Here you’ll find films that teach or show the importance of kindness, and those that inspire empathy and compassion.
- The Glass Castle Book Common Sense Media
- The Glass Castle Book Common Sense Media
- The Glass Castle Common Sense Media
- The Glass Castle Parents
- I Tonya Common Sense Media
Common Sense Media Recommendation: Suitable for ages 15 and over age 15+. The Glass Castle. The Glass Castle; Time Share. Time Share; The Catcher Was a Spy. The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls begins her memoir with a scene from adulthood. While in a cab in New York City, Jeannette looks out the window and sees her mother dumpster diving. She ducks down in her seat to avoid being recognized, but later invites her mother to lunch to talk about how she can help. The Umuofia and other tribes pray to their ancestors. They believe in spirits and omens and perform many rituals. Surrounding tribes fear the Umuofia because of their powerful medicine men and priests, as the tribe has demonstrated success in war and magic.
8 Hollywood Films That Teach Us Kindness(not all are suitable for children)
Recommended by Jeremy Chew, Youth Ki Awaaz
Pay it Forward
Lord of the Rings Trilogy
I am Sam
The Amazing Spiderman 2
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
12 Years a Slave
American History X
Life of Pi
5 films for families that show the importance of kindness
Recommended by Caresa Alexander Randall, Deseret News
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Home
Movies that Inspire Compassion
Recommended by Common Sense Media
The Glass Castle Book Common Sense Media
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown
Spookley the Square Pumpkin
Cinderella
My Neighbor Totoro
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Dear Dumb Diary
Despicable Me
FernGully: The Last Rainforest
An American Girl Story – Melody, 1963: Love has to Win
Batkid Begins
Dolphin Tale
The Indian in the Cupboard
A Little Princess
Howl’s Moving Castle
Kedi
Old Yeller
And the Children Shall Lead
A Christmas Carol
Kindness is Contagious
Little Women
The Tale of the Princess
Moonlight
Kaguya
Belle and Sebastian
I am Eleven
Millions
Inequality for All
Dancing in Jaffa
Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football
Loving
Steel Magnolias
Wonder Woman
The World According to Sesame Street
Young Frankenstein
Dead Poets Society
Edward Scissorhands
The Lady in the Van
G-Dog
Lady Valor
Temple Grandin
Schindler’s List
The Joy Luck Club
Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine
Virunga
15 Movies that Teach Empathy and Compassion
Recommended byFeeding America
The Grapes of Wrath
The Blind Side
Inside Out
Pay it Forward
The Glass Castle
Zootopia
Patch Adams
Freedom Writers
Pollyanna
Remember the Titans
Beauty and the Beast
The Pursuit of Happyness
Charlotte’s Web
A Little Princess
Up
What makes Glass Castle special
The “Glass Castle”, the book by Jeannette Walls has found significant interest among American book lovers. What makes it special is the combination of once popular genre of memoir with a sharp critical glance at our society, highlighting such relevant problems as:
- Parenting,
- Education,
- Homelessness,
- Harassment and many others.
The Glass Castle Book Common Sense Media
At the same time, Wells is surprisingly unwilling to accuse anyone in her book. She just narrates and paints lively pictures of her childhood, depicting numerous problematic and maybe even horrible scenes with an unfailing sense of humour.
Though not a bestseller at the time of its first publication (2005), the “Glass Castle” has quickly obtained huge popularity and enjoyed continuous popularity since then. Some parallels could be found between this book and many examples of classic literature, such as Gothic novels.
Unlike classic memoirs of the past, “Glass Castle” is set in the 1970s’ America but the adventures of the heroine – that is, the author herself – and her little brother and sisters might seem too picturesque for almost everyone, especially those living in a big city. Of course, certain exaggerations might have been made, yet this story together with a typical reader’s reaction to it just shows the really problematic conditions in which thousands of rural American families thrive.
Dark and Bright Sides of Walls Family Life in the Glass Castle
The Book Plot in Short
The Glass Castle Common Sense Media
The plot is quite simple: it shows how Walls’ parents not really prepared to the challenges of family life were not able to secure any solid income as well, which was the cause of many unhappy events afterwards. Main negative factors were connected together, particularly:
- Walls’ father, despite his many talents, could not get a stable job because of his drinking habits
- Walls’ mother has been neglecting her children, letting them spend most of their time by themselves and get an education at home
- Parents’ recklessness and family’s frequent movements from town to town continuously led to children getting in trouble a lot
- Because of the above problems, family’s living conditions continued to deteriorate which caused even more problems for the children
In addition to their parents’ poor work and parenting skills, Wells’ story depicts numerous situations of the surrounding world’s unjust or even cruel or predatory attitude towards her and her brother, starting from scorpion’s bite in the desert to bullying at school to attacks from adult predators such as her uncle. The situation only seemed to improve after the children grew up and moved to New York, getting education and jobs there.
The Glass Castle Parents
Author’s Good Humor as a Contrast to Negative Sides of Her Life
I Tonya Common Sense Media
All of the above sounds pretty tragic, yet the Wells manages to maintain an overall positive atmosphere throughout the whole text, never forgetting to show in detail how funny the jokes of her reckless father were (such as setting their Christmas tree on fire) or how interesting it was to learn marksmanship with her father’s pistol. Every now and then a lovely family scene appears, with parents telling them about the surrounding nature more than any of their future classmates would know. The name “Glass Castle” itself sounds like a devotion to her irresponsible but gifted and charismatic father who promised his children to get a magic invisible house for them. And this makes it possible for a reader to see this book as a story of unconditional love and happiness against all odds that gives all of us hope for the future.