I know, I know! I’m still way behind bon logging about these screenings, but now that I’ve finished with the 2016 season of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, I finally have a chance to catch up! I’ll report on the Rochester, NY and Philadelphia screenings soon, but first let’s talk about February 20, 2016’s screening of the fifth annual 90-Second Newbery at the Tacoma Public Library, co-hosted by me and Tacoma’s own hilarious Doug Mackey. There’s our opening skit and song-and-dance, above!

Tacoma always makes great movies for the film festival every year, and this year didn’t disappoint. Check out this animated version of E.B. White’s 1953 Honor Book Charlotte’s Web, as adapted by Levi, Charity, and Israel of the Film Club at the Tacoma Public Library:

I love the idea of doing the adaptation of Charlotte’s Web in an anime style. The art is impressive, there’s some skillful voiceover acting, and I particularly loved the part where Wilbur turns all the colors of the rainbow!

Every year I get a great movie from Tacoma’s Rosemary Sissel, and here she knocks it out of the park with her adaptation of Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s 1968 Honor Book The Egypt Game:

I love the snobby way April was played, and how the movie follows the whole arc of her character, even burning the eyelashes at the end (nice touch!). Melanie’s chipper bubbliness was perfect too. The script was brisk and funny (“conveniently located in the backyard of the local creepy guy! nobody will ever find us!” “except me, heh heh heh”). The flourishes that the kidnapper does with his knife before attacking April were quite funny, and April really puts her all into that scream! But maybe my favorite part was how the creepy guy keeps his beard on a table while he’s sleeping, and hastily puts it on after he wakes up to save April. And I like how after he saves her, he starts screaming as though SHE’S attacking HIM… (also, very resourceful to have the same person playing both the murderer and Melanie in the same scene! That must’ve been the quickest costume change of all time…)

I love it when filmmakers put a weird twist on the material, and here Zoe, Simone, and Dori of Burping Toad Films do just that with Karen Cushman’s 1996 Medal Winner The Midwife’s Apprentice—which here has a more modern occupation—ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Telemarketer’s Apprentice:

Funny, swift and on-point all the way through, not a single wasted shot! I liked the “opposite day” way our hero gets fired, and the adult’s voice on the boy for “Mr. Henry” was strangely funny. And at the end, is Beatrice’s voice begging for her job back coming from . . . the phone? That is . . . is she TELEMARKETING THE TELEMARKETER!? Wheels within wheels!

Lloyd Alexander’s 1966 Honor Book The Black Cauldron has had many 90-Second Newbery adaptations, but never one so elaborate or thorough as this one, impressively done in stop-motion Legos by a young filmmaker known only as “Minifigure Clone 267-87”:

I love the total environments this movie creates, in which every single thing we see is a Lego of one kind of another. The figures themselves are well-chosen and the animation was a real kick, especially in the chase and battle scenes with the cauldron-born! The epic music throughout was a good choice too, so relentless and stirring!

Every year I get a lot of wonderful movies from Tacoma’s Seabury School, and this year was no exception. It’s always hard to choose which ones to show for the screening, I want to show them all! Here are the two that I ended up showing at the Tacoma screening—first, this adaptation of Kate DiCamillo’s 2014 Medal winner Flora & Ulysses by Vardaan Kumar and friends:

I like how this movie staged the high-stakes opening scene of the vacuum nearly sucking up the squirrel. I also like the cinematic way it “follows” Flora, with over-the-shoulder camera, into the house to her mother, who ignores her pointedly. The way the girl who plays Flora placed Ulysses next to the “I’m hungry” thought bubble was clever. The ning-nong doorbell was amusing, and I like how the costuming department took the time to give “blind” William dark glasses and a cane. The search scene at the end was tense and I liked the tension of the handheld camera running along with them.

Also from Seabury, E. L. Konigsburg’s 1968 Medal Winner From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, as adapted by Kyle Maitlen:

Resourceful use of that white cardboard for the bus! Great performance for the “angel” statue too. I like the way Jamie says “Let’s do research!” while pumping his fists. I also liked all the “files” that are laid out at the end, and how quickly the mystery is solved as soon as Jamie says “baloney.” Well done!

Thanks again for a great film festival, Tacoma! Special thanks to all the folks at the Tacoma Public Library, especially teen services librarian Sara Sunshine Holloway, and my fantastic co-host Doug Mackey. Thanks to my friend Joe Fusion for filming the opening skit. And of course the biggest thanks to all the young filmmakers, and their teachers and families and mentors who encouraged them and came out for the screening! I can’t wait to see what you cook up for next year!

