Revue

"No, But I Saw the Movie ... The Challenges of Adapting Children's Books to Film" is the title of last night's panel, sponsored by PEN New England and featuring Lois Lowry, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, and Natalie Babbitt.

Notes on the evening:

--Seeing some of my favorite all-time writers in all their casual glory, turned me into a starstruck 10-year-old. I mean, Babbitt is helping Naylor remove her jacket! How human! How kind! How profoundly talented these women are!

--Lowry moderated, plugging in her insights and humor.

--Much was made of the difference between a literal adaptation and a faithful one.

--Babbitt loathes the 2002 adaptation of Tuck Everlasting ... for a lot of reasons that, it seems, the greater public agrees with. It lasted only two weeks in theaters.

--At the book signing, it was discovered that all available copies of Tuck Everlasting feature the film cover. For everyone who didn't mind, Babbitt drew inky mustaches on the faces of the two fresh-faced stars before signing her name. She wafted her hand to dry the ink.

--I can't believe Lowry lives just across the river from me. I think we're destined to be pals.

--Babbitt: "It's amazing to me how many people forget what it's like to be a child." She passionately defended the intelligence and uniqueness of children, and had biting remarks for those who dare to condescend to them (i.e. the Tuck Everlasting film crew).

--Naylor thinks the film of Shiloh has both highs and lows. A high: the music, the natural landscape (though filmed in California, not West Virginia). Lows: Marty's blow-dried hair, an over-active ending, and of the house Marty's family lives in -- which in the book, is a little four-room. Naylor said, "It confirmed my belief that Hollywood has no understanding whatsoever of poverty." In the film, Marty's house is freshly-painted with a wrap-around porch, a landscaped garden, shutters pasted up for decor.

--The audience: a loving crowd of teachers, kids, longtime charmed fans, librarians, and parents. 

--Naylor's Alice books -- which I love -- are coming to the screen soon. Well, one of them is anyway. She's anxious because the Alice books "are a lot easier to turn into a sitcom" than Shiloh is.

--Naylor didn't like the first version of the Alice screenplay and wrote a 14-page-letter to the director (and also talked to him for an hour and a half), explaining her point-of-view and offering concrete alternatives -- different scenes to use, for example.

--Next year, the adaptation of Charlotte's Web is coming out ... and the clip we saw looks great. The man on the adapting side of adaptations -- a former third-grade teacher who also helped create last year's The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe -- oozed sincerity.

--This same guy noted the importance of how Lewis, in the first line of his most famous book, wrote of the children leaving London during the air raids. The book was published five years after the war ended, and the impact this sentence had, located in a children's book, was considerable. It seems that Lewis was, like Babbitt, was committed to the idea of fantasy as a portal to reality, in all its messiness and horror and honesty.

Comments

[Amy]

So jealous I'm drooling!! Lucky girl :)