I like to think that I get wiser as the years go by. I like to believe that each year of life and each new experience it brings my way has something new and important for me to learn. But I am also starting to think that I may be wrong.

Sure, I still learn new things every year. My intelligence and understanding of the world has probably increased at least a small amount over the past few years. But, I am also beginning to notice that many of these new learnings have been there for my taking all along.

After spending only one day on set with the cast and crew of Walden Media’s upcoming How to Eat Fried Worms, I felt as if the school-aged story and the young actors who were telling it reminded me about more of life’s most important lessons than any class or experience in my own life had done in long time.

At barely 9:30 in the morning one day late last summer, work was already in full swing when I arrived at a quaint park in residential Austin. Cameras and sound equipment set up around a small picnic pavilion, crew standing ready all around it, and nine ten to twelve year-olds ready and eagerly preparing for what must be this morning’s installment of Worm Cuisine 101.

The strange thing was no one was complaining about anything. No whiney voices were asking for Evian. No one was arguing about anything. No one was being fired. And although I knew that none of the kids getting ready for Worm Gourmet Take 1 were actually related, it was beyond me to look at the mass of people scattering the set and pick out anyone who did not seem to be a part of the same big family.

“It’s been so much fun,” said Hallie Kate Eisenberg who plays Erika, the only girl in the movie. “It’s like summer camp. We have such a great time with each other. Now we’re all like best friends.”

As director Bob Doleman described it, working with his cast of mostly pre-teens was like working with a baseball team. From the moment they arrived, they were all playing for the same team instead of competing with each other. They became friends faster than they learned their lines. And, as Doleman got to know each of them better and recognize the individual strengths each one possessed, he was able to alter roles to highlight each child’s talents without any fussing from his cast.

“These boys have been extraordinary,” said Doleman. “There’s a real generosity of spirit in these kids.”

Just ask any of the young cast and they will you that’s really what the movie is about. In the beginning, they are divided. Bully against new kid, challengers against challenged, judge against judged. But in the end, the movie is about breaking down all of that, about learning not to judge, about standing up for what you believe in, and about learning to be friends.

As the day wore on and the temperature continued to rise, the boys got ready to work their magic in a worm eating scene involving a marshmallow/tuna concoction.

Continue: 1 2 3