book to film – The Shades

The Shades by Betsy Brock

WHAT IS IT

A fun children’s book about a boy who goes to visit some distant relative living in a great mansion with a rich history. Upon entering the garden and instantly going for a swim in a giant dolphin fountain, he discovers that the water that falls from the dolphin’s mouth onto one’s eyes enables you to see these shade people … fantastical people created by the shadows of everybody who enters the garden. Of course, nowadays, it’s rare for a new shadow person to be created, the old ones just sort of squish and stretch themselves to fit whatever person they happen to be shadowing. Our young boy gets to know the group of shadows, who have gathered together into a sort of familial unit and call themselves the Shades, and their life there in the garden. And as the plot conflict – an evil man wants to take the dolphin statue and have it replaced with this statue of a woman, that for some reason is evil. The young boy must stop this from happening, mostly on his own of course, since his new friends are insubstantial and therefore slightly less than helpful.

WHY IT WOULD KICK ASS ON THE BIG SCREEN

What little kid wouldn’t love this movie? For that matter, what older kid wouldn’t secretly love this movie while outwardly displaying indifference? It’s just a simple, fun kid’s movie with just the right level of fantasy. Not so much that the kids don’t even buy it, but enough that with a little childish acceptance (of course there are shadow people living in the garden, of course the dolphin fountain is magic) the movie would be true and simple fun.

WHY IT’LL NEVER SEE THE INSIDE OF A THEATER

Yet another case of “nobody’s ever heard of this thing.” I mean, you can’t even find a copy of this book to buy online. I was searching for just a picture of the book cover to put here and I couldn’t even find that. The almighty Google doesn’t seem to have ever even heard of this Betsy Brock character, let alone her little book The Shades.