We did it! The eighth season of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival is finished! From February to May 2019, we put on 14 screenings in 14 cities, with 2883 registered attendees, and over 400 movie submissions. What a ride!

Thank so much to ALL the young filmmakers who submitted their fantastic movies . . . and thanks also to the parents, teachers, and others who assisted them . . . and thanks to the libraries and other organizations that hosted our screenings, and the countless folks who worked behind the scenes to make this amazing season happen.

Did you enjoy this year’s 90-Second Newbery? Please consider kicking a few bucks our way. Our film festival is always free to submit and to attend, but it takes money to run . . . and we depend on private donations to keep going. And it’s tax-deductible! Our fiscal sponsor is Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Donate so we can continue this madness next year.

Speaking of next year . . . it’s never too early to make and submit a movie. We’re already open for submissions. The deadline is January 10, 2020, but you can turn them in anytime. You will find complete details at the 90-Second Newbery website, including step-by-step instructions on how to make your own, including help in screenwriting, cinematography, green screen, editing, and more.

Let’s look back on an incredible year. Here’s our opening skit, in which my Boston co-host (award-winning author and all-around mensch M.T. Anderson) and I are confronted by the HIGH SUPREME NEWBERY COUNCIL of Newbery winners Kate DiCamillo, Jacqueline Woodson, E.B. White, and Meindert de Jong . . . which builds into a rousing rewritten version of “One Day More” from Les Miserables (thanks to Iman as the High Supreme Newbery Council’s pitiless Sergeant-at-Arms, and all the kids who took on that role in the various cities):

I’m thankful to have had so many incredible author co-hosts this year—not only M.T. Anderson in Boston but also longtime 90-Second Newbery partner-in-crime Keir Graff in Chicago, Salt Lake City, and Ogden Utah; Newbery Honoree and amazing dancer Rita Williams-Garcia in New York City; the legendary Bruce Coville in Rochester New York; mind-blowingly good singer Jacqueline West in Minneapolis; hilarious picture book author Marcus Ewert in San Francisco and Oakland; game-for-anything Lija Fisher in Boulder, Colorado; the charismatic, will-make-you-feel-like-a-million-bucks Torrey Maldonado in Brooklyn; the frolicsome and funny Doug Mackey in Tacoma; the charming and thoughtful (and bestselling!) Heidi Schulz of Salem, Oregon; and the screwball, perfect-comic-timing genius of Nikki Lofin in San Antonio. Some of them I’ve been working with for years. Others it’s the first time.

But enough about the adults, what about the kids? Let’s sample some the standout movies we received from talented young filmmakers this year. For instance, Fletch and Otto from Tacoma, Washington delighted audiences across the country with their retelling of the “Cookies” vignette from Arnold Lobel’s 1973 Honor Book Frog and Toad Together:

Corbin Stanchfield of Lafayette, Indiana has made a lot of great 90-Second Newbery movies over the years (you can see them all here). This year, he adapted Elizabeth George Speare’s 1984 Honor Book The Sign of the Beaver. The story: it’s the 18th century, and 13-year-old Matt and his father have built a log cabin in the wilderness. Matt’s dad leaves him alone to guard the cabin while he heads back to Maine to get the rest of the family. But then months go by, and Matt’s father still hasn’t returned, so Matt must learn how to survive alone. Without a gun to hunt with, Matt must live on the plain tasteless fish he catches from the river. He deals with stinging bees and befriends Attean, a native American of the nearby Beaver tribe, and even saves Attean’s dog from a trap. With the upcoming winter, the Beaver tribe offers to take care of Matt, but Matt decides to wait for his father—who does finally come back.

Corbin made this movie in the musical styles of the Beatles, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Nirvana, Bruno Mars, and more! And he played all the characters and performed and mixed all the music himself!

