To Kill a Mockingbird screens free at the Encinitas Library on March 22. (Universal)
All five of the films competing for Best Adapted Screenplay at last month's Oscars were based on books, including There Will Be Blood , which used Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil! as source material. Three of the top ten grossing films from last year were also based on novels: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Bourne Ultimatum, and I am Legend . So it pays to read a good book in Hollywood. But films can also provide good companion pieces to literature, that's why two local libraries have designed reading programs with a film component.
The Encinitas Library , which just reopened last month after being closed for four years, will screen To Kill a Mockingbird on March 22 in conjunction with its month-long National Endowment for the Arts Sponsored Big Read of Harper Lee's award-winning novel. Then on March 30, the San Diego Central Library (SDCL) will hold the first of three film events set up in conjunction with the year-long One Book One San Diego project. Their book is Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. SDCL's first companion film is Majid Majidi's Children of Heaven.
