her immigrant relatives in a new light.

The movie is produced by Dustin Hoffman and is has some different artistic interpretations from the book. Notable differences include the following:

• in the book, Hannah become Chaya when she goes back in time; in the movie her name remains Hannah throughout
• in the book, the Nazi soldiers take Chaya and her family away before Schmuel and Fayge can get married; in the movie, the soldiers come as they are completing their vows
• in the book, Schmuel and the other men who tried to escape were shot execution style by the entrance to the cave; in the movie, they were hung in front of the rest of the camp
• in the book, Rivka is a friend that Chaya meets in the concentration camp; in the movie, she is her cousin who lives in the house to where Hannah is transported

Despite some artistic licenses taken by the producers, the acting in this movie is fabulous and the story is still communicated with accuracy and intensity.

The next book I have read and watched the movie is The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. In this book, four friends share a special ritual and decide that while they are spending the summer apart from each other, they will send a single pair of jeans to each other around the world to keep them connected. These magical jeans, which fit each girl perfectly regardless of size, are witness to family struggles, soccer camp, the Greek Isles and a tragic ending for a young girl with leukemia.

I loved this book and I liked the movie even more. I am a big advocate for the fact that a literary experience is richer than a cinematic experience. However, in this particular story, I think bringing it to life on the movie screen clarified some of the magical aspects and made more vivid the "movie" I played in my mind.

The movie has several popular young actresses and is very well-done. I especially was entranced by the scenery of Greece in this movie. I had never before seen the country as the cinematography in this film illustrates it. I now have a burning desire to visit.

Some notable differences between the book and the movie are as follows:

• Libby's guinea pig is omitted from the movie. I think this is significant because Libby loses a friend at just about the same time as her guinea pig dies.
• Libby learns of her friend's death from the mother's phone call to her in the book. In the movie, her friend's mother speaks with Libby's mother and the scene just shows Libby crying in her bed.
• One addition that the movie made was the video that is left by Libby's friend showing her when she wants to wear the magic jeans, but they do not fit her perfectly. The video includes a poignant commentary on the importance of friendship.

I think this movie is such a slight deviation from the book and I sincerly loved them both. I have loved this entire series and can say that the subsequent movie(s) in the series have not been as true to the novels as the first one. Like most readers, I want to see the movie come alive on the screen, not change on the screen.

Last, but not least, is Where the Red Fern Grows. Though this touching story is still shared sensitively through the movie, the depth of emotions that are communicated through the narrator in the book are simply not possible to emulate on screen. One difference is that the young boy's hair is red in the book and blond in the movie. In the book, Billy only has sisters and in the movie he has a little brother. Other than that, the movie omits several seemingly important or at least entertaining portions of the story. When Billy visits Telequah, he encounters several challenges. The details of this trip are not chronicled in the movie as much as the reader wants. Like many other books that have a reader's intense emotional involvement, this movie simply does not have time to go into so much background. The reader spends much of the movie trying to figure out how much of the story was skipped and what is coming next.

I still love this book and this movie, but the small differences accumulate to offer a watered-down version of this love story between a boy and his two dogs, and the dogs with each other.