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 February 13 we did TWO 90-Second Newbery Film Festival screenings: at the Oakland Public Library Rockridge Branch (thanks, librarians Nina Lindsay and Erica Siskind!), and later at the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library (thanks, librarians Christine Estrovitz and Carla Kozak!). We packed the house in both venues. Books Inc. was on hand to sell books after the SFPL screening (thanks, booksellers Summer Laurie and Katherine Megna!) And a super big thanks to the San Francisco Awesome Foundation for helping to sponsor the trip!

As always when I come to San Francisco, I had the pleasure of staying with my old friends Alisha and Sharon. Alisha is my good friend from college, and she married the amazing Sharon, who is (among many other things) the culinary mastermind behind the SF restaurants Gialina and Ragazza. Thus, whenever I go to San Francisco, not only do I get the pleasure of their company . . . but I eat like a king! And Alisha and Sharon are generous enough to throw a big party after the SFPL screening, and I get to see lots of my Bay Area friends:

Sharon’s to the left of me, Alisha’s to the right of me!

I also got to catch up with my friends David and Jillian, who used to live upstairs from me in Chicago, but have abandoned Chicago for the pleasures of California (David fled west to take a job at the Khan Academy):

I hung out with so many other old friends while in town, too many to name. (I might have more friends in the Bay Area than I do in Chicago?) I’m very lucky to know such great people.

But let’s talk about those 90-Second Newbery screenings! My co-host for the San Francisco screening was Marcus Ewert, the amazing author of the picture books 10,000 Dresses and Mummy Cat, both well-reviewed by my Lucy and Ingrid. He was a fantastic co-host, nailing the opening song-and-dance number and bantering with easy grace between movies. Unfortunately I couldn’t get hold of the video of our opening bit, but trust me, it was great! Marcus said he’d do it next year, too, and I hope he does. Thank you, Marcus!

We got a lot of great entries from the Bay Area this year! One of the standouts that we featured at the screening was E.L. Konigsburg’s 1968 Honor Book Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, by Ellie, Zara, Katie, and Grace of Everett Middle School (which I visited while I was in town!):

Such crisp and nimble cinematography! The transitions with the typewriter and the music tied everything together very well and gave a structure to it. And the acting! Jennifer the witch had a compellingly stern aspect to her (I love the way the camera edged in ominously to a closeup on her!) and Elizabeth had a cool, game-but-skeptically-standoffish vibe that was very appealing. And the last sequence, when we finally see Jennifer smile and the black-and-white blooms into full color, was a really effective way to conclude it.

But that’s not the only great movie I got from San Francisco this year! Felix and Taytum also made this great adaptation of Jean Craighead George’s My Side of the Mountain, but with a twist:

I love it when young filmmakers use the 90-Second Newberys to tell the book’s story in a different way. In the same way that Sam in the book uses his knowledge of nature to survive in the wilderness, this Sam here uses his technical skills to fly off into a whole new dimension. So many precise little insert shots of specific technical challenges he’s solving, like the shimmering jewel on the shoes and the spaceman suit and backpack. Then the whole thing kicks into overdrive when he flies! I love the space scenes best. And after that, going from super technical to back to the nature was a good touch, and the music was well-chosen. Watch out for the splendid stop-motion when the animal comes out of the hole!

I did author visits at a bunch of schools when I came to the Bay Area this year, including St. Andrews School in Saratoga. Every year I get a bunch of great 90-Second Newberys from this school, led by their great teacher Alison Halla. For instance, here’s St. Andrews’ adaptation of Kwame Alexander’s book-in-verse about basketball, The Crossover, as adapted by Abby, Amelia, and Georgia:

What a clever idea to do an all-female version of The Crossover! I thought it was a brilliant story change to make Alexis not just some random hottie, but another player on the team. The story actually works better with the change! There are some great vomiting and bloody-nose scenes. The snotty librarian was hilarious. The kissing-in-the-library scene was expertly staged. And the furiously-playing-basketball-in-the-rain scene was a masterstroke, especially when it cut from J.B.’s and Alexis’ dinner to Filthy screaming in frustrated rage in the rain.

That’s not all I got from St. Andrews. There was also Katherine Paterson’s 1978 Medal Winner Bridge to Terabithia, as adapted by Jack, David, Jarrett, and Scotch:

Oh, how I love insane versions of this book. Leslie’s death never fails to get a laugh! Her hat was the perfect amount of absurdity, and I liked lines like “I wonder what to get Leslie for Christmas. Oooh, free dogs!” Good background music throughout, rising to an inspiring crescendo when Jesse and Leslie invent Terabithia! But my favorite thing about this movie is how Jessie brings his little sister into Terabithia to make her “the new queen” . . . when Leslie’s body is not yet cold . . . when she’s still dead in the background!