To sign off, here’s a final montage of all the movies we showed in this year’s 90-Second Newbery screening in Tacoma:

OK, I admit it, I’m definitely really too late blogging about this. But better late than never! On Sunday, February 21st we had a great 90-Second Newbery Film Festival screening in Portland, OR! We did it at the studios of Portland Community Media TV, and it was a perfect fit because every year PCMTV submits some fantastic movies. I was thrilled to do the screening at their space!

The screening was co-hosted by me and my longtime Portland partner-in-crime, the young Jacob von Borg. The first few years I did the 90-Second Newbery in Portland, fantastic local authors co-hosted it with me, such as Laini Taylor and Dale Basye. They were great! But Jacob has submitted a bunch of 90-Second Newberys every year, plus he’s a fan of The Order of Odd-Fish and he and siblings have done incredible fan art of it, so I thought, why not have Jacob be the co-host? It turned out to be a smart move: he’s fantastic! Here we are in the opening skit:

Let’s check out some of the great movies from Portland that were featured at the screening! Here’s Ruth Gannett’s 1949 Honor Book My Father’s Dragon—done entirely in Claymation by Anya Schooler:

Amazing! The level of craft in this is through the roof—the claymation is so fluid and expressive! The style looked like it was made by the Wallace and Gromit people. I love how Anya is able to signal so much subtle emotion and storytelling power out of the smallest twitch of clay: the quirk or scrunch of an eyebrow, an upraised finger or a waving of arms. The set was beautiful and resourceful (that flowing water!) and the sound design was so precise and perfect. And when the dragon licked the man and the man hugged the dragon, it was truly an earned emotional moment. (And oh, that awesome determined look in the dragon’s eyes before he took off!)

Here’s another movie made in cooperation with Portland Community Media TV, an adaptation of E.B. White’s 1953 Honor Book Charlotte’s Web:

Another winner! That was clever how the scenes were interspersed by the flipping pages of the book itself. The stop-motion animals in the background of the puppet narrator was exactly the kind of detail that gives a movie great texture. I love the way Fern’s uncle delivers the line “Wilbur, you’re gonna die tonight!” with those clouds scooting around in the background, and then licking his lips grotesquely, as the bass tones underline the gravity of Wilbur’s situation. “Wilbur” was so cute, Charlotte’s death was somehow hilarious, and the crowd’s emotional reactions were great (and that one kid’s fake mustache!). Great wrap-up with the spider babies, and while everyone is saying “goodbye!” I like how one kid says it in a threatening tone, and another just blurts “how you doing?”

Next up is an adaptation of William Steig’s 1983 Honor Book Doctor DeSoto, also by the folks at Portland Community Media TV:

I loved the busy long shot at the beginning, with the stop-motion animals all scurrying around in the daily work of Dr. Desoto’s office. And then it launched straight into a charming, assured, beautifully-done sock puppet show, complete with funny voices and great lines (“Yeah, but you’re not the one who has to go in his mouth!” “Mmm, I love raw mice with salt!”) I like how the passage of time is shown by making the moon sail across the sky and the sun rise while Dr. DeSoto and his wife discuss the problem. The fast-forward way that the puppets twitch and dance was was a nice touch. Great work!

Here’s Grace Lin’s 2010 Honor Book Where the Mountain Meets the Moon as adapted by local Portland homeschooler’s Anneke, Naomi, and Ilse:

What an elaborate, beautiful, well-told adaptation of “Where the Mountain Meets the Moon” this is! I’m in awe of the wonderfully elaborately made puppets! (That dragon! The king! So many details!) And I love the way the filmmakers use perspective to make the bridge look like it’s really trailing off to the moon. I like how they took the time and care to make the backgrounds look good too, especially when Minli meets the old man in the moon . . . it has a real outer-space feel. And the music sounds great too!

My co-host Jacob von Borg and his family make a 90-Second Newbery every year (sometimes even a few of them!) and this year was no exception. Here’s their take on Katherine Paterson’s 1978 Medal winner Bridge to Terabithia:

I love the ridiculous bizarre voices and the breezy way they handled the story. (Good lines too: “fight evil monsters—like my mother?”) I particularly liked the drinkin’ mother’s heartless way of announcing that Leslie was dead—and how she thought Jesse was dead too, and didn’t seem to care too much! Jesse’s back-and-forth sprint of grief was funny too. And the tag with the wig at the end was perfect!

