Best Book to Movie Adaptations

Photo by National Library of Medicine on Unsplash

One of the programs we run yearly at the Middleton Public Library is called Book Bunch & Lunch. I choose a book and for four or five weeks, the kids bring their lunch and eat while I read them a chapter or two and then we do some book related activity, and then during the final week we watch the movie based on the book. This year's book was The Tiger's Apprentice by Laurence Yep. 

Because of this program, I'm always on the lookout for great children's book movie adaptations, so the list, The All-Time Best Movie Adaptations of Children's Books from Bookriot caught my eye. I've spent so much time scrolling through lists, reading reviews, and prescreening movies that I'm happy to find any tool to help me choose! 

My favorite year so far was the year we read How to Train your Dragon. The kids loved it, the book was great, and the movie was amazing! Now with the new live action release I'd highly recommend this one for anyone looking to do something similar. 

What are your favorite book to movie adaptations for kids?

You can find the full article here. [Mabee, Megan. The All-Time Best Movie Adaptations of Children's Books. Bookriot.com. 7/14/2025.]

How To Train Your Dragon Read-alikes

 The live action version of How to Train Your Dragon has flown into theaters to rave reviews, rekindling interest in Cressida Cowell's book series and sparking the age old question, what do you read next?  Here are two suggestion lists to fill the void after readers finish their adventures with Toothless and Hiccup.

Emily Drabble over at BookTrust writes, "A knee-jerk reaction for fans of How To Train Your Dragon might be to suggest more books with dragons. For the dragon-obsessed child this might work. But other children may find these new dragons slightly less interesting than Toothless (and how come the new dragon doesn’t speak Dragonese?) We have to remember that children didn’t only read the series simply because there were dragons in it!"

Stop here for her list of read-alikes! [How to Train Your Dragon: what to read next. Emily Drabble. BookTrust blog. Undated.]

Then soar over to OverDrive  for more read-alikes! [How to Train Your Dragon read-alikes to captivate young readers. Overdrive blog. June 16, 2025.]

The Prince and the Dressmaker Musical, Coming Your Way!

Calling all musical lovers...

Jen Wang's The Prince and the Dressmaker is going to be turned into a movie musical!

                  

You read that correctly...Kristen and Bobby Lopez, of Frozen fame, announced that their next project will be an adaptation of the popular 2018 graphic novel!

Here's a link to the Playbill article...and another featured on The Mary Sue.

No official timeline has been released for the project, but keep it on your radars!

THE HATE U GIVE: Angie Thomas Shares Her Thoughts On Challenges

Recently, Angie Thomas was interviewed by Entertainment Weekly, where she discussed her best-selling book The Hate U Give and her thoughts on the recurring resistance her book has faced since its publication. 

Many of the adverse parties are concerned about the graphic depictions of drug use, police brutality, and the regular use of explicit language throughout the story.  Thomas responds as such:

“When you say ‘Black Lives Matter’ to three different people, you get 30 different reactions,” Thomas says. “There are so many misunderstandings. There’s the assumption that it’s an antipolice book, when the fact is it’s anti-police brutality.” She continues, in regard to the language: “There are books with way more curse words in them, for one. And two, there are 89 F-bombs in The Hate U Give. But there were 800 people killed by police officers last year alone.”

Read the whole article HERE.

With the film adaptation being released in select theaters this month, the book and its story are likely to be a topic of conversation for quite awhile.

And speaking of the movie, have y'all seen the trailer?!  

Readalikes for Ready Player One

Brightly just sent out an article featuring readalikes for Ready Player One, which has a  movie version playing in theatres now. You can view the article HERE. Another book that might tempt YA and crossover readers who enjoyed Ready Player One is Cory Doctorow's For the Win.