Recently the movie Mr. Popper's Penguins came out. I noticed that it was based off of a book. Which just happened to be a children's book. I was pretty excited. So I checked the book out from the library and read it. The book was cute. Slightly humorous and a good short read. I thought that the characters were very flat but that Mr. Popper was round enough that everyone else didn't really matter.The storyline had a very quick resolution which, in my opinion, is good for children's literature. There was also a good theme of families working together to make things better.
After I finished the book I went to see the movie, as planned. The movie was pretty good but the only similarity I could see between the movie and the book was the name of the main characters: Mr. Popper, Billy, and Janie. "Mrs. Popper" was not called Mrs. Popper because she and Mr. Popper were divorced in the movie so she now had the name of "Amanda". Mr. Popper in the book starts out as a poor man but with a successful seasonal business of house painting. In the movie Mr. Popper is a sneaky businessman who has everything he could ever want.
While I was driving home from the movie I was wondering "Why would the producers of the film make a film 'based off a book' when the only similarities are the title and the main character's name?" All I could think of was they thought that the modern audience wouldn't be able to connect with it better, or they had a really small budget (in the case of the penguins). But Mr. Popper's penguins was a caldecott honor book, why couldn't they stick to the original innocent story line? Once again there is a disconnect between the two media groups.
Like I said before though, they were both good. I just have always wondered about that disconnect and Mr. Popper's Penguins resparked that question.
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