This course examines the interpretive structures of American children's movies that are based on children's literature with a focus on how themes, storytelling, and characters are translated from one medium to another. Discussions will center on a variety of contemporary issues, including how literal fidelity relates to creative license (i.e., adaptation versus translation); how the technical differences between film and literature impose directorial choices; how evolving understandings of race, gender, ethnicity and age affect filmic interpretation and presentation; and whether a book's theme or core narrative can be divided from the vast body of cultural, ideological and political influences that constitute its identity. While the primary focus of the course will fall on the process of inter-media translation, significant attention will be paid to questions of intra-generic translation as well: To what extent do the conventions of the children's film dictate a director's interpretive decisions? How do successful children's films of the past, whether recent hits or old classics, impose upon the presentation of new works? What, if any, are the generic paradigms to which new movies must conform? Finally, Children's Literature Goes To The Movies will ask students to decide whether knowledge of the original book enriches the experience of going to the movies (and if the movie enriches one's understanding of the original book), or whether movie and book are essentially separate, and knowledge of one does not meaningfully translate into a deeper knowledge or a richer experience of the other. Films we will study will include: The Little Mermaid , Snow White, Cinderella, Aladdin, Pinocchio, I Am the Cheese, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Matilda, Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, The Fellowship of the Ring, and several versions of Little Women. Genres that we will consider in relationship to these films will include: the bildungsroman, the fairy tale, enchanted realism, and the quest.