Yet Another Comparison of the Movie to the Book, with Minor Spoilers

Tonight's movie was My Side of the Mountain. In pointing out differences from the book I will try to avoid major spoilers here but there are some minor ones. The first time I read the book was when my sixth grade teacher read it to us, and the second time was recently. Several boys in the class had seen the movie and kept exclaiming, "He didn't do that in the movie!" but soon became engrossed in the story and stopped making remarks. This was a very good attempt at filming this book and they did a halfway decent job, but only halfway. "Newbery" is spelled wrong in the opening credits--they put two letters "r" in it rather than the correct number of one. One nice touch was that in the library scene, a man is reading Misty of Chincoteague, like My Side of the Mountain a Newbery Honor book, and Newbery gold medalist Island of the Blue Dolphins is on the table nearby. The film was made in, and set in, Canada, rather than the Catskill Mountains of New York State. Sam is merely seeking a place to be and remain undiscovered, not going to family owned land as in the book. Sam is 12, not 13 as in the book. Minor difference as he was gone for months and would presumably turn 13 during that time. He has at least two younger sisters. In the book he had eight siblings. In the movie he sneaks off leaving a note while in the book his father kind of dares him to go out on his own never thinking Sam will actually leave, or stay away for any length of time. Sam has the raccoon from the beginning rather than befriending it after arriving on the mountain, and it is named Gus, not Jesse Coon James. As in the book, he captures and trains his falcon, Frightful. This part of the movie was particularly well done. He meets the library lady and the man Bando. The film is fine about halfway through and then seriously digresses from the book. A sudden and terrible devastating tragedy occurs which is ABSOLUTELY NOT in the book and may be extremely upsetting to young viewers. This is the only caution I would make about this G-rated movie although Sam does run away and befriend strangers of which parents may not approve. The tragedy is the most important difference, but another glaring difference is that Bando reappears and helps Sam dig out when he is snowed in, rather than Sam rejoicing in doing this himself which is how the book opens. The library lady also visits Sam at his mountain home which never happens in the book, and Sam ends his sojourn at a much earlier point than in the book. So like I say, a halfway decent adaptation of the book but not entirely.