#evaliveblog

I read the book and now I'm trying to watch the movie of Hotel For Dogs (for a library program), but the adaptation choices are so baffling. Obviously some changes had to be made, since the book was written in the 70s and the movie is from 2008, but this is clearly an "in name only" adaptation. The kids, instead of moving with their parents to stay temporarily with their aunt (who is allergic to dogs, hence needing to keep the dogs somewhere else), are now foster kids in a terrible foster home in the big city, so the dog hotel can be an actual abandoned hotel, and not just a house in a quiet neighborhood. That last part is not so bad, but I really don't get why the writers killed off the parents. If they were going to do that, why not just keep the aunt? It's revealed at the end that her husband used to be a detective and she helped him with his work, so they could make it so she was the detective (but is now retired) and have her sniffing around, almost finding out about the dogs, instead of giving us these unfunny foster parents.