A lot of parents want their kids to read the book then watch the movie. But why? If you read the book, you have an image in your head of what the character looks like, what their voices sound like, and what the scene looks like, and usually it is pretty good. But when you watch the movie, all those images get shattered.

When you watch a movie, you start thinking that the characters in the book actually look like the actors that are in the movie. The movie producers use famous people to act out the characters in the book. For example, in the book Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Percy is supposed to “look” like a 12 year old who doesn’t know what he is doing and would lose any fight he got into. But in the movie, Percy looks sort of athletic, and is 16 years old. So when you the reading a book, you see him as a sort of weakling, but when you see the movie, that whole mental image gets shattered.

Another thing is when you read a book, there may be parts of the book that you really like that you would like at see on the TV screen. But then, when the movie finally comes out, the part you like isn’t even filmed! Like in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, there was one part that always made me laugh. It was the part when the giant turns from stone to a living thing, and walks around looking for “the little witch that was running around on the ground”. I really wanted to see that part in the movie, but when the movie finally came out, that part of the book was not even in the movie, and you don’t even see the giant change back to a living thing at all. I bet that this has happened to a lot of people and that they were all disappointed.

Writing a book is a lot easier than making a movie. With a book you can describe places that come out of your imagination, which could never become “reality” no matter how hard Hollywood tries. For example, Dragon’s in our Midst, how are you supposed to make 14 dragons, a girl with dragon wings and a boy who can breathe fire look real inside of a movie? In some movies they can’t even make swords look real, not to mention a girl with dragon wings. It is definitely possible, but it’s easier to describe it.

But movies can also be better than a book. With a movie, you don’t have to read anything, you can watch a movie while doing homework if you wanted to. But with a book, the only thing you can do is read, you can’t read a book and do homework at the same time, that’s impossible. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t read a book just because I had to actually read it, but when you’re reading a book, all you can do is read the book.

But, with a book, you can bring it anywhere you want, and stop whenever you like and later, just start reading exactly where you stopped. But with a movie, you kind of have to watch it at home, and you have to remember when you stopped in order to start again.

One thing that I don’t like about movies is that people only make movies around 3-4 hours long because they are afraid that people won’t watch it if it’s too long, which means they have to cut a lot of parts out and then put some more parts in to let it make sense. But with a book, it can be as long as the author wants it to be, as long as it all makes sense. I’ve seen people who read books that are over 600 pages long and not mind a bit, but when a 3 hour movies comes, they just can’t concentrate that long.

These are all the main differences that I can think of, and most of them are in favor of the book. So I conclude that books are better than the movie.