My four-year-old son is obsessed with the book, and has been psyched up to see the movie ever since the preview first aired during “Spongebob Squarepants”. We made a huge production of seeing the movie, with a special faerie cake and a trip to an old theater in a town thirty minutes away. Needless to say, our expectations were a bit high. This was my son’s first experience with reading the book THEN watching the movie, and he was really disappointed about missing out on some of his favorite characters. Where were the dwarves? The elves? The knocker? It seems as if they could’ve included quite a few more magical creatures without screwing up the movie.
And also, it’s hard explaining to your child that, no, in the real world you should never stab your father just because you think he might literally be an ogre.

I haven’t read the books, but it really made me want to pick them up. The story was more sophisticated than I expected, and I can’t wait to read the actual text.