Bad things happen to bad people. Even rotten kids can make a turn for the better if shown some affection and caring and learn they are valuable. At the beginning of Netflix’s offbeat animated feature The Willoughbys, dreamy daughter Jane (Alessia Cara) declares that since all the heroes in the books she and her siblings love are orphans, finding a happy ending free of their horrible parents means they ought to be orphans too. That statement sets the tone for The Willoughbys, based on the book of the same name by children’s author Lois Lowry (who also wrote The Giver and Number the Stars), directed by Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2’s Kris Pearn. As the four Willoughby children navigate their expectations of family and stories, the movie examines some of the specific elements of children’s media, then neatly dismantles them. Starred Review. [S]ly humor and a certain deadpan zaniness give literary conventions an ironic twist, with hilarious results. Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby kissing each other. First, in their ancestral home and then before they're ( possibly) about to be eaten by a shark.

The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry: Summary and reviews - BookBrowse The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry: Summary and reviews - BookBrowse

Tally Marks on the Prison Wall: The wall of the coal bin is covered in tally marks, showing just how often Tim has been thrown down there. Nanny is understandably horrified when she sees it for the first time.The Barnabys saying "Hi, mommy" in a creepy manner. The first to their abusive biological mother and the second to Nanny, who they (along with Tim and Jane) want to be their adoptive mother. From the New York Times bestselling and two-time Newbery Medal-winning author of The Giver and Number the Stars comes a delightfully tongue-in-cheek story about parents trying to get rid of their four children and the children who are all too happy to lose their beastly parents and be on their own. If they’re to have any real fun in life, they decide, they need to become orphans. They go to a travel agency and find a brochure for some unbelievably dangerous travel destinations and send them to their parents, who, unbelievably up and take off. The parents hire an “odious nanny” as the children call her, but she turns out to be quite lovely and funny. The parents keep sending postcards describing their journeys. They take a helicopter ride over an active volcano with a pilot-in-training because he’s cheaper; they go canoeing down a crocodile infested river and two of the tourists get eaten, but it isn’t sad because they were French. Oh, and also, the house is up for sale and please hide in the coal bin when people come to look at the house?

The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry | Goodreads

Maybe Ever After: There is some subtle Ship Tease between Linda and Commander Melanoff when they properly meet. The ending doesn't confirm whether they end up dating/married, but also doesn't deny it since they become the adoptive parents of the Willoughby children and Ruth. Easily Forgiven: While not everything is shown, Orphan Services don't hold Linda technically kidnapping multiple children against her or seek to take any legal action. They also don't seem to have had any issue with Linda adopting them in the end. My books have varied in content and style. Yet it seems that all of them deal, essentially, with the same general theme: the importance of human connections. A Summer to Die, my first book, was a highly fictionalized retelling of the early death of my sister, and of the effect of such a loss on a family. Number the Stars, set in a different culture and era, tells the same story: that of the role that we humans play in the lives of our fellow beings. Kid Has a Point: "Kids" in this case. While the Willoughby children are messed up to a certain extent, they are absolutely correct on how atrocious their biological parents are.Maya Rudolph as Linda a.k.a. The Nanny, an eccentric babysitter who looks after the kids. She is also revealed to be an orphan-herself.