On Saturday I did a 90-Second Newbery Film Festival screening at the Rockridge branch of the Oakland Public Library in Oakland, California. In it, I featured highlights of some great movies we’ve received over the past 15 years.

I figured folks might want to see what such a “best-of” screening would be like, so below are the movies I featured! Although they’re all great movies, I chose this particular batch not only for their high quality but to highlight the variety of approaches kids take towards making these movies. Hopefully these videos will inspire people to make their own 90-Second Newberys for future screenings. Adult help is okay, and I’ve put together lots of helpful hints and tips for beginner filmmakers at the 90-Second Newbery website.

Okay, let’s get in to it! Our first movie is based on Robert C. O’Brien’s 1972 Medal Winner Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. It’s about a widowed mouse, Mrs. Frisby, who is raising her mouse children in an old cinder block in a farmer’s field. The field is about to be plowed, so they must move out, but her son Timothy is too sick to be moved!

Mrs. Frisby asks an owl to help her, but the only animals who can do it are the reclusive, superintelligent genetically engineered lab rats who live in the rosebush—who happened to be friends with Mrs. Frisby’s dead husband.

Can the rats help Mrs. Frisby in time? Will Mrs. Frisby learn what happened to the rats in the lab that made them so smart? And most importantly, can Chicago’s Leland Street Players do the book in the musical style of the opening scene of the 2016 movie La La Land?

As you can see, we encourage the filmmakers to put their own distinctive twist on the material. This next movie is one that kicked off the whole film festival—an adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s 1963 Newbery winning book A Wrinkle in Time.

The book is about an awkward teenaged girl Meg who has a five-year-old brother Charles Wallace who is a genius but a little creepy. Their father is being held prisoner on another planet. Three witches show up at Meg’s house. Using a string and an insect, they teach Meg and Charles Wallace how to travel through hyperspace, a process they call a “tesseract.”

Meg, Charles, and Meg’s boyfriend Calvin go to the alien planet, where they find other children bouncing basketballs like zombies because they are controlled by a disembodied brain, and our heroes somehow defeat the brain using . . . the power of love? (I never quite understood the ending of A Wrinkle in Time.) Here it is, packed into 90 seconds—not counting a fun post-credits sequence—by Freya & Friends of Oak Park, IL!

Our next two movies are based on Arnold Lobel’s 1973 Honor Book Frog and Toad Together. It’s five gentle short stories about the mild, low-stakes adventures of best friends Frog and Toad. My favorite is the story “Dragons and Giants,” where Frog and Toad venture out into the forest to see if they’re brave, but they end up running away from the snakes, avalanches, and hawks that threaten them, all while still shouting “I am not afraid!” This next version, by Fuzzy Pizza Productions of Spring Lake, MI, is done entirely with puppets!

That was a straightforward version of Frog and Toad Together, but kids who make 90-Second Newbery movies often like to put a weird twist on the original stories. This next movie is based on the same story from Frog and Toad Together, but in this one, Frog is a marine and Toad is a ninja. The dangers they confront are more intense than gentle woodland inconveniences. Plus, the filmmakers add a whole extra chapter to the original story that is totally bonkers, but in a way, makes sense. Check out this version by Alec and Porter of Hinsdale, IL: Frog and Toad Together as an action movie!

Do you know what the very first Newbery winning book was, way back in 1922? It’s The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem Van Loon, a history book that purports to compress the story of all of humanity in about 500 pages. Jennings Mergenthal from Tacoma, WA did Hendrik Willem Van Loon one better, and compressed those 500 pages into 90 seconds . . . and entirely in Claymation!

The next movie is based on Lois Lowry’s 1994 Medal winner The Giver, which is set in a future dystopian community where there is no pain and no conflict—but also no color, no emotion, and your job is chosen for you at age 12. Our hero Jonas is chosen for a special job: to be the “Receiver of Memory.” Jonas must spend time with the Giver, an old man who gives Jonas all the memories from before everything became safe and boring. But when Jonas finds out some dark secrets about this would-be utopia, he takes his baby brother Gabe and escapes.

This one is done as a one-man show by Leo Lion of Brooklyn, NY!

The next movie is based on Florence and Richard Atwater’s 1939 Honor Book Mr. Popper’s Penguins. It’s about Mr. Popper, who sends a fan letter to Antarctic explorer Admiral Drake, who responds with a surprise gift of a male penguin. This leads to the Popper family getting a female penguin from the zoo, which leads to lots of baby penguins. They can’t afford to house and feed so many penguins, so Mr. and Mrs. Popper train the penguins to dance and do tricks, and they take their show on the road!

In this updated version by the kids of Budlong Woods Library in Chicago, Mr. Popper is a terminally online consumer of social media who is obsessed with the TikToks of Admiral Drake. And instead of taking the penguins’ show on the road, Mr. Popper makes the penguins go viral!

The next movie is based on a picture book, William Steig’s 1983 Honor Winner Doctor DeSoto. It’s about a mouse dentist and his wife who treat other animals. They just have one rule: They won’t treat dangerous predators. So when a fox shows up at their offices with a toothache, they have a difficult decision to make: risk their lives by treating the dangerous beast, or let the fox suffer? Dr. Desoto and his wife end up treating the fox, who does intend to eat them, but the mice outwit the fox in the end by temporarily gluing his teeth together.

