READ THE BOOK FIRST

Encourage Kids to Read the Book
Before Seeing the Movie!

The movie Bridge to Terabithia premiers next week. Though the promotional advertising may lead one to think otherwise, many librarians at ALA's mid-winter meeting felt that the film, based on NCBLA's vice-president Katherine Paterson's Newbery Award winning novel of the same name, is not only wonderful, it is true to the heart and the soul of the book. Much of the credit for this goes to David Paterson, the gifted writer who wrote the screenplay. For a preview, read an informative review at: http://themovieboy.com/directlinks/07bridgetoterabithia.

Even though this visual interpretation is by all accounts highly successful, the NCBLA encourages parents to read the novel, Bridge to Terabithia, aloud to your children before seeing the movie. There is very little on television in the early evening that is appropriate or of interest to kids. Reading novels aloud, chapter by chapter before bedtime, is both relaxing and enjoyable for the entire family. When your children experience a story first in book form, they use their minds, their imaginations, to create their own pictures of characters, settings, and action. Seeing a movie before reading the book robs your child of that incredible opportunity because once your child sees the film, images supplied by the director of the movie will be burned into his or her brain.

So read Bridge to Terabithia aloud together, as a family, before you see the movie. It is an experience that you and your children will remember and cherish forever.