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.

Last week we did the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival in San Antonio, Texas! This was one of the best screenings we’ve had yet, sponsored in grand style by BiblioTech, San Antonio’s digital library, and H-E-B Read 3, HEB Texas Grocery’s literacy program. Thanks to the kids for the fantastic movies they made—and the audience who came out in full force, packing the Tobin Center for Performing Arts with 300+ people! (Indeed, we got a nice write-up in the San Antonio Express-News.)

And special thanks to my co-host, author Nikki Loftin (The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy, Wish Girl and Nightingale’s Nest), who knocked it out of the park as a co-host. She sang! She danced! She cracked wise! (And she saved the show when I almost skipped a movie and she gracefully got me back on track.)

Here Nikki and I introduce the show and perform the opening song, which I cribbed from the 2014 90-Second Newbery screenings . . . it’s “What Would John Newbery Do?” (apologies to South Park’s “What Would Brian Boitano Do?”) in which we reveal the superheroic, terrifying exploits of the man for whom the Newbery Medal is named:

Thanks to Irene Kistler for taking the video!

And a HUGE thanks to Laura Cole of BiblioTech and Christa Aldrich of HEB, who did all the hard work of bringing the 90-Second Newbery to town: landing a venue, spreading the word, making the screening into a red-carpet gala event with snacks and a photographer, all kinds of logistics—Laura and Christa and the Bibliotech staff worked overtime to build the 90-Second Newbery up in San Antonio. And thanks to Judge Nelson Wolff for supporting this project from the very beginning.

Usually at these 90-Second Newbery screenings, I show a mix of movies: local entries side-by-side with ringers from around the country. But we had so many entries from Texas this year, we had enough to make the entire screening 100% Texas-made! We also decided to award prizes for the best videos. The first prize went to the Texas Underdogs’ impressive adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, which I’ve already featured on my blog here. The second prize went to Ryan and Rudy’s stop-motion Lego adaptation of Louis Sachar’s 1999 Holes, which I’ve previously featured here. Third place went to this adaptation of Margi Preus’ 2011 Honor Book Heart of a Samurai, as adapted by Camryn L. and Eugene V., which I present to you now:

Good visual storytelling all the way through, with great use of sound effects and music (especially for the “‘MURICA!” part). I like the way this movie shows the boat and the whale in the pool, and intercut that with the three boys in the actual boat (resourceful, getting that!) Spraying the crew of the boat with a hose seemed fun—also jumping into the pool too! The story is told effectively with nothing but images and subtitles. I like the anachronism that Manjiro can read “The Fault in Our Stars” back in the 1800s . . . and that when Manjiro finally becomes a samurai, he is fighting EVIL TREES. Thanks, Camryn and Eugene!

And thanks to everyone who came out for the film festival in San Antonio! Here are a few more pictures to give you an idea of what it was like:

And now, the final montage of all the movies we showed in the San Antonio 2015 screening. Enjoy! And it’s never too early to get cracking on movies for next year! And remember you can keep up with all things 90-Second Newbery by following us on Twitter and liking us on Facebook.

And now, time to take the 90-Second Newbery to Chicago! And San Francisco, Oakland, New York, Portland, Tacoma, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Rochester NY . . .

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.

This year’s fifth annual 90-Second Newbery Film Festival is kicking off with a special early screening in San Antonio, TX on January 9, 2016! It’s hosted by me and Texas young-adult author Nikki Loftin (The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy, Wish Girl, and Nightingale’s Nest) and sponsored by Bibliotech and H-E-B Texas Grocery. This free event is “sold out,” but in my experience, only 80% of the reservations ever get used, so go ahead and put yourself on the wait list here. Or if you’re feeling lucky, just show up!

With just two days until the San Antonio 90-Second Newbery, let’s check out three great animated entries we received this year!

At the top of the post, check out the stop-motion Lego animation of Louis Sachar’s 1999 Medal Winner Holes. Such meticulous attention to detail! I love how the various background “sets” zipped on and off the “stage” set up here, almost as though we were watching a play. The voice for the intertitles of “six hours later” and “a few moments later” was strangely funny. This adaptation ruthlessly cuts out everything that wouldn’t fit in the allotted time, and yet still gets the basic story across in a way I could understand. I like how the movie sometimes used clay to represent water or dirt—resourceful! A pleasure to watch!

