Children's Films Based on Popular Books for Kids

Favorite Literary Characters Get New Life in Children’s Movies

Mar 30, 2009

From Mary Poppins to The Wizard of Oz, children's books have been transformed into children's classic movies for years. But can the children's films match the books?

It’s a rule of thumb that children’s films based on books for kids are seldom as good as the original stories. In all fairness, it’s a tall order for any movie to match the scenes and characters that exist within a good imagination.

Every now and then though, a children’s film emerges that provides its own enjoyable spin on a children’s book. And while these children’s films might never be better than or even as good as the great books for kids they’re based on, they can earn themselves a top spot in the best films to rent for kids.

Here are two such children’s films that have become genuine children’s classic movies.

Originally a book series by P.L. Travers, Mary Poppins began its journey to the silver screen when Walt Disney saw a Mary Poppins book lying by his daughter’s bedside and was encouraged by her to buy the movie rights. While it took Disney years to do this, in the end the timing proved ideal since he was able to get Broadway stage actress Julie Andrews to play Mary Poppins.

The basic elements of Travers’ story are retained – neglected children Jane and Michael drive every nanny away until super nanny Mary Poppins shows up with her magic umbrella and carpet bag. Through a mixture of strictness and magic, Mary takes the kids on adventures that teach them better manners – and helps their stuffy father take an interest in his children’s upbringing.

Andrews’ Mary Poppins is a great authority figure, although not as acerbic as Travers’ character, and Dick Van Dyke is fun to watch as Bert the Chimney Sweep. But it’s the songs by Richard and Robert Sherman (particularly Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, a song based on a word the Sherman brothers heard as kids) and choreography by Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood that make this film one of the most popular children's films to rent, showing how children's classic movies can add elements even great books for kids can't convey in words.

One of the rare children’s classic movies that’s become better known than the book it was based on, The Wizard of Oz began as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the first book in L. Frank Baum’s popular Oz book series.

Notably, MGM’s film was not the first translation of Oz to the screen. In the early 1900s, Baum created short movies he called “Fairylogues” based on scenes from his Oz books, and later produced feature-length Oz movies including the 1914 silent movie The Patchwork Girl of Oz (which has since become one of the Oz cult classic movies for fans). In 1925, a silent version of The Wizard of Oz also debuted, starring Oliver Hardy (from Laurel and Hardy) as the Tin Woodman.

But it is the MGM version of The Wizard of Oz that’s considered a classic, thanks to memorable performances like Judy Garland singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and Margaret Hamilton’s depiction of the Wicked Witch of the West. Even today, audiences love watching Dorothy’s adventures with the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion as she tries to find a way back to Kansas.

Curiously though, many scenes audiences take for granted today upset many fans of the Oz books when the movie debuted – particularly the ending where Oz became Dorothy’s dream (in the books, Oz is a real place Dorothy and other children travel to). Other details, such as the ruby or silver color of Dorothy’s slippers, were also changed, leading to debates among Oz fans over whether the story found in the book or Wizard of Oz videos is better.

In the end though, such debates are pointless. While Mary Poppins and The Wizard of Oz pay homage to the books they came from, neither one limits itself to the original stories either. Although this can result in disappointing films, in these cases, the moviemakers created stories that have become classics in their own right. As audiences we should always appreciate (and read) the original children’s books, but that shouldn’t prevent us from enjoying new interpretations of favorite stories either.

Eyles, Allen. The World of Oz: A Fantastic Expedition Over the Rainbow. Tucson: HP Books, 1985.

Grant, John. Encyclopedia of Walt Disney’s Animated Characters. New York: Hyperion, 1993.

The copyright of the article Children's Films Based on Popular Books for Kids in Children’s TV is owned by Michael Jung. Permission to republish Children's Films Based on Popular Books for Kids in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.