We got a lot of amazing movies from the Compass Homeschool Initiative in Tulsa, Oklahoma this year. One of the most popular was of Steve Sheinkin’s 2013 Honor Book Bomb: The Race to Build—And Steal—The World’s Most Dangerous Weapon. The book not only tells about the scientists who designed the bomb for the United States, but also the Russian spies who were trying to send those designs back to the Soviet Union. This movie retells this history with a twist: what if the folks who built the bomb weren’t educated scientists, but a bunch of goofballs horsing around in their backyard? This one’s by Josiah, Lee, Davis, Jett, and Jackson:

Let’s check out another movie by the Compass Homeschool Initiative in Tulsa! This one is of Marion Dane Bauer’s 1987 Honor Book On My Honor. When Joel and Tony go out to play, Joel’s father forbids him to go anywhere beyond the bike path. Joel promises he won’t, “On my honor.” But when Tony dares Joel to climb a large and dangerous cliff, Joel does it. Not to be outdone, Joel suggests a swimming race, but then Tony drowns. Joel comes home and at first doesn’t tell anyone what happened, but finally confesses. Here, Cooper, Mason, Lilly, Micah, and Duncan of Tulsa spice it up a bit. Instead of straying away from the bike path to have fun on the cliff, these kids stray away from Whole Foods to have fun at Walmart. And instead of Tony getting drowned, he is instead annihilated by his own heteronormativity in the girl’s toy department. Bonus points for the whiplash insanity of the conclusion:

Ava Levine of Highland Park, Illinois is another 90-Second Newbery veteran with a record of lots of great entries, going all the way back to 2015. This year she turned in this hilarious version of Richard and Florence Atwater’s 1939 Honor Book Mr. Popper’s Penguins:

The next movie is based on another book about animals— Kate DiCamillo’s 2004 Medal Winner The Tale of Despereaux. The story takes place in a kingdom where soup is forbidden. Why? A rat named Roscuro had fallen into the Queen’s soup, causing her to die of shock. Years later a mouse, Despereaux, falls in love with the Queen’s daughter, Princess Pea. Despereaux breaks mouse law by speaking to Princess Pea. For this, the mice throw Despereaux into the dungeon. Meanwhile, Roscuro tricks servant girl Miggory Sow into kidnapping the Princess and taking her down to the dungeon. Can Despereaux save Princess Pea? Will soup ever be legal again? And . . . can these filmmakers do the whole story in the style of the Les Miserables? The Leland Street Players of Chicago, some of whom I know personally, had my assistance in making this one (you might remember them from last year’s movie of My Father’s Dragon):

Here’s another Kate DiCamillo book adapted by Chicagoans who have participated in making many great 90-Second Newbery movies in the past. It’s 2014 Medal Winner Flora and Ulysses: the Illuminated Adventures, adapted by John and Meg Alznauer in an ingeniously entertaining stop-motion animated style:

Every year, we receive lots of amazing entries from Mr. Johnson’s fifth grade class at the Grant Center for Expressive Arts in Tacoma, Washington. The first one I’d like to highlight is an adaptation of Sterling North’s 1964 Honor Book Rascal: A Memoir Of A Better Era, the story of a boy and his pet raccoon.

Real talk: this Newbery Honor book actually indirectly caused untold damage all across the country of Japan. It’s true! You see, Rascal was adapted into a Japanese cartoon series, Araiguma Rasukaru, which led to a mania for pet raccoons in that country. Soon the Japanese were importing around 1500 raccoons per month. Now, baby raccoons may be cute, but adult raccoons make terrible pets. In the end most Japanese families released their troublesome full-grown raccoons into the wild, where they wreaked havoc. The Japanese government banned the import of raccoons, but the damage was done. Today, raccoons infest 42 of the 47 prefectures of Japan, rummaging and stealing, spreading rabies, destroying crops and damaging ancient temples with their sharp claws and abundant poop. So great job, Sterling North.

