Deadline for this year’s 90-Second Newbery is coming up—January 20! Get your entries in! And make your FREE reservations at the screenings (see event sidebar) before they’re all sold out!

It’s weird. Every year the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival experiences a mysterious convergence. A bunch of unrelated groups, all over the country, decide to adapt the same book. The first year, many folks decided to do Lois Lowry’s 1994 Medal winner The Giver. Last year, I got lots of versions of Arnold Lobel’s 1973 Honor book Frog and Toad Together. This year? It seems like our winner is Sid Fleischman’s 1987 Medal winner The Whipping Boy, the tale of a poor boy whose job it is to be whipped whenever the prince misbehaves (since it’s against the law to strike the prince). Apparently this was a real thing in the 15th-16th century.

The first adaptation, above, is by the teens at the Schaumburg Township District Library. But there’s a twist—they did the story in the style of Star Wars! So instead of a whipping boy, it’s a whipping droid (who gets smacked around with a light saber). It’s a little longer than 90 seconds, but there are light saber battles, spaceship dogfights, and explosions! (Full disclosure: I helped out with this one.) Also, want to put light saber effects in your 90-Second Newbery? SaberFX is really easy to use.

But that’s not all! The next Whipping Boy was created by rising 4th and 5th grade students at Carolina Day School, a summer day camp in Asheville, NC (they did a great version of Natalie Babbitt’s 1971 Honor book Knee-Knock Rise last year). Take it away, Carolina Day School!

Tremendous! As last year, they read the book, created the script, scouted locations, created props and special effects, and filmed in eighteen hours in only FIVE DAYS. Wow! I’m told it was directed by a teenaged assistant who is now at NC School of the Arts. Really good cinematography on this one, and the story was pushed along efficiently and amusingly by an ace script. The voice-over was a crucial addition to make it all comprehensible. And . . . so many awesome mustaches! And what a bear! And those wagon wheels! And that fair! And who wouldn’t love a bunch of dancing singing hot potatoes at the end! (Completists can checks ou their bloopers and outtakes).

Last but not least in this great lineup, another Whipping Boy from middle school students at Allendale Columbia School in Rochester, NY:

Such committed and enthusiastic acting! In particular, the way the prince recovers his dignity after being saved by Petunia in the middle of the whipping was a nice moment. I’m glad they took the time to nail the music and sound effects—that always makes a movie shine. Same with the costumes, including Cutwater and Hold-Your-Nose’s fantastic furry accoutrements, and Petunia’s marvelous costume (is that a mascot costume?). The fast-motion running-around-the-forest bit was knockabout fun, and I liked the mix of location shooting and green screen. Very resourceful! (I was particularly amused how, in the first 8 seconds, EVERYONE who stands up loses their wig, including the king.)

Thanks for all these great versions of The Whipping Boy! Looks like we’re shaping up for a great 90-Second Newbery season.

I always love it when 90-Second Newbery videos I receive use music to tell the story! After all, you can cram a lot of plot into those lyrics, and music makes a video zip right along.

Who better to make use of music than those undefeated 90-Second Newbery champs, the Bookie Woogie blog, a.k.a. the family of crackerjack children’s book creator Aaron Zenz, who in the past have given us a shadow-puppet version of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, a bonkers animation of The Black Cauldron, and an incredible all-puppet adaptation of Frog and Toad Together?

Above, check out their latest ringer! I’ll let Aaron describe it: “Charlotte’s Web won a Newbery Honor in 1952. Ten years later, Spider-Man made his first appearance. Hey… why not bring the two legendary spiders together? Why not re-imagine the Charlotte characters as costumed heroes and villains in the opening credits of an imaginary TV show?”

Yes, yes, and YES! They’ve rewritten the lyrics to the famous Spider-Man theme song to tell the story of Charlotte’s Web, and the result is manic, joyous, action-packed, and makes me wish I was five years old and in the Zenz family. Fantastic job! To learn even more about how they made it, visit the Bookie Woogie blog’s post about it here.

But that’s not the only 90-Second Newbery movie with music! Check out this entry from the teen advisory board of the Cherokee County Public Library in Gaffney, South Carolina. It’s a retelling of Kate DiCamillo’s 2004 Medal winner The Tale of Despereaux, but in the style of the opening credits of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air!



Brilliant job! Would you believe that this is the first 90-Second Newbery I’ve received that was delivered as a rap? It’s a great idea to do it that way—rap allows you to convey a lot of ideas in a short time—and the group really nailed it, from the tight writing to Alyssa’s smooth delivery. Extra points for resourceful use of the green screen. Also, the signs identifying the characters really helped, especially with a large cast like this.

Our last video today is by Allanah, who was one of my students in my 90-Second Newbery class at the Center for Talent Development over last summer. She, too, decided to take an existing song and rewrite it to tell the story of a Newbery book. In this case, the book is Lloyd Alexander’s 1966 Honor book The Black Cauldron, and the song is Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s “Can’t Hold Us”:

Allanah did an impressive job of fitting the entire complicated plot of The Black Cauldron into the song, and really sold it with her committed, energetic performance here!

Thanks, everyone! Remember, the deadline for submissions to the 90-Second Newbery is coming up (January 20!). And check out where we’re screening the film festival in the event bar to the right: Chicago, San Francisco, Oakland, Portland, Tacoma, and New York City!

I’m happy to report that Rochester, NY is a hotbed of 90-Second Newbery enthusiasm. I’ve received as many videos from there as I have from Chicago. In particular, the local cable access channel, Rochester Community TV, offer a summer camp in which participants learn how to make their own 90-Second Newbery movies. The movies from RCTV’s camp last year were impressive. Would this year’s movies measure up?

Absolutely! I received three superior movies from RCTV’s 2014 camp. The first is above, a version of Gail Carson Levine’s 1998 Honor Book Ella Enchanted that is done in the style of an “almost musical.” The running joke of how Ella keeps trying to burst into song, only to be hushed up by everyone else in the scene, is well done, especially when it gets to the point where folks are literally bonking her over the heads with pots to keep us from hearing her, or even stopping the movie entirely! Lots of cool touches: the dancing at the ball, the amusing prince (“Hey! I’m a prince and I’m charming! Wanna marry me?”), the Mission: Impossible-style escape from the school, and the flashy special effect when the curse is broken. Great stuff all around!

Next, Beverly Cleary’s 1984 Medal winner Dear Mr. Henshaw:

Dear Mr. Henshaw is an epistolary novel, told in a sequence of letters between an author (Mr. Henshaw) and a student. I like how they modernized the story by not doing it through letters, but emails, blogs and cell phones. I was startled by how good the acting was from both the kids playing Leigh and Henshaw. The smaller roles were also done with just the right note of comedy. The running joke of the lunch being stolen was really well done, and the best part of all was the post-credits reveal of the lunch thief shamelessly and calmly eating all the stolen lunches in the empty room. Ha!

Speaking of laughs, here’s Jennifer Holm’s 2000 Honor Book Our Only May Amelia, but done in the style of a standup comedy routine:

What a unique, creative, and effective way to tell the story! It’s such a good idea I’m surprised nobody else has done their movie in that style for the 90-Second Newbery. The cutaways to the grandmother throwing tea at her, the “dramatic” dialogue between her and her brother, or even “your grandmother’s dead!” “yessssss” all really made the story, and kept everything zipping along too. A fun concept, and artfully done!

Thanks, RCTV-TV! I’m looking forward to seeing you at the screening in New York City, and to what you’re cooking up for next year’s film festival!