Thanks so much, everyone at Portland Community Media TV and Jacob von Borg and all the filmmakers and audience who came! Portland is always a high point of the 90-Second Newbery tour for me every year. Here’s the final montage we used at the end of the night, that brought together clips of every movie we featured that night:

The 90-Second Newbery Film Festival relies on your donations! Want to support what we’re doing? Please donate the 90-Second Newbery here! We are a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization.

On Saturday, February 27 we screened the fifth annual 90-Second Newbery Film Festival at the Central Library in Minneapolis! It’s the second time we’ve done the show in Minnesota. And just like last year, this is one of the most engaged, enthusiastic, in-it-to-win-it crowds of filmmakers and fans in my 90-Second Newbery tour!

Minnesota author Kelly Barnhill (The Witch’s Boy, The Mostly True Story of Jack, Iron-Hearted Violet) joined me again to co-host. Not only is Kelly a firecracker onstage, she also saved the show when we had a technical glitch—while I was frantically rebooting the computer, Kelly gracefully stepped in and did 5-minute improv / standup / consciousness-raising session with the audience. What could’ve been a disaster turned into a highlight of the show!

At the end of the show, we gathered all the filmmakers onstage for a group picture. I’m draped glamorously on the floor in front of them:

At these 90-Second Newbery screenings, I like to show a mix of movies: roughly half are the best I’ve received from all over the country, and half purely local entries. We led off this year’s screening with a movie I’ve shown all over: an adaptation of Virginia Hamilton’s 1989 Newbery Honor Book In The Beginning: Creation Stories from Around the World, by Tristan Stephan:

As I said in my previous post about this movie, all the puppets are beautifully drawn and intricately articulated, and I particularly loved the hilarious way Odin kicks Ymir’s head straight off! The level of craftsmanship on this one is impressive. I also appreciated that it’s an adaptation of one of the more obscure Newbery honorees. Amazing!

Here’s another great entry from Minneapolis, by Miles, Grace, and Kaden from Worthington Middle School. It’s of Kate DiCamillo’s 2004 Medal Winner, The Tale of Despereaux:

Ambitious, resourceful, and entertaining! I loved how they made Despereaux look small from the very first shot, with that cleverly-deployed green screen of him next to a mouse hole. . . and then followed it up immediately with a really impressive stop-motion animation of the mice in council! I also liked how they used the basement as the “dungeon.” The swordfight was goofy fun, and I liked how cutting off the tail resulted in not screams of pain, but giggles!

Next up: Gary Paulsen’s 1988 Honor Book Hatchet, as adapted by Andrew, Ryan, and Cameron of Inver Grove Heights Middle School:

Very creative to tell the story of Hatchet in the style of a news report, Anchorman-style! It was wonderfully absurd that the the hatchet was clearly a tennis racket. So many great moments in this one, like the stuffed panda bear attacking Brian in the forest, and how the reporter keeps snarling “Gnarly dude!” or “Radical,” and how Brian prefaces every anecdote with the phrase “I remember it just like it was yesterday” before he gazes significantly off into the distance. It was also entertaining how the reporter “signs off” with a mic drop . . . wait, right before he MURDERS BRIAN? This movie is insane in all the right ways.

Here’s another Hatchet, this time by Leo, Jackson, and Galen of Sanford Middle School:

I like the twist of making it a step-by-step “guide to surviving in nature,” complete with disclaimer at the beginning. Good green screen work and voiceover making the different beats of the story clear. Perfect sound effect when he stabs the fish! And it was fun when Brian got mauled (and resourceful use of sound effect there with the bear growl!) I was amused when Brian called out to the passing plane way up in the air, “Look 35,000 feet below!”

Here’s another survival story, but this time about a mouse: William Steig’s 1977 Honor Book Abel’s Island, as adapted by Ruthie Morgan:

Quite resourceful to do the entire story all in one bedroom! It proves how you can do a lot with a little: using the flashing of the lights going on and off to simulate a storm, using blue scarves to represent flying water . . . and those were both cool boats that Abel made!

Here is Lake Middle School’s adaptation of Richard Peck’s 1999 Honor Book A Long Way From Chicago, which is about the various antics of two children and their Grandma Dowdel in the 1930s:

This one starts with a literal BANG, with the awesome special effects of the privy blowing up! I liked the “no unnecessary product placement” sign followed by the blatant display of the McDonald’s bag. The fast-forward effect was used well to get the accelerated oldey-tymey movie effect. The performances of the kids are suitably baffled and the performance of Grandma Dowdel is suitably smug and cantankerous. Great job with music too!

