The Polar Express

All Aboard! : A Comparison and Contrast of The Polar Express Book and Movie The Polar Express is a classic children’s Christmas story written by acclaimed author Chris Von Allsburg. Chris Von Allsburg writes and illustrates all of his books and won the Caldecott medal for The Polar Express. The Polar Express is a Christmas story of getting a kid to believe in Santa. The boy climbs aboard a train to go to the North Pole to see Santa. He is the one chosen to receive the first gift of Christmas, which was a silver bell off of the reindeers. He cannot hear it at first, but then he finally lets himself believe in Santa and can hear the bell for the rest of his life. The movie The Polar Express is the only adaptation that has been made from the book. The movie follows the storyline of the book. However, the book depicts that the story and Santa are real, while the movie opens up the possibility that it was all a dream, therefore making children question if Santa is real or not. There is a good amount of similarities between the book and the movie. A big similarity was the main boy getting to receive the first present in both the book and movie. The present was the silver bell from a reindeer. At first he could not hear the bells, but in the book and the movie he eventually started to hear them when he finally started to believe. Another similarity they share is the boy losing the bell. He ripped his robe in the beginning of the movie and book. Sometime before he got back on the train to go back home, it fell out of his pocket. This leads into the similarity that the boy on Christmas day gets the bell back by Santa placing it underneath their tree. When the boy picks up the bell him and his sister are the only ones that can hear it ring. But as he gets older and so does his sister, she starts not to hear it anymore. He hears the bell ring for the rest of his life. This also is a similarity that the book and movie share. These are the main similarities between the book