Another pleasure to watch: this Clutch Cargo-style animated-lips version of William Steig’s 1983 Honor Book Doctor DeSoto, by Deyanira, Jessalyn, Alex, and Katlyn of Margil Elementary School:



The idea to do it as a series of voiceovers on top of clip art of mice and a cat was fun, and it was especially good because of the lips-moving effect (reportedly achieved with an app called Chatterpix). I noticed that this adaptation switched the villain from a fox (in the book) to a cat—perhaps because that cat picture is so fierce? The script was tight and the story whipped along at an admirable pace. Great job!

Finally we have Arnold Lobel’s 1973 Honor Book Frog and Toad Together as adapted by Alvardo Garcia:



More of a puppet show than an animation, but let’s stick it in this post anyway! Love the skillfully-drawn puppets and the brisk efficient storytelling. The background music was well-chosen and the voice acting worked quite well too. I like how the “seeds” moved from Frog to Toad when Frog was giving them, good attention to detail! More good details: how Toad is reading to the seeds a book titled “The Little Seeds That Could” and that a little bubble floated in to explain what he was doing. I also liked the resourceful way this movie represented the dangers for Frog and Toad to be “brave” over: an “avalanche” of clumps of paper, a sock-snake, and the ingenious hand-silhouette of the bird!

Looking forward to seeing everyone in San Antonio on Saturday!

This year’s fifth annual 90-Second Newbery Film Festival is kicking off with a special early screening in San Antonio, TX on January 9, 2016! It’s hosted by me and Texas young-adult author Nikki Loftin (The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy, Wish Girl, and Nightingale’s Nest) and sponsored by Bibliotech and H-E-B Texas Grocery. This free event is “sold out,” but in my experience, only 80% of the reservations ever get used, so go ahead and put yourself on the wait list here. Or if you’re feeling lucky, just show up!

So yesterday, in our countdown to the San Antonio screening, I featured eleven 90-Second Newbery movies from Texas that were adapted from the most commonly chosen book for 90-Second Newberys—The Giver. You might wonder what the second most commonly adapted book is. (You’re probably not but I’m going to tell you anyway.) It’s a close race between Louis Sachar’s 1999 Medal Winner Holes and Katherine Paterson’s 1978 Medal Winner Bridge to Terabithia. Let’s look at the Terabithias that came from Texas this year!

First up is by Dominguez Garcia Serrano of Tale of the Dragon Productions:



Crisp cinematography, great editing, wonderful use of the song—at times it felt like a music video! I love how the story is told without a single spoken word, just adept visual storytelling! Good use of slow-motion during the race, and also when Jesse is throwing away the note. I also like how this updates the story with iPhones and showing a TV news report. Brisk, efficient, stylish! Well done!

Our second Terabithia is by L. Lopez, J. Ortega, and S. Mathis of Southwest High School:



A little long, but that’s all right! From the very beginning I felt in good hands with the adroit cinematography and editing: the tight shot of Jesse panting, the handshake, the closeups of nature. Good background music throughout. I like the way Jesse is skeptical of Leslie at first, and then gradually won over. Good Christmas scene with the “Peanuts” Christmas music, and even an actual Christmas tree! (For some reason I also liked how the “prince” dog was basically uncontrollable.) There is a strange tension in the scene in the dark—I like how her phone conversation is interspersed with pictures from the gallery itself—that’s efficient storytelling. “And all of a sudden I’m full of inexplicable sadness” was a good line. Nice grace note at the end with that tight shot of Jesse putting the crown on his sister’s head at the end!

The next one is by Brianna West of Louis D. Brandeis High School:



I knew I was in good hands from the start, with its title sequence’s somber piano music and slow pan over the waters. Well-shot throughout, with good use of locations and music! And I like how Leslie’s death is tastefully implied, by cutting to Jesse throwing rocks into the water and crying. This movie does a lot with pure visual storytelling, not so many words needed.

The next Terabithia is by Mariah and Bostin of Southwest High School:



I liked how it seemed to be a “found-footage” movie like The Blair Witch Project. Good cameo by the salamander. The amusingly perfunctory way Leslie’s death is handled is perfectly in the spirit of a 90-Second Newbery!

And finally, Avan Peltier of Tale of the Dragon Production checks in with this last Bridge to Terabithia:



I liked the feeling of going through a portal to get to Terabithia at the beginning. The way the movie chose to portray “The Giants” was hilariously ridiculous. When Jess learns that “the queen has died,” that was some great restrained acting on his part, some well-done grief! I only wish it had been longer . . . Not counting the title, credits, and blooper, the actual story part of the video is only about 45 seconds! I want more!

Thanks for these movies. See you tomorrow on this blog for Part 4 of the San Antonio countdown . . . and see you Saturday in San Antonio at the sold-out show!