This clever and funny movie of Rascal has its own idea of what the raccoon did after he was released into the wild, and got a great reaction wherever I showed it across the country:

Here’s another super-entertaining movie from Tacoma’s Grant Center for the Expressive Arts, by Nevaeh, Olivia, Nick, Leo, and Addy. It’s based on “The Gingi,” one of the many spooky short stories in Patricia McKissack’s 1993 Honor Book The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural. In the story, a mother foolishly buys a strange statue she sees in the window of a junk shop, even though she’s been warned not to. But the statue has an evil spirit in it—the Dabobo. Luckily, this mother also takes from the store a nicer-looking doll that looks like a monkey. The mother’s daughter is afraid of the evil statue, but she loves the monkey. Soon the evil statue is causing mischief in the house, although the monkey is trying hard to stop it. But what happens when the Dabobo goes beyond mere mischief? Will the family survive? This movie is made with a twist: what if instead of a statue, the mother brought home a McDonald’s Happy Meal? And what if the evil Dabobo is actually an evil hamburger?

Mr. Johnson’s class also did a unique adaptation of Gary Paulsen’s 1988 Honor Book Hatchet. That book is about a boy, Brian, who is going on a plane trip to visit his father. Before he leaves, his mother gives him a hatchet as a gift. (Wait, you can take a hatchet on a plane? Well, yeah, it was the eighties.) Anyway, Brian’s going to need that hatchet, because his pilot dies of a heart attack mid-flight and they crash in the wilderness. Brian survives the plane crash . . . but can he survive hundreds of miles from civilization with nothing but a hatchet? This movie is by Charlie, Owen, Abigail, JoVaughn, Oliver, and Jamirie, and it asks the question, what if Hatchet was more like Fortnite?

Here’s one more from Mr. Johnson’s class in Tacoma—a movie of last year’s Newbery Medal winner Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly. It’s about four kids’ lives that collide in unexpected ways. There’s nerdy Virgil; brave Valencia; self-proclaimed psychic Kaori; and bully basketball player Chet. They aren’t friends, or at least not until Chet pulls a prank that traps Virgil and his beloved pet guinea pig at the bottom of a well. This leads Kaori and Valencia on a quest to find Virgil. Through luck, smarts, bravery, and some help from the universe, Virgil is rescued, a bully is put in his place, and friendship blooms.

This movie—by Michael, Sophia, David, Lyric, Madi, and Sophie—asks: what really happened when Virgil went down that well? And what happens when a guinea pig gets mad?

The San Antonio screening of the 90-Second Newbery is special because, with the generous sponsorship of HEB Texas Grocery and the Hidalgo Foundation, we’re able to offer prizes for first, second, and third place movies, as well as some honorable mentions. You can see all of San Antonio’s 2019 winners here, but the grand prize of $1500 went to Boerne High School of Boerne, Texas for APAP Productions’ very professional and impressive adaptation of Lois Lowry’s 1994 Medal Winner The Giver:

One of the things I love best about the 90-Second Newbery is discovering the various never-would’ve-expected ways people make movies. Here is one of the most distinctive 90-Second Newbery movies I’ve seen. It’s by Tanner Goethals of Ogden, Utah, and it’s an adaptation of Sid Fleischman’s 1987 Medal Winner The Whipping Boy, made using Microsoft 3D Movie Maker . . . which is software from the 1990s! I need to learn how to use this software, I love the glitchy ’90s look of this!

I also love seeing unique perspectives on the material. Everyone knows about Katherine Applegate’s heartwarming 2013 Medal Winner, The One and Only Ivan. But what if that story—about a silverback gorilla trapped in a bad zoo and his friendship with an elephant in that same zoo—was done in Claymation, in the style of a Lovecraftian body-horror Cronenberg nightmare? Indeed, what if the filmmakers discarded the plot entirely, and concentrated almost entirely on mind-bendingly disturbing monstrous Claymation effects? I mean . . . what if?

