based on a book
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FamilyIvanhoe
Drama / Adventure 1952 / 107 minutes Rating: 8/10 If you love the story of Robin Hood, this is the sequel (or maybe prequel) that…
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AnimatedChristmas Carol: the movie
Animated 2001 / 81 minutes Rating: 7/10 Dickens’ classic tale gets a child-friendly brush up, with a couple of cute mice companions added to the…
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DramaThe Count of Monte Cristo
Drama 1934 / 107 minutes RATING: 8/10 This is based on the story by Alexander Dumas (who also authored The Three Musketeers), and while it…
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FamilyThe Black Arrow
Drama / Family 1948 / 76 minutes Rating: 7/10 Sir Richard Shelton is a young knight returning from three years away fighting in the latest…
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AnimatedThe Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1979)
Animated / Children 1979 / 95 minutes RATING: 7/10 This is the oldest surviving film version of C.S. Lewis’s famous classic. It is absolutely fascinating…
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FamilyThe Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Family / Drama 2005 / 125 minutes Rating: 8/10 For those who have not read the C.S. Lewis book of the same name, this takes…
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AnimatedAnne of Green Gables: the Animated Series
Animated / TV 2003 / 26 episodes x 25 minutes each Rating: 7/10 It’s an animated Anne brought to you by Sullivan Entertainment, the same…
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FamilyThe Prince and the Pauper
Adventure 1937 / 118 minutes RATING: 8/10 The swashbuckling Errol Flynn stars in one of the earliest, and still one of the best, film adaptations…
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DramaLittle Women (1994)
Drama 1994 / 118 min Rating: 9/10 Taking only minor liberties with Louisa May Alcott’s book, Little Women tells the tale of Marmee March’s four…
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Book ReviewsEscape from Mr. Lemoncello’s library: the graphic novel
by Chris Grabenstein 2023 / 250 pages In this tween graphic novel (based on the tween novel of the same name), Mr. Lemoncello is a…
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AnimatedAnimal Farm (1954)
Animated / Drama 1954 / 72 minutes RATING: 7/10 This is George Orwell’s classic dystopian tale brought to the big screen. A farm setting is…
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DramaSarah, Plain and Tall
Drama / Romance 1990 / 98 minutes Rating: 8/10 In 1910, Jacob Witting, a Kansas farmer and widower, places a newspaper ad asking for a…
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DramaLove’s Long Journey
Drama / Family 2005 / 88 minutes Rating: 7/10 Missie LaHaye isn’t quite the perfect wife – she’s an impossibly bad cook – but she…
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DramaThe Ultimate Gift
Romance / Christian 2006 / 114 minutes RATING: 7/10 Jason, a spoilt rich kid, is given an inheritance by his billionaire grandfather… but it comes…
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FamilyThe 3 worlds of Gulliver
Family / Children’s 1960 / 99 minutes Rating: 7/10 The film manages one upgrade on the book. In the original Gulliver’s Travels, Dr. Lemuel Gulliver is all…
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AnimatedThe Way Things Work
Animated / TV series / Family 2001 / 300+ minutes (26 episodes) RATING: 9/10 This educational series takes place on a small island in which…
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DramaThe Hobbit: the film trilogy
AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY 2012 / 169 min (also a 182-min version) Rating: 8/10 THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG 2013 / 161 min (also a 186-min version) Rating: 8/10…
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FamilyThe Gospel Blimp
Satire / Drama 38 min / 1967 Rating: 8/10 It may be 40 years old now, but this understated satire still ranks among the better…
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AnimatedThe Phantom Tollbooth
Animated 1970 / 89 minutes Rating: 7/10 This is a peculiar movie based on a peculiar book, and as such, will have only peculiar appeal…
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FamilyPride and Prejudice (2003)
Romance/Comedy 104 min / 2003 Rating: 8/10 When a book is adapted for the screen, readers want it to be as close to the book…
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DramaAnd then there were none
Drama 1945 / 97 minutes Rating: 7/10 The film is based on the Agatha Christie mystery of the same name, one of just three English…
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DramaThe Adventures of Robin Hood
Drama/Action 101 min / 1938 Rating: 8/10 Aside from a little medieval Roman Catholicism in the character of Friar Tuck (for instance, asking a woman…
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DramaThe Man in the Iron Mask
Drama 1939 / 112 minutes Rating: 6/10 Based loosely on the Alexander Dumas story of the same name, it takes place 20 years after Dumas’…
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AnimatedThe Boxcar Children
Animated / Children’s 2013 / 81 minutes Rating: 7/10 The Boxcar Children is the first title in a popular and still expanding children’s series of…
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FamilyPollyanna
Family 2003 / 99 minutes Rating: 8/10 Aside from a change of setting, this is a faithful adaption of the source book. Yes, moving it…
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FamilyJohnny Tremain
Historical drama / Family 80 min / 1957 RATING: 7/10 Walt Disney clearly loved American history, and Johnny Tremain is another of his homages to…
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AnimatedThe Lord of the Rings animated “trilogy”
Peter Jackson wasn’t the first to put J.R.R. Tolkien’s books on film. Two decades before the first of Jackson’s live-action/CGI films hit theaters, three animated versions were…
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Family20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Family / Classic 127 minutes / 1954 RATING 7/10 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a childhood favorite that I’ve been looking forward to sharing…
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FamilyThe Giver
Drama / Family 97 minutes / 2014 RATING: 8/10 My brother Jeff wrote a review of the book this film is based on that hits…
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FamilySwallows and Amazons
Drama / Family 2016 / 96 minutes RATING: 7/10 I remember my older brother reading Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons to me when I was very young,…
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AnimatedThe Boxcar Children: Surprise Island
Animated / Children 82 minutes / 2018 RATING: 6/10 My kids loved this – we rented it for two nights, and they asked to watch…
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FamilySwiss Family Robinson
Drama/Adventure 126 min/1960 RATING: 8/10 Based on the classic 1812 Johann Wyss book, Swiss Family Robinson tells the tale of a family of five that gets shipwrecked…
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FamilyCity of Ember
Adventure/Family 95 min/2008 RATING: 7/10 For humanity’s remnant to survive they have to hide deep underground for 200 years in a specially prepared city –…