This next movie is another one ingeniously told with stop-motion paper puppets, and it’s by Ondine, with helpers Alistair and Montserrat of Los Angeles, CA!

As we’ve seen, not all Newbery-winning historical books are fiction. Russell Freedman won the 1988 Newbery Medal for his account of the life of the sixteenth President of the United States, Lincoln: A Photobiography.

Now I hear you: don’t we already know everything about Abraham Lincoln? The stovepipe hat, the beard, the Emancipation Proclamation, defeating the south in the Civil War, getting assassinated during a play at Ford’s Theater—we don’t need another book about Lincoln.

But I bet you’ve never seen it expressed in this way, the Zenz Family of Spring Lake, MI—in the style of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical Hamilton! We give you Abrahamilton:

The next movie is based on Matt de la Pena’s 2016 Newbery Medal winner Last Stop on Market Street. It’s about a boy C.J. and his Nana who are taking a bus ride through San Francisco. C.J. has a lot of questions for his Nana. Why do they have to ride a bus when his friends ride cars? And why does Nana make him volunteer at the soup kitchen when his friends get to play?

This version, by the kids of The Harley School of Rochester, NY, is different because here, C.J. and Nana are on the run in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, trying to get to their survival bunker. But there’s more to these zombies than they expect.

The next movie is based on Elizabeth George Speare’s 1984 Honor Book Sign of the Beaver. In 18th century Maine, 12-year-old Matt is left alone in his family’s log cabin for four months while his father is forced to be away.

Now you might ask: Are there any beavers in Sign of the Beaver? And the answer is no. Why is it called Sign of the Beaver, then? The father of the next filmmaker wondered the same thing. In fact, he seems to take it personally that there aren’t more beavers in Sign of the Beaver.

The next movie is based on the 1972 Honor Book Annie and the Old One by Miska Miles. It’s about Annie, a young Navajo girl, who wants to stop her mother from finishing weaving a rug. Why? Because Annie heard her beloved grandmother say that she, her grandmother, will die when the rug is finished.

Annie misbehaves in school, lets the family’s sheep escape, and even tries to pull out the strands of yarn from the rug, one by one. But from her grandmother she learns even she cannot change the course of life. This one is done in beautiful stop-motion by Alinne and Brenda of San Antonio, TX.

The next movie is based on Louis Sachar’s 1999 Newbery Medal Winner Holes. The original story is about Stanley Yelnats, a boy with a curse on his family. One day expensive shoes fall out of the sky onto Stanley’s head, he is falsely arrested for stealing the shoes, and he is sentenced to Camp Green Lake, a desert prison camp where the warden makes boys dig holes all day looking for lost treasure.

Stanley makes friends with a boy named Zero. They rebel against digging holes and run away into the desert, where they break the curse that has afflicted Stanley’s family for generations, and dig up the treasure the warden had been searching for, which rightfully belongs to Stanley!

This movie also has a twist. Instead of the boy Stanley Yelnats, it’s a girl, “Starley Yelrats.” Instead of shoes falling on their head, it’s a fancy dress and a teacup. And instead of going to a work prison camp where boys are forced to dig holes, Starley is sent to a young ladies’ finishing school where the girls are forced to drink 50 cups of tea a day. The Treehouse Children’s Museum of Ogden, Utah presents: TEACUPS!

That had a lot more swordfighting than in the original book!

Here’s another Claymation movie, based on 1952 Medal Winner The Apple and the Arrow. It’s about the Swiss folk hero William Tell, who was a legendary archer. But when William Tell and his son are caught rebelling against the unjust government, his archery is given a gruesome test: he is forced to shoot an apple off his son’s head!

This one is done in Claymation by 14-year-old Anya Schooler from Portland. And it’s set to the music of the “William Tell Overture.”

This next one is based on Ruth S. Gannett’s 1949 Newbery Honor Book My Father’s Dragon, adapted by Chicago’s Leland Street Players. It’s about a boy Elmer who wishes he could fly. He meets a stray cat, who tells him he can get his wish if he saves a dragon who is imprisoned on Wild Island. But can Elmer outwit the animals who guard the dragon, problem-solving by using only the random junk in his backpack?

And that brings us to our last movie, based on Dave Eggers’ 2024 Medal Winner The Eyes and the Impossible. It’s the story of Johannes, a dog appointed by three elderly bison to be the “eyes” of the park in which they live, keeping track of everything that’s going on.

Johannes is briefly captured by humans, and when the other animals in the park work together to save him, Johannes has the idea to free the bison and get them off the island. But is it the bison who need freeing, or Johannes? Mr. Johnson’s class from Tacoma, WA’s Grant Center for the Expressive Arts tells the story in the style of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”!

And that was some of the best of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival! Thanks to all the young filmmakers, and the librarians, teachers, and family who helped them.

Interested in being part of this? Go to www.90secondnewbery.com to find out more about the film festival. Start making your movies now. The deadline for next year is January 2027, but you can turn them in anytime.

Did you enjoy the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival? Do you want us to keep doing it? Then please help us out with a tax-deductible donation. Our fiscal sponsor is Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit arts service organization.