No! Don't make that book into a movie yet!

Scrolling through my twitter feed this morning, I saw a casting call for Seven and Khalil for the film adaptation of The Hate U Give.

Ugh.

Not even a year in print, this story will be viewed by the vast majority of my students before they've created voices for the characters, visualized the scenes, flipped back to re-read a section, or anticipated what would happen in the next chapter. What's more, many will watch it superficially--kinda understanding the plot but focused only on certain pieces, missing the complexity of characters, Thomas's nuanced plot, and Starr's compelling narration of current racial tension in our nation. "I already watched it," they'll tell me.  "I know what happens, so I don't need to read it."

This rush to put YA lit on the screen frustrates me; it's as though we're robbing future potential readers of experiencing the story come alive from their book. One of my favorite reads this spring was a student-recommended Everything, Everything. I ordered two copies for my library, then learned its movie had just been released--big plot twist 4/5 of the way through, no longer a surprise for future readers.

I know it's not a new thing: Twilight by Stephanie Meyer was published in 2005 with the movie following in 2008; Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games was released in 2008, with the film version in 20011. Lots of kids, teens, and adults were turned on to reading the series from watching the first movie. I didn't start reading Harry Potter to my boys until Alex had already seen the first two movies. What's more, I probably never would have read (or seen) anything from the Twilight saga in book or on screen if I hadn't looked up from grading vocab quizzes while subbing for a Spanish V class as the Cullens raced back to hide Bella after the bad vamps caught them playing baseball. (All but five of the Spanish students were on a field trip, and I suspect the movie was supposed to be playing in Spanish with subtitles.) The clip piqued my interest enough to ask my student aide about it; she lent me her copy of the book. And so it went.

So why am I all bent out of shape about print-to-film now?

Reason number one, hands down, is the classroom library. Still only available in hardcover, #1 on the YA Fiction Best Seller list, The Hate U Give was a costly title to add. Plus, at 440 pages, kids will need some stamina to push through to finish. I suspect a few more who do pick up the book after they've seen the movie will skim through some of the latter half of the book--I'd argue the half that requires the most attentive reading to glean all the insights that Thomas provides about the history of the racial conflicts in our society. There's a conversation between Starr, her brother, and her boyfriend as the novel approaches the climax--rioting in her neighborhood--a "white people are like this"/"black folks do this" conversation among teens (Starr and her brother are black; boyfriend is white)--and white boyfriend asks a question that makes the other two stop. It's an off-limits, offensive, 'racist' question to them. On the surface. Then Starr considers the conversation they'd been having, and how in the context of that conversation, boyfriend's question was pretty logical from his vantage point; so she answers the question, following up with an explanation of how what he'd asked would be construed by her and brother as offensive. My suspicion is that the movie version will amp up that riot, and that while conversation might include the dialogue, close-ups of Starr's expression and her changing tone of voice can't replace the author's paragraphs of narration conveying Starr's thinking.



Having a classroom library with gripping, relevant, high-interest texts is key to its success. In her awesome recent post, Anne cautions against confusing pop fiction with meaty literature in our haste to entertain the children, arguing that the 'classics' still belong in our English curriculum and we ought not be so hasty in casting off a title because someone said it's difficult of boring. As we've discussed often, almost all of the best current YA lit includes allusions to those classics; those connections are lost if kids have never been exposed to them.

The Hate U Give is an excellent example of a mentor text that can spark discussions and facilitate writing instruction. As meaty literature goes, it's got a lot of protein. (A lot of f-bombs, too.) It's one of those books a kid graduates to, challenges themselves with. [Check it out: plural pronoun for 'kid'. I'm unlearning/relearning. Growth. Woot.] I believe we're taking something away from that achievement by showing them what happens before we let them experience it in their mind's eye themselves. Sure, this movie will generate many of the same discussion points as the novel, but when I hark back to Louise Rosenblatt's Reader, Text, Response, I see so many passages in THUG where readers will bring their own experiences to bear as they create their own meanings. What powerful conversations could stem from them! The viewer of the film version will have a more reactionary response--meaningful still, yes. But I'd argue, probably less so.

But Gretchen, you say, To Kill A Mockingbird was made into a movie in 1962, just two years after it was published. We still have kids read that. Yeah, you got me there. The difference for me, I guess, is my desire for students to lose themselves in their independent books--following their characters and turning pages past their bedtime to see what happens next. While it is a part of what we do in teaching required texts, building their reading minds is a chief purpose of independent reading. I'm a little deflated that, for some of my kids, their experience with these characters and this story will be framed by a director's take of the words on the page rather than their own.

Who knows? Maybe I will love this movie. Maybe it will lend itself to an awesome book chat discussion and draw in more readers. I'll hope for that.