There were so many fantastic 90-Second Newbery movies we received this year . . . really, too many to put into one blog post. I hope this sampling of some movies from this year inspires you for next year. Please start making your movies now! You can turn them in anytime, but the deadline is January 10, 2020! Get cracking . . . and you can find plenty of help here!

And don’t be afraid to donate to the 90-Second Newbery here. It’s safe and it’s tax-deductible, and be honest, if you’ve read this far into the post, you’re kind of already all-in, aren’t you? Help us out!

Interested in reliving one of the particular screenings? I have links to recaps of all of the screenings in the various cities right here:

Febuary 9, 2019 with Nikki Loftin in San Antonio, Texas
February 15-16, 2019 with Keir Graff in Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah
February 23, 2019 with Jacqueline West in Minneapolis, Minnesota
March 10, 2019 with Keir Graff in Chicago, Illinois
March 17, 2019 with Bruce Coville in Rochester, New York
March 22, 2019 with Heidi Schulz in Salem, Oregon
March 23, 2019 with Doug Mackey in Tacoma, Washington
March 30-31, 2019 with Rita Williams-Garcia and Torrey Maldonado in New York City and Brooklyn
April 6-7, 2019 with Marcus Ewert in San Francisco and Oakland, California
April 27, 2019 with M.T. Anderson in Boston, Massachusetts
May 11, 2019 with Lija Fischer in Boulder, Colorado

Let’s wrap it up with some fun pictures from the various screenings. See you next year! Get cracking on those videos!

We did it! The 2019 season of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival has at last come to an end. From February to May, we’ve put on fourteen screenings in fourteen cities, with 2883 registered attendees, and just over 400 movie submissions. What a ride!

The final screening was on Saturday, May 11 in a brand-new city: Boulder, Colorado. Here’s the end of the show, when all the young filmmakers came onstage for pictures:

Wait, who’s that co-host next to me? It’s none other than Boulder’s own Lija Fisher, author of The Cryptid Catcher and the upcoming The Cryptid Keeper. She was a fantastic co-host, so funny and game for anything! Afterwards folks came up to us and asked how long we had been doing this show together. They thought we’d been sharing the stage for months. Actually we had only first met a few hours before! Lija’s natural charisma and quick comic sensibility made the show shine. Thank you, Lija!

How’d we score a show in beautiful Boulder? Kerry & Zach Maiorca (friends from Chicago who are veterans of the 90-Second Newbery) recently moved their family to Boulder and wanted to bring the film festival there too. Working with Darsa Morrow of Mackintosh Academy, they managed to get the Boulder Public Library on board, to secure sponsorship from Mackintosh, to spread the word to local filmmakers, and to do the million-and-one things it takes to make the film festival flourish in a new city. And they pulled it off magnificently!

We even got a a big splashy article about us in the Boulder Daily Camera, which helped to fill up the 200-seat Canyon Theatre at the Boulder Public Library. Thanks to the Boulder Book Store for showing up to sell books, and folks from Steve and Kate’s Camp for offering a pop-up stop-motion moviemaking workshop at the event. (And thanks to Katie, Shawn, Jude, Julie and Xander of the Ropp family, my old friends from Chicago, for putting me up while I was in town!)

Let’s look at the movies we got from Boulder this year! Mackintosh Academy made this excellent version of Robert C. O’Brien’s 1972 Medal Winner Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH:

As the judges said on the 90-Second Newbery website (full review here), “An entertaining and comprehensive romp through the story! I loved the running joke about Mrs. Frisby’s shawl (or ‘cape,’ as she amusingly insists on calling it), with her repeated slow-burn reaction shots. The performances were funny and yet emotionally grounded, making the far-fetched talking-animal story feel believable . . . Mrs. Frisby’s superheroic pose at the beginning and the end was a great way to frame the whole story.”

