We have the chilling basement scene, the excitement and hope of the bomb shelter scene, and of course the death of the father.

- The Man and the Boy tend to sleep inside abandoned cars in the movie, while in the book they usually slept outside (an improvement by the movie, I think, because they were always cold in the book that it made more sense for them to seek shelter anywhere including the abandoned cars that were all over the place).

- There's more of the wife in the movie than in the novel.

- When they discover the farmhouse with the gruesome basement of live human cattle, they immediately run outside the other side of the house when the residents return and hide until they can sneak off later. In the movie, they run upstairs to hide before running back out and hiding outside. This change is probably to ratchet up the tension, which it does.

- The book described a scene in which they stumbled across some people cooking who they accidentally scare off, and when they investigated what was being cooked, they discovered a human baby being roasted over a fire. (Probably due to the gruesomeness of this scene, it was omitted from the movie.)

- There's a scene in the movie where they witness from afar a women and a child being chased down and captured by some of the cannibal people. I don't remember this being in the novel at all, so perhaps this scene was added to replace the omitted cooked baby scene.

- The boat they find beached by the ocean is a sailing yacht in the book, but is some sort of cargo freighter in the movie. Also, the book follows the Man on-board as he searches around.

- The stranger who steals their stuff for a while actually stole it from a hiding place when they left it, not from a camping site on the beach while the boy sleeps. (A bit of a flaw in the movie, I think, because the thief would've taken the gun too.)

- At the end of the book, they are camping inside a cave when the Man dies; while in the movie, they are camping in the open on the beach instead.

- At the end of the book, in what may be a mistake by the author, I remember them being described as having a shopping cart again at some point after they find the more all-terrain wheelbarrow. While in the movie, they have the 2-wheeled wheelbarrow until the end (which makes a lot more sense).

- There are a lot more scenes of the Man's inventiveness in finding some sort of food for them to eat in the novel that are missing from the movie.

IIRC, the director of the film has said that they filmed the baby scene, but it didn't make the final cut (for reasons you allude to). Also, as I remember it, the death of the Man does occur on the beach in the book. That's the only setting I recall in the book's final portion. As for the girl being chased, I remember that, too.

What was up with all the missing thumbs? The black man who stole their supplies was missing both of his, and the guy at the end with the family was missing his on his left hand. I don't remember any mention of missing thumbs in the book.

So why the missing thumbs? Firewood chopping accidents?

The only black character in the movie is a thief??? It felt a little odd.