What do you think about when you hear the words: The Powerpuff Girls? The CW’s live action adaptation with Dove Cameron? God let’s hope not. Sometimes, the people that run media companies attempt to emotionally pickpocket the current population of young adults and replace nostalgia where their wallets used to be. In this case, we got something that didn’t even make it to the silver screen. Alas, it didn’t seem to work out for our televised trio made from sugar, spice and everything nice. However, what about book series from that same, carefree era of our childhood? Could those joyful storylines make it onto our everyday streaming platforms? I would personally love to see what those beloved characters were up to after their novels ended.
So many children’s books have been further popularized because of their prominence on television. JK Rowling’s Harry Potter is the prime example of this success. I’ve compiled a list of five series that will take you back to your childhood, but also have the potential to be adapted for an aging audience. Hold on to your hats, folks, as we jump back to a simpler era when we all possessed the time to read, or at least the interest to pick up a book in the first place. I’ll also include whether there were ever plans (scrapped from their studios or not) to adapt these to our televisions.
- The Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne
There were so many books in this series, which would give Netflix producers content for DECADES if they got their hands on this over 50-volumes series. The Magic Tree House follows sibling duo Jack and Annie on quests from different historical events as they time travel through their, you guessed it, magic tree house. With the possibility of Jack and Annie witnessing history’s terrific battles and falling in love with characters throughout time, it would make a great plot for a show, and would definitely garner an audience who grew up on the nineties’ series.
Before we start crowdsourcing to get this idea off the ground, let’s consider the fact that Mary Pope Osborne’s beloved series has recently been seeing some action regarding its filmic future. According to Deadline’s article, rumor has it that Lionsgate finally acquired the rights to this series back in February of 2016. The now six-year-old press release from Lionsgate foretold a movie about its two protagonists rediscovering the tree house. The first installment of their multiple-movie plan would start with Pope Osborne’s twenty-ninth book in the series, Christmas in Camelot. Mary Pope Osborne and her husband, Will Osborne, were set to help write the script and had acquired roles as executive producers. Yet, in October of 2021, she published a tweet that read, “While there is no longer a movie being developed with Lionsgate, we are working on several other special MTH projects!” It could be pandemic-related, but that doesn’t make the news any less hurtful that we won’t be seeing Jack and Annie on-screen any time soon. The Deadline article also acknowledges a Japanese anime made for The Magic Tree House, done by Hiroshi Nishikiori with Media Factory in 2011. Yet, this version never hit the North American market or received an English dub-over.
- Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park
Everyone’s favorite glasses-wearing, outspoken girl could be back—and all grown up. That could be a central theme of a Netflix show based on Park’s series: how much our little Junie B. has changed since her amusing days in kindergarten and first grade. It would be a classic high school, coming-of-age drama, full of boys, parties and life’s biggest milestones.
Though not upgraded quite like that to a storyline for young adults, Barbara Park’s character was adapted into a musical back in the summer of 2004, which led audiences through “a year in the life of a first grader, as written in her journal,” the article on Playbill’s site reads. In much more recent news, Variety announced in June of this year that Junie B. Jones was included in Nickelodeon’s developmental slate by its new executive vice presidents. It’s exciting that such a beloved character could finally have the television debut she deserves, but it doesn’t sound like it would be a show made for those who read the novels in the ‘90s and 2000s. Will I still be watching it if it truly does come out, though? Yes, yes, I will.
- The 39 Clues by Various Authors
Based on the numbers that my brother chose for his first iPad password, these books have made a big impact on a lot of young lives. This is a series I never had the pleasure of reading, but it made the cut on this list for the potential of its premise: yet another sibling pair. In this series, Dan and Amy Cahill must hunt down the eponymous 39 clues around the globe while trying to figure out what happened to their parents. With these themes of mystery and adventure coursing through the pages, it would make a great young adult series with dark, violent undertones and suspenseful twists and turns. A movie was in the works in May of 2012, produced by none other than Steven Spielberg and directed by Shawn Levy according to this Collider article. It was set to be a family-friendly flick made by DreamWorks, but now it seems to be out of development. Perhaps it’s time to try a more grown-up search for these 39 clues in a future adaptation.
- Spirit Animals by Various Authors
Spirit Animals was one of my favorite series right before I hit the transitional period between children’s and young adult novels. The premise of Spirit Animals is that four children have the unique ability to form bonds with and gain powers from spirit animals to defeat the evil Devourer. Casting four leads that could play attractive high schoolers (and pull off sick tattoos of their spirit animals) would be a piece of cake for Netflix according to their previous work. With the right effects team, this show could be an epic fantasy chock-full of mystical battles.
In May of 2016, Deadline released that Universal was planning a franchise around these novels with John Fusco writing the script based on the first novel, Wild Born. I feel it would be better suited for a television format, so it could dive deep into each of the four protagonists and their bonds between each other and their respective spirit animals. It seems like this is a potential idea for the future, as Universal’s project faded into the shadows just as quickly as it had emerged.
- Dork Diaries by Rachel Renée Russell
Yes, it might seem like a feminized version of Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but this series was a fun read when I was young. It focuses on Nikki Maxwell’s life as a middle schooler through her “secret” diary entries and doodles. Full of crushes and all things coming-of-age, it has the potential to be a sweet romantic comedy for an older audience if it incorporated Nikki’s high school years.
Believe it or not, Russell’s books were slated to be a movie back in 2015 with Lionsgate, an article from The Hollywood Reporter showed. The studio even had the director of Mean Girls, Mark Waters, on board for the project. What happened to this potential flick? No, seriously, because besides those few tidbits from almost a decade ago, that’s all the information that’s out there. Another day, another scrapped movie, I suppose.
What did these five children’s series all have in common? There were attempts to make films based on these novels, but they have yet to be completed. Making these series into TV shows for the audiences that read them as kids would be a smart idea for producers. As we can see from all the recent remakes and spinoffs Disney has been announcing, nostalgia really controls today’s market. If you spot one of these book adaptations playing in the future after Netflix’s signature “buh-bum” opening, I won’t say “I told you so!”—but I’ll sure be thinking it as the credits roll.