There was a short series of books about the wild ponies on Chincoteague and how they had to swim across the bay to.....Assateague, I think? I haven't thought of these books in years, so I'm having a hard time remembering...

I loved em at the time though.

I read those all as a kid. Misty was made into a movie but I don't remember if it was any good.

I was a branch librarian in CA before we moved and my branch served mostly child patrons from the grade school across the street, so we had a large collection of Young Adult and children's books.

Holes by Louis Sachar was a great book and made a wonderful movie. The major change between book~movie, was the main character in the book was overweight, and in the movie, he was not...though he was "soft". Great supporting cast, too.

Holes is a fave movie of mine and my husband's. There is a line a character repeats, saying "I can fix that..." ...and when I'm feeling down, that is what my hubby says to me.

I know, syrupy sweet, I'll move on...
hh

Nice mention! Holes worked both ways.

Oh yeah! Thanks Griff.

Misty of Chincoteague

Were the books any good? I remember thinking so at the time.

I liked them a lot. My kids like them as well. We actually drove down to see the ponies.

We went to Chincoteague every summer for the beach when I was a wee lad.

I wish I could let you guys hang out with movie executives for a while so you could get an idea of just how amazingly stupid 99.999% of them are.
The thing is that no matter how good the original story is they are incapable of fucking with it because they believe that by doing so they are making it "better"... the more they fuck with it, the "better" it is.
It never occurs to them that the reason that they are making it is that the original work has a fan base because it is good the way that it is... again, they are monumental idiots. That is all.

Agree on Holes - read the book first, avoided the film until my parents decided to watch it last week. As a guest in their house I kept my lips zipped shut about the differences and did enjoy it.

Of course I agree with that too. But I wonder sometimes if my high ideals of book-to-film come from the author's descriptions (cruel yet attractive, powerful presence, magical aura) and the subtleties available when you can read character's thoughts.

Back when MTV started out, I was about the only one in my high school class who was not impressed. My thinking was that it was "prefabricated imagination." I figured whatever images I came up with during a certain song were my own, and if I saw a video, to have to see their interpreted images from then on...it just seemed wrong.

Which, in some ways, reflects how I feel about books to movies. Movies cannot replace books, but yet I've seen so many great movies based on great books. To Kill A Mockingbird comes to mind first.

So I guess it can work both ways.

Ha! That movie just arrived from netflix last night!

A most annoying rip off was the film version of Ludlum's Bourne Identity. I'm getting irritated right now just thinking of it. It isn't as if the story was high art but why throw away a good storyline?

YES! :borg:

Internet killed the video star
 

http://www.tsl.pomona.edu/?page=life...=1622&issue=57

(Sorry, don't know how to turn the link into other words.)

The books were fantastic. Misty of Chincoteague, Stormy Misty's Foal, and Sea Star Orphan of Chincoteague. I generally loved Marguerite Henry's books ... lots of good horse lore in there. The one about the Godolphin Arabian, King of the Wind, is good, so was Gaudenzia, Pride of the Palio. And Born to Trot. And About Horses. Treasure trove for horse crazy kids. The stories were always about more than the horses too ... like Santo Domingo: The Medicine Hat Stallion

I have never seen the movie about Misty, it hasn't been on television in a very long while. Seems to be available through Netflix

The book series I remember most from my childhood is Freddy the Pig, which was actually a generation old when I discovered them. These books were the most incredible blend of semi-adult adventure plots with characters a child could identify with. I read every one which was available in our majestic Victorian hometown library with wooden floors and high windows back in North Carolina of the 1950s. In those days, libraries were solemn and silent places, full of endless stacks of books which could open any place and time in the world to you and encourage you to use your imagination.

As far as I know, none of these books (26 in all according to the Freddy the Pig website) were made into movies. But these classics still have a rabid following even today, a time when children do not learn to read and use their imaginations, and more's the pity.

http://www.freddythepig.org/whowas.html