Next up is Highlands Elementary’s adaptation of Katherine Paterson’s 1978 Medal Winner Bridge to Terabithia:

Goofy and inspired! I loved the “Prince Tarian” dog and I appreciated how the filmmakers actually went outside in the woods to film the Terabithia scenes. Jesse’s family is hilariously perfunctory about Leslie being dead—indeed, his little sister seems to think it’s a “happy ending!”

Next up is the “Cookies” vignette from Arnold Lobel’s 1973 Honor Book Frog and Toad Together, as adapted by Josie, James, Erik, Kai, and Madeleine:

Good costumes for Frog and Toad! Actually . . . those masks are a little terrifying! The way they hop about is very frog-and-toad-like, I liked that. And I enjoyed how the birds descend upon the cookies at the end!

Here’s another not-so-well-known Newbery honoree, Sharon Creech’s 2001 Honor Book The Wanderer, as adapted by Anna and Alexia:

Here’s another example of doing a lot with limited resources—I liked how the difference between “Cody” and “Brian” and “Bompi” can be signified by a red or yellow or black shirt. I loved the cardboard boat the SS Awesome, and the juggling bit was fun too, especially with the admission of “sort of” at the end. The expressions after the line “we also know how to draw” bit were good too. Well done!

Angel, Andrew, Armann, and Derrick made this adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s 1963 Medal Winner A Wrinkle in Time:

I liked the creepy outfits of the witches, and the crazy hyperspace effect that took them to Camazotz! When Charles bows down to IT, it’s legitimately unsettling, and I liked IT’s voice. Pretty funny when Meg kicks IT . . . and the disembodied brain splits into two pieces. Cool Star-Trek-style beam-me-up credits!

Next up: E.L. Konigsburg’s 1968 Medal Winner From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by Gavin K., Jenny R., and Clark W. of St. Paul Academy and Summit School:

The script was engaging and the acting really pulled me into the story. The quick cutaway when Jamie says he is a gambler is quite funny. I like the montage when they are running away, and the courtly, super-polite exchange “To the library, Lady Claudia? To the library, Sir James!” Funny and committed and believable acting from everyone!

Malaya N., Tylyn H., and Symira H-C. of the FAIR School in Crystal, MN did this take on Louis Sachar’s 1999 Medal Winner Holes:

A clever idea to tell the story of Holes as a kind of talk show! Bonus points for how it was the two girls on the right who did all the talking, while the girl on the left said almost nothing! The total commitment they had to the idea of telling the story in terms of a morning show, with the appropriate mannerisms and vocal cadences, was so well done. The high five for Stanley’s bad luck was hilarious. I love how the girl on the right drinks straight from the pitcher. And especially how when the girl on the left finally says something (“It’s like I don’t even know what to say . . . it’s like . . . “) the whole thing just cuts off! The energy and enthusiasm and verve of this short put it over the top.

Here’s a different version of Holes, by Bryce, Brayden, Hunter, and Brody of Oneka Elementary School

This quick, precise narration told the story crisply, not a word wasted! I liked the resourcefulness of the “shovel” made out of construction paper. The green-screen way that Stanley and Zero fall into the hole was clever. I like the dilating “wipe” effect that was consistently used to switch scenes, giving the whole thing a kind of rhythm. Good silent acting all throughout by the students. Great job!

Oh! And before we go, one more Hatchet, by Noah of Glacier Hills Elementary:

Resourceful green-screen work, and I liked especially the part where Brian is attacked by the wild animal!

We also got some great movies from Anwatin Middle School, but they made it such that I can’t embed them on the page. You should check out Britany’s Tale of Despereaux (made with dolls!), and Kjersten’s Ella Enchanted (made with string!) and Meghan and Jenna’s Frog and Toad Together (done with paper cut-outs!).

And of course, here’s the final montage of all the movies. Thanks to all the filmmakers, students, teachers, families, and everyone who attended. Thanks again to Kelly Barnhill for co-hosting and to Jen Verbrugge and Jen Nelson of the Minnesota Department of Education for making it all possible. And thanks to the Central Library in Minneapolis for letting us put it all on. See you next year!

The 90-Second Newbery Film Festival relies on your donations! Want to support what we’re doing? Please donate the 90-Second Newbery here! We are a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization.