The Giver: Novel and Movie Comparison

While watching a movie based on a book I have found it is beneficial for students to critically view the movie.  This resource includes a Google doc (and PDF as a print resource) to help your students not only compare and contrast the movie with the book, but also infer why the director and writers changed the novel so much.

In Lois Lowry’s Newbery Acceptance Speech she implied The Giver would never be made into a movie.  Two decades later it was adapted for a movie, though. Some of the techniques used in the book to create tension and to hide the secrets of the community, like discussing colors as hues, just don’t work in a movie format.  Because of this, the movie needed to be changed drastically to work. 

Hopefully your students will enjoy the challenge of playing the part of the director and using inference to explain why so many changes were made while creating the movie.