Book to Movie Club at Don Ross Middle School Library

The Book to Movie Club has been a Don Ross tradition for over a decade. Previous Don Ross teacher-librarian Nicole Hoskin ran the club back in the days when Don Ross was a grade 8-10 school. As our school population migrated to grade 7-9, and more students started to fill our building, we are fortunate to have an open and accessible school library that is bustling with readers! The past couple of years have seen a marked increase in Book to Movie Club participation, with our last section drawing over 120 students.

The Book to Movie Club encourages students to read for pleasure. Students who are interested in joining the extracurricular club vote on a selection of book-to-movie adaptations. The selection of nominees are generally suggestions collected from the students, but also a fair bit of research goes into selecting the titles to ensure a wide variety of genres, perspectives, and reading levels are presented. Once the students vote on the selection, we run with the 2 most popular choices. Typically, the books range in content/reading level so there are access points for anyone interested in joining! This fall, we introduced a graphic novel inspired by the Japanese manga All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka and watched the movie adaptation Edge of Tomorrow. Manga is a popular reading choice by many of our students so it was an easy entry for reluctant readers. The graphic novel was a very interesting read from a cultural perspective since societal norms in Japan are quite different from ours, especially with respect to how female characters are represented. It generated some robust conversations!

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak was the second most popular title, so we ran the two clubs simultaneously. This 594-page book, originally intended for an adult audience, is at the other end of the reading spectrum! It was pretty impressive to hear the students talking about pushing through the hard parts and persevering with their reading. During our lunchtime meetings, we filled in some context for those not familiar with Nazi Germany and The Holocaust. It was the perfect book to read coming up to Remembrance Day and gave us lots of perspective on why we need to stop, reflect, and be grateful. We arranged the movie viewing at the Maury Young Arts Centre up at Whistler, where we could bring our own snacks and sob our eyes out unabashedly. There wasn’t a dry eye in the theatre!

At the end of both viewings, there is a book-to-movie comparison Kahoot and give prizes to the top podium winners. The Don Ross PAC is instrumental in keeping this club going and we are so appreciative of their financial support.

The next Book to Movie Club section starts after winter break, and the final one of the school year will happen after Spring Break.

Sharing a common reading experience with a group of keen students brings so much joy to the life of a middle school librarian! Thank you to all the students who participate in this club.