I was on the “Write Of Your Life” Podcast a few weeks ago! Stacy Curtis interviews me about the creative process and I reveal was a “vomelette” is.

The Chicago screening of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival is coming to the Vittum Theater (1012 N. Noble) this Sunday, January 31, 2016, from 3-5 pm! It’s technically sold out, but seats always open up, so if you want to come I recommend you get on the wait list here.

Here are some movies we’ve received from the Chicago area this year! Eti Berland is the superstar librarian who handles all the social media for the 90-Second Newbery (she has also, ahem, been on the Newbery committee). This year, she and Ashley Hamernik of the Evanston Public Library worked with the EPL Homeschool Group to make this great adaptation of Ingrid Law’s 2009 Honor Book Savvy in the video above!

I liked the stylish way this movie efficiently introduces the premise of the book, with the voiceover and subtitles over the intriguing images (loved that cute turtle!). And whoever played the owner of the cafe brought real energy into that firing scene. (And that was a nice waitress costume)! The electrical sound-effects paired with the lights turning on and off was a resourceful way to represent the brother’s “savvy” of having control over electricity. Everyone did a great job acting and the green-screen work was very well done! We’ll be showing this at the screening on Sunday, see you there!

And next up is Shannon Hale’s 2006 Honor Book Princess Academy by Muskaan, Suzan, Liza, Valentina, Amani, and Pia of the Niles Public Library:

Fun and ambitious! The extensive green-screen made it feel like a movie with authentic locations. That’s hard to pull off! Good cinematography, good use of music, and great acting from the star and everyone else (with a breakout performance for Tutor Olana!) The cruel girls were wonderfully nasty, the angry mob of miners was appropriately menacing, and the prince was pretty adorable. We’ll be screening this on Sunday too!

And finally we have Laura Ingalls Wilder’s 1938 Honor Book On the Banks of Plum Creek by Nora, Hazel, and Violet:

I like how this focused just on the daughters’ experience in the story—that went a long way to winnowing down the story to a manageable size. And it was a good idea to give each sister her own introduction right at the top, to make all the characters clear. The subtitles help kept the plot understandable. I liked the running joke about how small the house is, with a cool use of that little door in the side of the house! And the three sisters’ freaking-out “Home Alone” hands-on-the-face reaction to the tininess of the house was fantastic. When grasshopper storm comes, I love how hard the girls sold it, with insane panic and crying, and the camerawork felt appropriately frenetic. It’s the enthusiastic acting that put this one over the top! (And great prairie dresses too!) We’ll be showing this one on Sunday too!

By the way, Violet in this movie went to preschool with my daughter Lucy Momo! Here’s a picture from a few years ago, of them outside the school, when we all spelled out their names with dandelions:

Looking forward to the screening this 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.

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!