While books have always been adapted to other forms of entertainment, the ever-expanding mountain of media platforms has given us more book-based movies and TV shows than most of us can handle.

Here are some promising books that will be coming to a screen near you.

Feel free to check these books out from La Mesa Library today so you can sagely tell all your friends “the book was better.”

In the 1980s, author Judy Blume was a powerful force in literature for young people. Many of her books were not only fun and popular but also helped kids and teens cope with the world around them. One of her most fabled books is Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. It’s a frank coming-of-age story about 11-year-old Margaret dealing with the confusion of puberty, the challenges of moving to a new town, and her first attempts to understand religious faith. The movie version is hitting theaters as I type this and is receiving wide acclaim.

Christopher Nolan, who has brought us films ranging from Batman to Inception to Dunkirk is releasing his latest epic, Oppenheimer this summer. It features a star-studded cast (Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Florence Pugh) with Cillian Murphy taking the role of nuclear physicist and father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer. The film is based on the Pulitzer-prize-winning book, American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin.

Sometimes a book or movie is so successful, it spawns a wealth of spin-offs.

The Hunger Games series was a phenomenon prompting author Suzanne Collins to later write a prequel novel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. It tells about the early years of Hunger Games villain, President Snow, and his rise to power. The film adaptation is in theaters this November. A stranger prequel is the upcoming movie Wonka, starring Timothée Chalamet. Did you read Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and think “I need to know Willy Wonka’s origin story”? Then you’re in luck, as this film about young, pre-factory Willy (having adventures not based on any specific book) comes out this December.

American Born Chinese is an award-winning graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang in which he alternates between three different stories about Chinese American identity and then merges them in unexpected ways. This fascinating book is being turned into a television series, streaming on Disney+ in May. Alongside the teenage protagonists are characters played by Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, recent award winners for the movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once. By most accounts, it will diverge from the original book, but it hopefully captures the mystery and poignancy of its source material.

Finally, there’s Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. The novel is about the traumas and triumphs of two Black sisters living in rural Georgia in the early 1900s. The award-winning book was turned into an award-winning film in the 1980s, and then into an award-winning Broadway musical in the 2000s. The musical version is now being adapted into another movie, which will be out in theaters in December. Might it also win awards?

Here at the library, we are getting ready for this year’s Summer Learning Program, where kids, teens, and adults can read and participate in other fun activities to win prizes while learning more about the world around them.

More info and sign-ups starting June 1 at sdcl.org/summer.

Photo credit: Pixabay.com