It’s a summer tradition! For the fifth year, I taught a weeklong 90-Second Newbery moviemaking camp at the Treehouse Children’s Museum in Ogden, Utah. Once again I worked with co-teachers Caden and Will (pictured above) to make movies with a full class of fifteen participants, most of whom had done this camp before. By the end of the week we had finished three new 90-Second Newbery movies, plus a bunch of other videos. I’m proud of the work they did.

Thanks to Caden, Will, and all the young filmmakers for a marvelous week of creativity. Special thanks to Lynne, Rob, Wes, Courtnee, Mike, and everyone at the Treehouse who make it so fun to teach this camp every year. (Curious about movies we made in previous years? Check out my reports from our previous camps in 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2019.)

Mark your calendars now! The 15th annual 90-Second Newbery Film Festival will return to the Treehouse on Saturday, February 21, 2026, in which we’ll feature the movies we made this week along with the best movies I received from around the country.

So let’s watch the movies we made this week! This first one is based on William Steig’s 1983 Newbery Honor Book Doctor DeSoto, a picture book about a mouse dentist and his wife who do dentistry on other animals, with one rule: no dangerous patients. When a fox shows up on their door with a toothache, they bend the rules to treat the fox, even though the fox might eat them. But the mice outwit the fox in the end.

This movie retells the story in the style of an intense medical drama like “ER” or “The Pitt.” Instead of a mouse dentist, Doctor Desoto is a human, and the fox is replaced by a dangerous criminal attacker known only as “The Horsehead Chomper”:

Great performances! The actors nailed the hard-driving rhythm of a medical drama, rapidly barking data and instructions at each other during the surgery scenes. And every scene with the “Horsehead Chomper” is an absurd delight. Impressive work all around!

The next movie is based on Robert C. O’Brien’s 1972 Newbery Medal Winner Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, and it’s done in the style of a trailer for an action movie:

Brilliant! I love the premise of the rats of NIMH being a Dirty Dozen-style group of battle-hardened warriors. The performances really sold this one, as well as the flashy action-movie-trailer tropes, complete with stock combat footage, quick cuts, and snappy dialogue. Super original and enjoyable!

Another group did a movie based on the vignette “The List” from Arnold Lobel’s 1973 Newbery Honor Book Frog and Toad Together. Their twist? Retell the story in the style of a cheesy Hallmark Channel Christmas movie:

Do Hallmark Channel Christmas movies have hilarious chase scenes? This one does! I loved the daffy, anarchic spiritedness of this movie, and the tongue-in-cheek but oddly appreciative send-up of cheesy Christmas movies.

But that’s not all! The participants also made some fun extra videos that weren’t based on Newbery-winning books. For instance, Beau and Georgia made a stop-motion movie with the medieval-style action figures at the museum:

That’s over 400 individual pictures in that video—a lot of hard work! Inventive and entertaining to watch.

We spent the first day of camp making practice movies as a kind of warm-up. Each movie had to be about a hunt for a specific goal. So these three “practice” movies are about a scarecrow looking for a sheep; a presidential candidate hunting for a cheetah that makes Cheetos; and granddaughters following their grandmother’s clues to find a treasure. These movies made resourceful use of the many sets and environments at the Treehouse Museum, and have an irrepressible comic energy:

Just as last year, at the end of the week we found strange extras and outtakes on the iPads used to film the movies. Caden again took the opportunity to edit it all together into somthing entertaining:

And that’s it for this year’s 90-Second Newbery Filmmaking Camp at the Treehouse! Inspired to make your own movie for the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival? It’s open to anyone around the world, parental help is okay, and the deadline is January 16, 2026, though you can turn the movies in anytime before that. And remember, the 2026 screening at the Treehouse will be on February 21, 2026. You can find complete details at the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival website. See you again soon!