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.

Phew! Last weekend we put on the final screenings of our fourth annual 90-Second Newbery Film Festival at the New York Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library. I’ll blog about those later. But first I’m overdue in blogging about the raucous, joyous, first-ever 90-Second Newbery screening in MINNEAPOLIS on Saturday, February 28!

Thanks so much to Jennifer Verbrugge and Jen Nelson at Minnesota Department of Education’s State Library Services for doing the heavy lifting to make this happen (and Janet Piehl of the Wilmette Library for putting us in touch). They arranged for me to visit schools all around the Minneapolis area to promote the festival, and worked hard to put the word out themselves. As a result we had a bumper crop of 35+ videos from Minnesota in our first year! They don’t do things halfway in Minnesota!

I also must thank my fantastic co-host Kelly Barnhill (author of The Witch’s Boy and other great books), who instantly connected with the audience, sang and danced our opening number like a pro, and made hosting the screening stress-free and fun. I’m looking forward to doing it with her next year, too!

And of course thanks to all the filmmakers, many of whom showed up for the screening, joining the audience who packed the 235-seat Pohlad Hall at the Minneapolis Central Library:

Let’s take a look at some of these great Minnesota videos . . .

This first one is submitted from Jamie Molitor’s Media Arts class from the Fine Arts Interdisciplinary Resource (FAIR) School in Crystal, MN. It’s the story of Louis Sachar’s 1999 Newbery Medal winner Holes, told as a rap! If you’ve ever wondered what Minnesota-style rap is like, we’ve got you covered. These students created the beat from scratch, too. IS THERE NOTHING THESE FOLKS CAN’T DO? I love, love it:

Favorite bit: ending on the line about “making it rain,” and then adding in a deadpan tone, “seriously… it rains at the end of the book” with a thousand-mile stare at the camera. Hilarious, resourceful, and a crowd favorite in every city where I’ve shown it!

Stop-motion Lego adaptations of Newbery winners are always welcome, especially if they’re as meticulously detailed and amusingly told as this movie of Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s 1992 Medal winner Shiloh, done by Miles Fischer of Worthington, MN:

I loved how Jud has a three-headed Cerberus dog just hanging around, and is wearing a Superman shirt for some reason. I was truly impressed by the snakes, fish, rat, and spiders all frolicking about, it really made the forest feel “alive.” Fantastic montage of our hero doing chores . . . especially how he seems to be using the Force to magically sweep away all the junk from the yard!

The large cast of amusing animals and the straightforward pleasure of the hero’s problem-solving make Ruth S. Gannett’s 1949 Honor Book My Father’s Dragon a great choice for a 90-Second Newbery. Patricia Armstrong’s third-grade class from Aquila Elementary does a bang-up job with it, and it’s clear they’re having fun, too:

Clear storytelling is hard when you have only 90 seconds, so I really appreciate how this video, even with its many scenes, makes total sense. Elmer’s desire is clear form the beginning. Good bird twitter sound effects throughout, and great costumes for cat, tiger, rhino, and lion, dragon, and monkeys and apes—costumes can make all the difference! I liked the resourceful crocodile puppets (“watch the tail sonny boy!”) and I liked how the dragon was “so ready to get out of here.” Splendid job!

Attention 90-Second Newbery hopefuls: one of the quickest ways to my heart is by adapting Rita Williams Garcia’s 2011 Honor Book One Crazy Summer, one of my favorite Newbery books which I feel really should’ve taken the medal. It’s here adapted with ingenuity, warmth, and sensitivity by third graders Liv, Stephanie, Ellie, and Audrey:

I was charmed by Liv, Stephanie, Ellie, and Audrey’s sweet take on the material. The way they bicker was very believable acting. And the movie was overflowing with great 60s-style clothes. The way they represented the interior of an airplane at the beginning was marvelously resourceful. I loved the emotion in the exchange of “Who is it?” “It’s your daughters!” “Girls, go to your room!” Great fight over Miss Pattycake too, and the poetry recital at the end effectively brought it all together. Great work!

There are so many more wonderful entries from Minnesota—too many for me to feature in one post! I will get them all up on the website in time. THANKS AGAIN for all the great entries, Minnesota!

Finally, here’s our closing montage that showcases all the movies featured at the Minneapolis screening:

Thanks again, Minnesota! Never too early to get cracking for 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.

