The Polar Express

I may be one of the only people who has never seen The Polar Express or read the book. I generally prefer original stories in books to movie adaptations so I started out by reading the book.

I really loved the simplicity of this story. The book makes its point (don't stop believing), but it doesn't dwell on it. This is a quick read, even for elementary students. I can imagine this book being a great bedtime story for my son, who will be born very soon!

As for the movie, I enjoyed it, but I felt like the story lost much of its simplicity in the adaptation. Several subplots were added, I guess to keep the movie interesting. I think I would have enjoyed it more had the writers stuck to the original story, even if it would have made the movie shorter. That being said, I'll talk about the positives. The animation is gorgeous. If you haven't seen this movie, I recommend it for the animation quality alone. I watched one scene over and over because I couldn't believe computer animation could look so realistic. I liked the general idea of the movie as well. The original moral was still intact, but the new characters resolved their conflicts in a way that made you happy for them as well. One final note on the movie - I thought the songs were a little bizarre and out of place, but I think children would probably enjoy them.

It's pretty obvious that I vastly prefer the book to the movie. The book forces readers to use their imagination while the movie spoon feeds the imagery to you. As I said before, I really appreciate the book's simple and powerful message and I feel like that simple message gets lost just a little bit in the movie.