By Nicki Richesin, The Children’s Book Review
Published: February 18, 2012
Many children’s books that have been adapted for film have been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Hugo based on The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick and War Horse adapted from the children’s novel by Michael Morpurgo have both been nominated for Best Picture. Take a look back at some of the books that have inspired memorable films and been honored as nominees for Best Picture by the academy over the years.
All Quiet on the Western Front* | Universal | (1929/30) | (3rd ceremony)
Little Women | RKO Radio 3rd place | (1932/33) | (6th ceremony)
David Copperfield | MGM | (1935) | (8th ceremony) as introduced by Lionel Barrymore
A Tale of Two Cities | MGM | 1936 | (9th ceremony)
Captains Courageous | MGM | 1937 | (10th ceremony)
The Adventures of Robin Hood | Warner Brothers | 1938 | (11th ceremony)
Gone with the Wind* | Selznick International Pictures | 1939 | (12th ceremony)
The Wizard of Oz | MGM | 1939
Wuthering Heights | Samuel Goldwyn | 1939
The Grapes of Wrath | Twentieth Century Fox | 1940 | (13th ceremony)
The Yearling | MGM | 1946 | (19th ceremony)
Great Expectations | J. Arthur Rank-Cineguild | 1947 | (20th ceremony)
Ivanhoe | Pandro S. Berman | 1952 | (25th ceremony)
Around the World in 80 Days* | Michael Todd | 1956 | (29th ceremony)
The King and I | Charles Brackett | 1956
The Diary of Anne Frank | Henry Blanke | 1959 | (32nd ceremony)
To Kill a Mockingbird | Alan J. Pakula | 1962 | (35th ceremony)
Mary Poppins | Walt Disney and Bill Walsh | 1964 | (37th ceremony)
Doctor Dolittle | Arthur P. Jacobs | 1967 | (40th ceremony)
Beauty and the Beast | Don Hahn | 1991 | (64th ceremony)
Babe | George Miller, Doug Mitchell and Bill Miller | 1995 | (68th ceremony)
Sense and Sensibility | Lindsay Doran | 1995
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring | Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Barrie M. Osborne | 2001 | (74th ceremony)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers | Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Barrie M. Osborne | 2002 | (75th ceremony)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King* | Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Barrie M. Osborne | 2003 | (76th ceremony)
Finding Neverland | Richard N. Gladstein and Nellie Bellflower | 2004 | (77th ceremony)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button | Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Cean Chaffin | 2008 | (81st ceremony)
What are some of your favorite books that have been adapted for the big screen?
Nicki Richesin is the editor of four anthologies,What I Would Tell Her: 28 Devoted Dads on Bringing Up, Holding On To, and Letting Go of Their Daughters; Because I Love Her: 34 Women Writers Reflect on the Mother-Daughter Bond; Crush: 26 Real-Life Tales of First Love; and The May Queen: Women on Life, Work, and Pulling it all Together in your Thirties. Her anthologies have been excerpted and praised in The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, Redbook, Parenting, Cosmopolitan, Bust, Salon, Daily Candy, and Babble.