Sabrina of the Maiorca family teamed together with her friends Bridger, Celia, Edie, Harper, Scarlet, and Yael to make this amazing version of Kate DiCamillo’s 2014 Newbery Medal winner Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures:

As the judges said on the 90-Second Newbery website (full review here), “Expertly shot and hilariously acted, with resourceful costumes and a great use of sets! The cinematography was on point throughout: I loved how so many of the important characters are deftly set up in just the first few seconds, including a perfect silhouetted shot of Flora watching the out-of-control vacuum fly across the backyard, Ulysses cowering in the grass, and the ‘blind’ William Spiver failing to catch a ball . . . I loved the script (‘holy unanticipated occurrences!’) which told the story with economy and style.”

Izzie, Amalia, Sylvie, Bridger, and Kinley of Whittier International School made this fun-to-watch movie of Victoria Jamieson’s 2016 Honor Book Roller Girl:

As the judges said on the 90-Second Newbery website (full review here), “What a fun, energetic, joyful retelling of the story! . . . I loved the script, with such great lines as ‘some other jerkface named Rachel’ and Rachel’s ‘OMG I chipped a nail . . . call 911!’ followed by a dramatic fainting. There were great costumes and sassy attitude throughout, especially when the parade of the other, more experienced cool-girl skaters came by . . . Unhinged, fun, and entertaining in all the best ways!”

Nina, Harper, Ruby, Liv, and Ella made this quite funny version of Katherine Applegate’s 2013 Medal Winner The One and Only Ivan:

As the judges said on the 90-Second Newbery website (full review here), “I enjoyed this original approach to telling the story, telling in the form of quick scenes punctuated by explanatory intertitles . . . The intertitles could be disarmingly vain (‘That was a perfect scene’) and amusingly cognizant of the limitations of the form (‘Ruby’s full monologue is an hour long. Alas, 90 second Newbery’) . . . The movie zipped through the essential plot points and told the story in its own idiosyncratic and entertaining way. Great work!”

Every year we get a 90-Second Newbery movie that is mind-blowingly weirder than every other submission that year. This year, that honor goes to this other version of The One and Only Ivan, done in Claymation by Keira and Sebi:

As the judges said on the 90-Second Newbery website (full review here), “A MASTERPIECE. In my eight years of reviewing movies for the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, I’ve never been so simultaneously disturbed and delighted by an entry! This movie dispenses with the plot of The One And Only Ivan entirely, and focuses on one incident between Ivan the silverback gorilla and Ruby the elephant. While imprisoned next to each other at the mall zoo, Ruby asks Ivan for a story, and . . . well, we’re off to nightmare world. My hat is off to the monstrous and haunting horror show that ensues.”

Every year I get about fifty movies of Lois Lowry’s 1994 Medal Winner The Giver from the University Middle School in Greeley, Colorado. This year, I finally got to feature the film festival close enough to Greeley that the filmmakers could come! Here Aaliyah, Jackson, Levi, and Sally make The Giver in Minecraft:

As the judges said on the 90-Second Newbery website (full review here), “It was a fun idea to use Minecraft to tell the story, especially with the switch between black and white and color. Whoever built the environments did a great job of designing the world of the story! The best part of this film was the expressive and often hilarious (and sometimes British-ish) voiceover . . . The scene of the boy being released was hilariously gruesome, and I was amused at how Jonas rides a pig when he’s escaping from the community.”

We got a lot of great entries from Eagle Crest Elementary School in Longmont, just north of Boulder. I was lucky enough to get to visit this school the Friday before the screening, and meet the students and talk to them about The Order of Odd-Fish. This movie of E.B. White’s 1953 Honor Book Charlotte’s Web, by McKenzie from Eagle Crest, got a particularly big laugh at the screening about 37 seconds in:

As the judges said on the 90-Second Newbery website (full review here), “It was a fun idea to retell the story of Charlotte’s Web in the style of a movie trailer. There was resourceful use of pictures of stuffed animals and stock photos to give us insight to the various characters, and the onscreen text and titles gave crucial assistance in telling the story too.”