Finally from St. Andrews, Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted by Claire, Juliet, Brian, and friends:

So many funny lines, so crisply shot, the story told so well! I was blown away by the comedic acting of Lucinda and Ella. Lucinda’s entrance with the ukelele singing “story of my life” cracked me up, and I loved how Lucinda kept telling the prince she was “single, very single.” The ball scene had a great updated song, and those dogs make fantastic ogres!

And finally from San Francisco, this adaptation of Kate Dicamillo’s 2004 Medal winner The Tale of Desperaux by Omara, Karina, and Lilah of Monroe Elementary School:

Fun and fast on its feet! I liked that first scene in which the rat is expertly thrown into the soup bowl from far away, and the perfunctory way the queen “dies” when the rat plops into her soup is also pretty funny. The story was told with rapid skill, with resourceful use of props and costumes (Roscuro’s hands!). And the whole thing wrapped up quite satisfyingly with that flourish at the end.

But wait! That’s not the only 90-Second Newbery screening we had that day. There was also the one in Oakland, co-hosted by me and Liam Dooley, a twelve-year-old resident of Oakland and the son of my old friend Andrea. Here’s a great write-up about it in the Oakland North, in which I am described (not for the first time) as “between his wardrobe choices and excited mannerisms, [James] had the familiar air of Professor Gilderoy Lockhart in the Harry Potter film adaptations.” I am who I am!

Wait, you say—why was Liam my co-host? Isn’t my co-host usually another children’s author? Ah, but in this case Liam had made two standout 90-Second Newbery movies, which we featured at the Oakland screening. When I asked if he would co-host, he accepted!

Here is Liam, Eamon, and Quinn’s 90-Second Newbery of Hatchet:

This movie made resourceful use of a real-life airplane cockpit, with the staticky authentic-sounding radio messages in the background! And I liked the model plane floating above the pond to give us the idea of the a real plane flying over water. Good “crash” too—and cutting straight from that to Brian trudging out of the water was a smart choice. The bow-and-arrow also looks like it was really cobbled together in the wild, and that fish — was that an ACTUAL DEAD FISH that “Brian” was holding and pretending to eat? Liam says yes!

He also did Lois Lowry’s 1994 Medal winner The Giver with his friend Thomas:

I liked the no-nonsense way this movie blew through the plot, with brisk voiceover. It got some good effects with the switching between black and white and color after Jonas steals the apple. That’s a good wig for the “sister,” and I love how The Giver looks like . . . wait, is that Kevin Kline from “A Fish Called Wanda”? Even with that, still, the best part for me is how Liam wraps up the whole movie by flatly declaring, “and he died on a mountain.” Yup, Jonas probably did!

Thanks for these movies, and for all the movies that were featured in the San Francisco and Oakland screenings of the 90-Second Newbery this year! And thanks to everyone who came out to the screenings. And thanks to the filmmakers who made the movies, and the libraries and teachers and families and friends that made it all possible. Here’s to 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.

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.

Thanks everyone who came out to the 2016 Chicago screening of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival last Sunday! We packed the 300-seat Vittum Theater with a super-enthusiastic audience.

A huge thanks to author of The Other Felix and Booklist Online Editor Keir Graff for once again co-hosting the Chicago screening with me. Keir not only co-hosts, he and I also write the opening skit together. Unfortunately we didn’t get a usable video of this year’s Chicago opener, which commemorated the 90-Second Newbery’s fifth anniversary by looking forward to what the film festival will be like five years from now.

Keir and I played dueling time-travelers, and our opener soon erupted into a lightsaber battle that was resolved by the song “Blame Newbery!” (tune stolen from South Park’s “Blame Canada”). In the picture below, time-traveling Keir informs me who wins the 2018 Newbery Medal: Vorblop Homvaloo 9 from Jupiter, who will write the instant children’s book classic Flimglorp Jeep-Joop Foopy Fop:

Thanks to Travis Jonker of the 100 Scope Notes blog for that cover, which you can see in its full glory here. I asked Travis because his blog has a great series called Covering the Newbery in which he designs alternative covers for Newbery-winning books. Check it out!

One of the big hits of the evening was Walt Disney Magnet School’s adaptation of Rebecca Stead’s 2010 Newbery Medal winner When You Reach Me in the style of a Law And Order episode. It cleverly hit most of the book’s story beats while fulfilling the tropes Law and Order, from the “konk-konk” noise to the classic good cop/bad cop interrogation scene. I especially liked the courtroom scene at the end, in which the attorney attempts to unravel the book’s complex time-travel plot with a Glenn Beck-style chalkboard full of crazy scribblings:

I especially liked how, on her way out of the interrogation room, the “bad-cop” detective picks her cup of coffee up off the floor where she flung it, and without missing a beat begins drinking from it again with a backwards scowl at Marcus.

