By Kayla Loveless, Social Media Editor

While books do provide the freedom of imagination, sometimes our minds can’t conceptualize something as grand as a fantasy world filled with different places, creatures and characters. Movies and shows can do the job for us.

Film adaptations not only let us visualize our favorite books, but allow us to get to know new worlds that books haven’t even explored. The highest-grossing movies of all time are “Avatar,” “Avengers: Endgame” and “Titanic,” only one of which is based on a book.

According to Swift Read, the average reader finishes a 350-page book in about 9.7 hours. It’s almost impossible to finish a 350-page book in two hours. Movies let you do just that. You’re able to re-watch your favorite movies in such a short amount of time.

If you want to watch an episode of your favorite show, they’re usually around 45 minutes long, meaning your day won’t be interrupted with nine hours of reading. I can’t promise you’ll stop at one episode, but who has ever really stopped reading at one chapter?

Sitting down and really reading a book will take up most of your day. My family watches a movie every other night before we all go to bed. We start it at 7:30 and are in bed by 10. Sitting and reacting to movies and shows with my friends and family is one of my favorite pastimes.

There are so many movie adaptations out there that are better than the book. “Forrest Gump” is a film that most can agree is better than the book. The movie garnered an 8.8 out of 10 on IMDb compared to the four out of five on Goodreads.

A movie with a significant difference in ratings is one of my all-time favorites, “The Devil Wears Prada.” It gained a four out of five from Common Sense Media, while the book only received a two out of five from the same company.

The latest movie based on a book that my family watched was “Where the Crawdads Sing,” a suspenseful film adaptation of a book about a woman growing up on the marshes of North Carolina who is accused of murder.

I have attempted to read “Where the Crawdads Sing,” but I could never really immerse myself in the world of Kya, the main character. The movie, though, captured my attention. We were seeing the world from the viewpoint of Kya, and were watching what she went through. I was able to feel the pain of the character, and feel empathy for her.

Feeling something like empathy for book characters is not something that I am always capable of doing. To me, book characters are just that: characters. Sure, if a character dies or is injured, I would obviously be upset. But I’ve never cried while reading a book.

I have cried to plenty of movies and shows. Most recently, I cried watching the TV show “The Last of Us,” an adaptation of a video game of the same name. I watched as a couple grew old together through the hardships of an apocalypse. I’m not sure if a book could make me feel the same way that show did.

So while yes, reading books is something entertaining to do while you’re doing nothing, how many books have you cried to? How many books have you laughed to? Movies and shows are capable of doing something for me that books have never accomplished. They have made me feel.

Junior Kayla Loveless can be reached at 24lovelesska73@daretolearn.org.