Also from Eagle Crest Elementary, we got this version of Louis Sachar’s 1999 Medal Winner Holes by Michael O., Nischal G., and Erik J.:

As the judges said on the 90-Second Newbery website (full review here), “I loved the energetic, leave-it-all-on-the-field enthusiasm of the performances in this movie! . . . I also thought it was funny how you changed the ending, and made the story conclude with Stanley and Zero getting devoured by lizards in the desert. Probably a more likely outcome!”

Also from Eagle Crest, Eden H., Haley G., and Audrey L. made this movie of Cece Bell’s 2015 Honor Book El Deafo:

As the judges said on the 90-Second Newbery website (full review here), “I loved the spectacular beginning of this movie, which kicks off with Cece doing a backflip! The characters were all clearly and swiftly introduced, and I liked the goofy fight scene . . . Entertaining and sassy.”

Katelyn B. adapted an uncommon choice, Catherine Coblentz’s 1950 Honor Book Blue Cat of Castle Town, with stop-motion legos:

As the judges said on the 90-Second Newbery website (full review here), “This was an entertaining movie-trailer style teaser for the book . . . The stop-motion work was fluid and fun to watch, the onscreen text well-chosen to tell the story, and the music a good accompaniment overall.”

There are actually too many great movies from Eagle Crest Elementary to feature them all in one blog post! I recommend also checking out Brenton D.’s movie of A Wrinkle in Time, and Izabella “Peaches” M.’s version of Misty of Chincoteague, and Master Gamer Eric’s take on The Cricket in Times Square. Great job, Eagle Crest Elementary! I hope you submit next year, too.

Indeed, a big thanks to all the kids of Colorado for these great movies, and thanks to the parents and teachers who helped out. I can’t believe how much the film festival caught on in Boulder in just the first year! I hope to bring the 90-Second Newbery back to Boulder in 2020 too. So start cracking on those entries! The deadline for next year is January 2020, but you can submit your movie at any time. Complete info (including helpful tips) can be found at the 90-Second Newbery website.

Speaking of movie submissions . . . Before the show, I met Julia of the Flatirons Food Film Festival. We thought, what if kids made food-themed films based on Newbery books, and submitted them to BOTH of our film festivals? After all, there are quite a few food-themed Newbery winning books out there. Off the top of my head, I can think of Polly Horvath’s 2002 Honor Book Everything on a Waffle and Kathryn Lasky’s 1984 Honor Book Sugaring Time. Or you could give any Newbery-winning book a food twist—say, doing a movie of Ramona and Her Father in which Ramona is played by a chicken strip, Beezus is played by a tomato, and Mr. Quimby is played by a box of Cheerios? I don’t know, I’m just spitballing here. The Flatirons Food Film Festival has a children’s program on October 1 and the deadline is July 19. You can find out more here.

One last thing. If you enjoyed the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival this year, please consider kicking a few bucks our way. The 90-Second Newbery is always free to submit and to attend, but it does take money to run. And anyway, it’s tax-deductible! Our fiscal sponsor is Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization.

Here’s the final montage of all the movies featured that day, which we played at the end of the screening. See you next year, Boulder!

On March 22, we screened the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival for the first time in a brand-new city: Salem, Oregon. Thanks so much to Sonja Somerville and everyone at the Salem Public Library for hosting the event. Thanks to Ashley Gruber and all the folks at Capital Community Television (CCTV) Salem for partnering with us on this event. And thanks to the Book Bin for showing up to sell books.

The screening was hosted by me and New York Times bestselling author Heidi Schulz (Hook’s Revenge, Giraffes Ruin Everything). Heidi was an amazing co-host! The CCTV folks made a video of Heidi and I singing the opening song, “What Would John Newbery Do,” in which we celebrate the bombastic legends surrounding the man for whom the Medal is named. Heidi nails it, she’s a true lady of the stage! It’s the video above. Watch it!