This year we also got a lot of great entries from Francis Xavier Warde School in Chicago. Here’s one of them that was a hit at the screening. It’s of Gary Paulsen’s 1988 Honor Book Hatchet, but with a twist: instead of its main character, Brian, getting stranded in the forest with nothing but a hatchet to help him survive, he merely gets trapped in a 7-11, where survival is, well, kind of easy. But the breakout character here is Brian’s mom, with her odd mannerism of repeatedly whacking a foil pan with a spatula:

We also got a lot of great entries from Edgewood Middle School in Highland Park, Illinois. Among them was this entertaining adaptation of Kwame Alexander’s 2015 Newbery Medal winner The Crossover, a novel-in-verse about two basketball-playing twin brothers, Filthy McNasty and J.B., who have a falling-out when J.B. gets a girlfriend:

I love the portrayal of “Miss Sweet Tea” by a boy in a wig. He really works it!

Thanks again to everyone who helped out at the screening: Laura Kollar, Mary Kate Barley-Jenkins, Tom Arvetis, and Ford Altenbern of Adventure Stage Chicago; Keir Graff, for co-hosting; Kate Babka, who helped in the tech booth with the lights and sound; Eti Berland, for being the indefatigable master of the 90-Second Newbery’s social media; Travis Jonker for the cover; Joseph Lewis for taking the pictures and video; Northwestern Settlement for being our nonprofit sponsor; and of course all of the kids, teachers, and families who made the movies and came out to watch!

Let’s wrap this up with the closing montage for the night, which features almost all the movies featured at the Chicago screening:

Thanks, Chicago! Already looking forward to next year. Next: SAN FRANCISCO and OAKLAND, this Saturday, February 13th!

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.

A big thanks to the San Francisco Awesome Foundation for supporting 2016’s 90-Second Newbery screenings on February 13 in San Francisco and Oakland with a generous grant. (Wait . . . you want to make a tax-deductible donation to the 90-Second Newbery too? You can do it here!)

The Chicago screening of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival is coming up this Sunday, January 31, 2016! It’s sold out, and there’s a wait list, but seats are always opening up, so you can get on that wait list here.

What can you expect to see at Sunday’s screening? Today I want to concentrate on three wunderkind auteurs who project a go-it-alone persona. They make videos that seem to be like one-person shows. Two of them we’ve met in previous years, so let’s lead off with the newcomer: 8-year-old Corbin Stanchfield of Lafayette, Indiana! He makes his 90-Second Newbery debut with an adaptation of Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s 1992 Newbery Medal Winner Shiloh. Check it out above.

Shiloh is, of course, your standard boy-and-his-dog story, set in West Virginia. The premise of Corbin’s video: what if there are certain budget cuts in the video’s production, such that the video can’t actually be filmed in the rolling hills of West Virginia where the book is set, but rather must make do with the flat fields of Indiana? And furthermore . . . maybe the budget can’t afford, er, a dog either . . . but, well, how about a bagel? A bagel makes an acceptable substitute for a dog, right? Don’t judge too hastily! Watch the movie, this bagel is a very expressive and frisky and emotional bagel! Corbin does great work throughout too, from selling the premise to nailing the visual gags to his rural accent to the impromptu beard! You can check out more of Corbin Stanchfield’s videos at his website Corbin Films.

Another up-and-comer: Ada Grey of Chicago, who every year submits a super-elaborate 90-Second Newbery done entirely with PlayMobil figures. This year, Ada adapted Katherine Applegate’s 2013 Newbery Medal Winner The One and Only Ivan:

I love the super-complicated, meticulously-composed scenes that Ada puts together. And in terms of storytelling, Ada always lays everything out logically and clearly, which is hard to do in 90 seconds! The voiceover is brisk and witty and I love Ada’s performance as Ivan the silverback. I look forward to her submission every year, she always raises the bar every year with another great video!

Finally for today, Ava Levine of Chicago does Lois Lowry’s 1994 Medal winning chestnut The Giver:

Ava came to my attention last year with a 90-Second Newbery in the style of the opening monologue of “Saturday Night Live,” but comes into her own here with this one-woman show. Like the other movies, it was fun to see Ava play multiple roles, and I liked how she resourcefully used her hair as the Giver’s “beard.” I particularly liked the lines “I will touch you and you will be put into a kind of montage thing” and “I must run away and cause a huge problem for the society!” The montage itself was well done, with the spinning around in color. The movie definitely hit the sweet spot for me at the end, where the narrator says “But personally, I like to think he died”—THAT IS EXACTLY MY OPINION ABOUT THE END OF THE BOOK TOO, but nobody seems to agree with me on that! Thanks, Ava, for saying what must be said! Jonas totally dies at the end of that book, there’s no doubt in my mind!

Whether or not you believe Jonas died at the end of The Giver (and he did die, he’s totally dead, don’t even delude yourselves), I’m looking forward to seeing you all on Sunday!

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.