Almost every year since 2017, I’ve made a movie for the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival with my daughters Lucy and Ingrid and all their longtime neighborhood friends. These kids are so charismatic and fun to work with. Over the years the “Leland Street Players” have developed into a true ensemble, each of them bringing their own peculiar talents to the production: acting, singing, dancing, choreographing, and even set and costume design!

This year’s movie, above, is based on Robert C. O’Brien’s 1972 Newbery Medal Winner Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. The book is about Mrs. Frisby, a widowed mouse who lives with her children in a cinderblock in a farmer’s field. Her son Timothy is sick and can’t be moved, but the farmer is about to plow his field and the cinderblock is in the way—what can she do? A wise owl advises Mrs. Frisby to ask for help from the mysterious rats who live under the rosebush. It turns out these rats are superintelligent lab rats who had escaped from a government lab called NIMH, and they have their own society under the rosebush with electricity, libraries, mechanical wonders, etc. Mrs. Frisby’s dead husband was an old friend of theirs from NIMH, so the rats agree to help Mrs. Frisby. They use their engineering skills to move her house, and Mrs. Frisby learns that the scientists of NIMH are coming to the farm to exterminate the genius rats. She warns them in time, and the rats get away. It’s a favorite book of mine!

We based the movie on the opening scene of the 2016 movie La La Land, in which a bunch of Los Angelenos stuck in traffic all come out of their cars to sing and dance together to the song “Another Day of Sun.” It’s an iconic scene—check it out here, and see how it compares to our version above:

After we shot Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, all the families hung out in our backyard and ate chili and then watched all the movies we’ve made together over the years. (One friend said, “You’ve inadvertently made your own version of Richard Linklater’s Boyhood.”) Here are all the movies, they’re worth watching . . . and hopefully these might inspire you to make your own movies for the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival! Complete details about the film festival here.

2017: My Father’s Dragon—our first movie!
2018: The Tale of Despereaux in the musical style of “Les Miserables”
2019: The Black Cauldron in the style of Dungeons and Dragons
2021: Doll Bones in the style of Stranger Things
2022: Hatchet in which the titular hatchet is replaced by “Hat Chet,” a strange dude named Chet who is proud of his weird hat
2023: Bridge to Terabithia told from the point of view of the whimsical monsters who inhabit the imaginary land of Terabithia
2024: Millions of Cats in the style of Captain Quint’s U.S.S. Indianapolis speech in Jaws

Soon these kids will grow out of making 90-Second Newbery movies—after all, most of them are in high school—and that will be a bittersweet day. For now, I will cherish all my time I’ve spent with the Leland Street Players.

I’ve been waiting to announce this: Norton Young Readers acquired my new middle-grade novel Behold! The Legend of Frogboy, and You Shall Read It in a two-book deal! I’m thrilled to be back in kidlit. It will come out in 2027, with another middle-grade book of mine coming out in 2028.

Thanks to my masterful agent John Cusick at Folio Literary Management for making yet another dream come true. Readers who liked The Order of Odd-Fish will love this one! More details to come as we draw closer to the publishing date . . . in particular, about how Frogboy had its origins in a musical I wrote in college with my friend Joe Cannon.

I’ve been busy with other stuff lately, too. Last Saturday I did a “Best of the 90-Second Newbery” screening at San Antonio’s City Base Cinemas, in which I featured the finest 90-Second Newbery movies from the past 15 years! Thanks to H-E-B Read 3, Bibliotech, and the Alamo Film Group for making this possible (and they made that snappy video chronicling the day above!).

I was particularly delighted that many of our Texas filmmakers attended: Daric of this hilarious standup version of A Wrinkle in Time, Sara, Caitlyn, Emerson, and Ava of this “Catchelor” version of Millions of Cats, and the young men of Keystone Academy’s modernized adaptation of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!.

In the days leading up to the screening I did author visits at six Texas schools: Memorial Elementary, Veramendi Elementary, and Morningside Elementary in New Braunfels; McNair Middle School in Atascosa; Resnik Middle School in Von Ormy; and Barbara Jordan Intermediate School in Cibolo. I introduced the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival to students, helped some of them on their movie ideas, and at some schools talked about The Order of Odd-Fish too. It was a great time!

At Resnik Middle School I met Arrabella, who made this fantastic on-the-spot fan art of Jo from The Order of Odd-Fish:

At Barbara Jordan Intermediate School, the teacher Ginger made cookies that had the covers of all my books on them, as well as the logo of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival! Later that night I went out with her and all the other teachers (including the primary organizer, Jennifer Wagner) to Mi Tierra for a great dinner. The line of the evening: when I remarked my margarita was delicious, one of the Texans at the table said, “washes the Yankee right out of your mouth, don’t it?”

San Antonio is fantastic every time I visit!

Thanks, San Antonio! I’m looking forward to seeing the movies you make for the film festival! Remember, the Texas deadline is March 20, 2026 and the San Antonio screening will be at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts on May 9, 2026. Complete information about the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival here.

I have another book review up in the Wall Street Journal! This time I’m reviewing Dan Chaon’s circus-freak literary horror One Of Us. It’s very enjoyable and I ultimately wrote a positive review, although I had a few nits to pick. (I’m a big fan of Chaon, especially his 2017 novel Ill Will, so when I heard this book was coming out, I put in a specific request at the WSJ to review this one.)

In other news, I’m in the middle of my usual fall round of school visits, talking about the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival and my young-adult fantasy The Order of Odd-Fish. As part of my presentation, I usually show off Odd-Fish fan art that I’ve received over the years (I’ve collected it all here) and that sometimes inspires young artists to make their own fan art for the book . . .

And I just received two great pieces of fan art from Lennon M. of Decatur Classical School in Chicago! (It’s the school that both my daughters went to in Chicago, but I mercifully refrained from doing any presentations there until they graduated.) The art on the left is of the foppish cockroach Sefino getting humiliated by the centipede gossip columnist Mr. Chatterbox, and on the right is the wannabe villain Ken Kiang telling Hoagland Shanks about The Pie of Innocence Slain:

I love the supercilious look in Chatterbox’s eye and the way Lennon indicates the centipede’s disdain at Sefino’s mustard-blotched ascot through the speech bubble—and Sefino looks hilariously mortified, too! Likewise, the picture with Ken Kiang clearly relishing regaling Hoagland Shanks with dire visions such as a dead cat, a scythe, a skull, and so on, while Shanks contentedly eats his pie and claims it tastes like peaches is inspired. In both pictures, the looks on everyone’s faces and their body language are so expressive and communicate the vibe of the scenes so well. Top notch work, Lennon!

I also have some super exciting publishing news of my own coming up. Stay tuned!