We had two more fantastic 90-Second Newbery Film Festival screenings in Tacoma and in the Portland area on February 21-22, 2015! Thanks so much to Sara Sunshine Holloway for arranging the screening at the Tacoma Public Library—complete with red-carpet walk, popcorn, paparazzi, and specially-made Oscar-like prize statuettes for participants!—and Violeta Garza and Coi Vu for organizing the screening at the Troutdale branch of the Multnomah County Public Library near Portland.

And extra special huge thanks for my co-hosts, Doug Mackey in Tacoma and Jacob von Borg in Portland! Doug Mackey was my co-host last year in Tacoma, and the young Jacob von Borg was my co-host in Portland—you may remember Jacob from the many great 90-Second Newbery movies he’s made over the past few years, as well as the cornucopia of Order of Odd-Fish fan art he and his sisters have created as well. Add to that list: excellent co-host! I need to hire this kid full-time!

I thought I’d take the opportunity in this post to feature some of the movies I received from Tacoma and Portland this year.

Almost every year we’ve received a fantastic Claymation 90-Second Newbery from Jennings Mergenthal of Tacoma. First he sent us a breakneck-paced Claymation version of The Story of Mankind, the second year he sent us a hilarious and educational Claymation version of An American Plague, and this year here’s a super-impressive Claymation version of Steve Sheinkin’s 2013 Newbery Honor Book Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon. Take it away, Jennings:

Every year Jennings finds a way to top himself: I’m amazed at how much facial emotion and human expression he can wring out just a few bits of clay. The script is hilarious and impeccably tells the story, efficiently zooming through the book and still giving us a good idea what it’s all about. And so many hilarious little grace notes—”It’s just Einstein’s house, how hard can it be to find?”, the newspaper headline “NAZIS INVADE POLAND—we should do something”, Fermi’s line when “Stand back or something” followed by “should we be wearing some kind of protection?” and “We’ll be fine.” My personal favorite moment might be Stalin picking up the phone and saying “Hurry up with my bomb,” followed by Truman tearing his newspaper in half. And perfectly-chosen Tom Lehrer song for the end!

Another great regular contributor from Tacoma is a young man named Parker, who in the past provided us this dizzying, hallucinatory, hilarious version of William Bowen’s 1922 Honor Book The Old Tobacco Shop: A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure. Do yourself a favor and go watch it, and then come back and check out his follow-up, also of an older book: Dhan Gopal Mukerji’s 1928 Medal Winner Gay Neck, the Story of a Pigeon. It’s the story of an Indian pigeon, so Parker had the great idea to adapt it . . . in the style of a Bollywood musical:

Just as with The Olde Tobacco Shop, Parker has done some resourceful and ingenious green screen work. The costumes were ace, too, from the saris and feathers to the WWI army uniforms—I love the attention to detail (extra points for that cool nest). I had to laugh at the feathers fluttering down indicating his parents’ untimely fates, and the “not these llamas!” line was cute. Great flying and war scenes, and the Bollywood song and dance at the end was icing on the cake.

Next up: Jean Craighead George’s 1973 Newbery Medal winner Julie of the Wolves. Tacoma wolves were probably too busy to participate, so filmmaker Rosemary Sissel used the next best thing . . . Ladies and gentlemen, we give you Julie of the Cows:

I love it when these films have a unique take on the material, and Julie’s is so creative and resourceful—I guess it’s safe to say that cows are easier to wrangle than wolves for filmmaking. The shots are well composed, the voiceover is effective and pushes the story forward with admirable speed. I chuckled at the part where Julie sighed “I’m so hungry I could eat anything,” followed by her chasing a frightened chicken. The pan left reveal of the cow was funny too, as well as “My cow became a hamburger!” and Julie’s reaction when she finds her father eating beef. Smart take on the story!