After the show, Heidi and I posed onstage with some of the young Salem filmmakers who participated:

Let’s check out some of those great movies from Salem that we featured at the screening! CCTV had a camp in which participants created movies to submit to the film festival, and that’s how we got this delightful retelling of Madeleine L’Engle’s 1963 Honor Book A Wrinkle in Time by Padraig T., Miles C., and Ben M. Watch closely to see how this group of three pulls off a script written for six actors:

As the judges said on the 90-Second Newbery website (full review here), “A fun, anarchic, unhinged romp . . . I loved Meg’s punked-out blue wig, Charles Wallace’s helmet and a superhero cape, and the witches dressed as Chewbacca, Elmo, and some kind of ‘Little House on the Prairie’ outfit . . . I especially loved the special effect of the “tessering”—a gleaming whirlwind that raptures the witches and our heroes from place to place . . . it was especially fun that the ‘dad’ was portrayed by a giant weird inflatable stick-man—especially when Meg throws him at Charles Wallace!”

Mac C. and Cooper H. from the CCTV camp submitted this next movie. It’s Gary Paulsen’s 1988 Honor Book Hatchet in stop motion Lego . . . and in the style of Star Wars!

As the judges said on the 90-Second Newbery website (full review here), “What a brilliant twist for a Hatchet adaptation: instead of the normal boy Brian, it’s a Star Wars stormtrooper; and instead of Brian surviving in the wilderness with only a hatchet, the stormtrooper must survive on an alien planet with only a lightsaber! I appreciated the attention to detail, like how the pilot was also an Imperial officer, and how their vehicle was an Imperial shuttle, and how our stormtrooper makes his shelter inside a fallen AT-AT (hey, just like Rey in The Force Awakens!).”

But that’s not the only Hatchet adaptation we received from the CCTV camp! Here’s another Hatchet, this time by Caden:

As the judges said on the 90-Second Newbery website (full review here), “Imaginative, entertaining, and in some places quite impressive! The combination of Lego stop motion and green screen worked well to totally set the scene. I liked the fun twist this movie puts on the story: instead of a boy trying to survive in the wilderness with only a hatchet, it’s a unicorn trying to survive in the wilderness with only a horn!”

Caden also teamed up with Aniah for this final entry from CCTV. It’s an adaptation of Gail Carson Levine’s 1988 Honor Book Ella Enchanted:

As the judges said on the 90-Second Newbery website (full review here), “A quick, fun retelling of the story! The graphics of the various characters and their backgrounds were well-chosen to indicate the corresponding parts of the story, and the onscreen text filled in the plot clearly and efficiently. The background music also felt appropriate to the quasi-medieval setting of the story. Solid work!”

We also received a movie from Maddie O’Donnell and members of the Salem Public Library Teen Advisory Board! It was a puppet-show adaptation of Sharon Creech’s 1995 Medal Winner Walk Two Moons:

As the judges said on the 90-Second Newbery website (full review here), “This accelerated, comedic, borderline-lunatic puppet show was lots of fun to watch! It was creative and resourceful to make all the puppets out of paper bags, with hand-made backgrounds. I especially liked the various hairstyles (made of yarn?) that flopped around amusingly . . . A tight script, shot in a no-nonsense way, and performed with gleeful enthusiasm!”

Thanks again to all the filmmakers for these great movies! All in all, it was an exceptional first-year showing for Salem. I’m looking forward to bringing the screening back to town next year, hopefully with even more local entries. The deadline for next year’s film festival is January 2020, but don’t procrastinate! You can actually start making your movies now, and turn them in at any time. As alwways, complete details (including helpful tips) can be found at the 90-Second Newbery website.

And, if you don’t mind me asking . . . if you enjoyed the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival this year, please consider kicking a few bucks our way. This film festival is always free, but it costs money to put on. From year to year, it all depends on the generous donations of those who love it. And anyway, it’s tax-deductible! Our fiscal sponsor is Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization.

As a final cherry on top, here’s the final montage of all the movies featured that day, which we played at the end of the screening: