"Book to Movie Fantasy Reading Club ~ This fall, I started the Book-to-Movie Fantasy Reading Club. When I went to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last summer, the theater showed previews of The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising and The Golden Compass and I knew from visiting the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art that there were big plans for The Spiderwick Chronicles. I had learned from our director that we had increased circulation in all material types in our library with the exception of young adult. In our library as in many, that collection represents kids ages 9 to 13. Thus was born the Book-to-Movie Fantasy Reading Club, geared for exactly that group. For the Susan Cooper and Philip Pullman books, I actually purchased paperbacks enough for a group of 10, and asked our Friends group to subsidize movie tickets. The Greenfield Garden Cinemas are across the street from our library, and owner George Gohl was very happy to cordon off a section of the theater on opening night of each movie for our discussion group. We distribute books a month before the film opens; hold a book discussion on the Monday night of the opening week; go to the opening as a group; and meet after the film to talk about the book and the movie. Our plans for Spiderwick are more elaborate and include a tour of the "Spiderwick: from Page to Screen" exhibit. We have borrowed copies of the five books from other libraries (hooray for the network!) so that ten kids can read all the books and come to five discussion meetings, one for each title. Future titles include Prince Caspian in May and Inkheart when that release date is announced. I highly recommend doing this. It has helped me bond with this age group more than ever and it's a great way to show kids how Hollywood changes books, for good or ill, to adapt them to film. "~ Kay Lyons, Children's Librarian, Greenfield Public Library, Greenfield
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