Now as it turns out, Tacoma, Washington has a special place in Newbery history, for Tacoma is the setting of Katherine Applegate’s 2013 Newbery Medal winner The One and Only Ivan. The book is based on the true story of a silverback gorilla who spent 27 years in a shopping mall zoo in Tacoma and finally made his way to the Atlanta Zoo. The Tacoma Public Library Storylab (Jaek Andersen, Duncan Killion, Sebastian Killion, Zavier Killion, Shawn Newbauer, Jordan, and Trey Brown) decided to tell the story with a twist—using Minecraft! (Last year Tacoma Storylab gave the same Minecraft treatment to Wanda Gag’s 1929 Honor Book Millions of Cats):

Really good job representing the various animals, and the voiceover narration was rock-solid. The comic timing was on-point too: I especially liked the running joke of Ivan grousing, “It’s not a cage, it’s a domain” and the delivery of the line “I am a dog of uncertain heritage.” It was impressive when we got to zoom out of the mall and see outside, and I loved the exhilarating swoop when the camera is whirling around while they’re arguing.

Next up, Jack Gantos’ 2012 Newbery Medal Winner Dead End in Norvelt, as adapted by Sam Ledford:

I like how quickly and efficiently Sam rips through all the relevant plot points of the story. Nice musical flourishes, and I was amused by the Charlie-Brown wah-wah-wah on the phone. (And I loved the ominous glimpse of the murderer under the table . . . )

And finally from Tacoma, Coco, Simone, and Dori adapted Elizabeth George Speare’s 1959 Medal Winner The Witch of Blackbird Pond . . . all using paper cut-out dolls:

An ingenious idea to do it with those beautiful paper cut-outs. The voice-over work expressed the story very well, and I liked how neatly the ending wrapped up with the beginning. Great work!

And for the penultimate video in this long, long post, let’s watch the Troutdale library’s Teen Council’s version of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler:

Smart move to use Frankweiler’s voiceover narration to push the story along (great accent too!). Resourceful use of sped-up footage in the library to give that feeling of frantic searching. Good variation of shots, from the zoom-in on the sign of “Metropolitan Museum of Art,” to the crowd milling around the Michaelangelo statue, to the tight shot in the stacks while searching. These Teen Council blew through the story with admirable efficiency, nailing all the relevant plot points like pros. Another great movie!

Thanks so much for all the movies and for coming to the screenings, Tacoma and Portland area! See you next year. (And remember, it’s never too early to start working on next year’s movie . . . all the rules and details can be found here.)

We’ll close it out with the closing montage for Tacoma’s screening:

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.

Just got back from a whirlwind visit to beautiful San Francisco and Oakland, California! It’s always great to go there, because I have the privilege of staying with my friends Alisha and Sharon (an amazing chef who owns the must-visit San Francisco restaurants Gialina and Ragazza).

My business in the Bay Area? Last Saturday we did back-to-back screenings of the 4th annual 90-Second Newbery Film Festival at the San Francisco Public Library and the Rockridge branch of the Oakland Public Library.

Unfortunately I don’t have many pictures, but gigantic thanks to Leah of the Rockridge branch, a young girl who stepped in at the last minute to rock it as my co-host there! She was natural, a real pro! Thanks also to Nina Lindsay and Erica Siskind who set up the screening, too. I’m looking forward to lots of entries from Oakland next year.

On the San Francisco side, thanks to Annie Barrows (author of the Ivy and Bean books), who nailed it as my San Francisco co-host. My daughters Lucy and Ingrid are fanatics for the Ivy and Bean books, and I showed a short video to Annie and everyone in which they made their love of those books plain. Annie’s in the lower right picture in the above collage, in between me and Carla Kozak of the San Francisco Public Library—Carla and Christy Estrovitz were the librarians who made the SFPL screening happen, thanks to you both (and thanks for the toffee)! Also thanks to Summer Dawn Laurie and Katherine Megna of Books Inc., who kindly sold books after the show. After a few years of doing this film festival, they’ve become true friends (and Katherine is the one who has a tattoo of a line from my book The Order of Odd-Fish, no joke! How cool is that?!).

Every year we get some great movies from St. Andrews School in Saratoga, and this year was no exception. I featured all the movies they made on this special page, and here’s the one we showed at the festival, of Carl Hiassen’s Hoot:

Great work! We brought the filmmakers Alex and Ankith onstage when we showed this movie, and the crowd gave them the applause and recognition they deserved.

Thank you to all the young filmmakers who made this the best 90-Second Newbery yet. Here’s a montage of all the movies we showed in San Francisco. Looking forward to next year!

Next up on the 90-Second Newbery tour: Portland, Tacoma, Minneapolis, Manhattan, and Brooklyn! Looking to make your free reservation(s) to these screenings? Find all the details here.

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.