Tween (9-12) DVD Suggestions
Holes
Young Stanley Yelnats finds himself at Camp Green Lake, where digging a hole a day keeps the warden at bay and “builds character”. An ancient family curse still dogs Stanley and he’s thrown headlong into the adventure of his life. Stanley and his campmates will have to forge fast friendships to unearth the mystery of what’s really going on in the desert. (WPL Jr DVD, McC Jr DVD)
How to Eat Fried Worms
On his first day at a new school, eleven-year-old Billy goes up against the school bully in a challenge that ends up with a total gross-out date…to eat 10 worms in one day. As the pressure mounts, Billy must summon all his strength to meet the dare, all the while keeping his weak stomach from betraying him and his big mouth from getting him in even more trouble. (WPL Jr DVD, McC Jr DVD)
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)
James Mason stars as Professor Lindenbrook, a scientist who leads an expedition down to the earth’s core. They encounter dangers which include kidnapping & prehistoric reptiles. (WPL Jr DVD)
Spirited Away
When a young girl gets trapped in a strange new world of spirits, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free herself and rescue her parents. (WPL Jr DVD, McC Jr DVD)
Tuck Everlasting
Young Winnie Foster, stifled by the formality of her proper life and her domineering mother, escapes into the woods only to get lost. Her magical summer begins when she meets Jesse Tuck. Jesse is full of life and adventure and Winnie falls in love. The Tuck family has a powerful secret - a spring that holds the magic of everlasting life. Now Winnie must choose whether she wants to live life as she knows it or drink from the spring. (McC DVD)
A League of Their Own
The true story of the women’s professional baseball league during WWII. (WPL DVD)
Beetlejuice
A recently deceased Connecticut couple decide to use a maniacal bio-exorcist to help them get rid of the trendy New Yorkers who have moved into their home. (WPL DVD)
Coraline
A young girl walks through a secret door that she has found in her new home and discovers an alternate version of her life. On the surface, this parallel reality is eerily similar to her real life, but much better. When her adventure turns dangerous, and her counterfeit parents, including the Other Mother, try to keep her forever, Coraline must count on her resourcefulness, determination, and bravery to get back home - and save her family. (WPL DVD, McC DVD)
Count of Monte Cristo
A young man, falsely imprisoned by his jealous “friends”, escapes and uses a hidden treasure to exact his revenge. (WPL DVD)
Fiddler on the Roof
Tevye is a poor Jewish milkman with five unmarried daughters to support in the village of Anatevka in Czarist Russia. With a sharp-tongued wife at home and growing anti-Semitism in the village, Tevye talks to God about his troubles. His people’s traditions keep Tevye strong when his existence is balanced as precariously as a fiddler on the roof. (WPL DVD, McC DVD)
Ghostbusters
After being kicked out of their university, parapsychology professors Spengler, Stantz and Venkman decide to go into business for themselves by trapping and removing ghosts from haunted houses. After some initial skepticism, business is soon booming as The Ghost Busters rid New York of its undead. When a downtown skyscraper becomes the focal point of spirit activity linked to the ancient god Gozer, however, the problem may be more than the team can handle. (WPL DVD)
Hoosiers
A basketball coach with a checkered past becomes the new coach of the underdog high school basketball team in a 1951 sleepy Indiana farm town, using methods that infuriate the townspeople. (WPL DVD)
Howl’s Moving Castle
A young woman named Sophie is cursed by the Witch of the Waste and is turned into an old woman who is unable to tell anyone of her plight. Unable to continue her job at her mother’s hat shop, she goes to the ambulatory castle of the notorious wizard Howl and insinuates herself into his household. Sophie befriends Calcifer, the fire demon who powers the castle and who is bound to Howl by a contract, the terms of which Calcifer cannot reveal. They promise to help each other with their problems. Like Calcifer, Howl can also see through the Witch’s spell, and he and Sophie fall in love. Sophie helps Howl confront his former teacher, and the Witch of the Waste. (WPL DVD)
Invincible
Vince Papale is a down-on-his-luck substitute teacher in Philadelphia who, at the age of 30, was out of work, abandoned by his wife, and biding time as a part-time bartender when he decides to answer an open call for tryouts on the Philadelphia Eagles NFL football team in 1976. Going with his gut instinct, new coach Dick Vermeil rewards Papale’s diligent efforts with a place on the team. (WPL DVD, McC DVD)
Little Manhattan
In a city known for excitement, two friends are about to embark on the greatest adventure of all. Gabe and Rosemary have known each other all of their lives, but when they come face to face in a karate class, they see each other in a whole new light. (WPL DVD)
Mad Hot Ballroom
Eleven-year-old New York City public school kids journey into the world of ballroom dancing, and from their candid and hilarious perspectives, reveal pieces of themselves along the way. This school program started in 1994 and today has over 6,000 kids from 60 schools involved. (WPL DVD)
The Chronicles of Narnia. The lion, the witch and the wardrobe
Lucy Pevensie, along with her older brothers Edmund and Peter, and her older sister, Susan, are in London during the initial bombing raids of WW II. Like many families, their parents decide to send them to the country for safer keeping. Peter, the oldest, is told to watch over the children and make sure they stay safe. This simple request will test Peter’s ability to protect his siblings, especially after Lucy discovers an amazing secret. The children decide to play hide-and-seek, and during the game Lucy discovers a mysterious wardrobe. She tucks herself inside and backs to the rear of the cabinet, there she discovers herself in an entirely different world. The place is called Narnia, and it’s been locked in winter for over 100 years by someone known as “The White Witch.” Lucy rushes back to tell her brothers and sister, but they don’t believe her. That is until they all get into the wardrobe one day and find out she’s been telling the truth. Soon a prophecy is revealed. It is said that when Aslan returns, two daughters of Eve and two sons of Adam will come back and reclaim the four thrones of Narnia. (WPL DVD)
Planet Earth. The complete series.
A stunning 11-part series that captures rare action, impossible locations, and intimate moments with our planet’s best-loved, wildest, and most elusive creatures. (WPL DVD)
The Right Stuff
Academy Award winning film telling the story of America’s first astronauts, men who created a new type of hero, based on the story of Chuck Yeager. (WPL DVD, McC DVD)
Walking with Dinosaurs
Take the ultimate journey back in time to the reign of the dinosaurs. Descibes the earth’s environment when dinosaurs flourished, the characteristics and habits of various species, and how changes in climate, landmasses, and vegetation led to the extinction of these massive reptiles. (WPL DVD)
Monster House
A group of kids discover that a neighborhood house is actually a monster. To solve the mystery of the house they must go inside it, before it takes everyone that crosses its path. (WPL Jr DVD, WPL DVD, McC DVD)
The Thief Lord
A pair of orphaned brothers avoid being separated by escaping to Venice where they come in contact with a mysterious masked figure called the Thief Lord. (WPL Jr DVD, WPL DVD, McC DVD)
Michael Jackson’s This Is It
Presents a rare, behind-the-scenes look at Jackson as he developed, created, and rehearsed for his sold-out concerts at London’s 02 Arena. Drawn from more than one hundred hours of behind-the-scenes footage, the singer, dancer, filmmaker, architect, creative genius, and great artist at work is captured in raw and candid detail as he created and perfected his planned final London shows. (WPL DVD, McC DVD)
Dragon Hunters
Zoe is a little girl who believes in fairy tales. In order to help her uncle, Lord Arnold, get rid of a terrible dragon, Zoe decides she has to find some heroes. When she meets Gwizdo and Lian-chu, a couple of two-bit, fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants dragon hunters, she decides that she’s going to believe in them and sets out on an adventure to bring peace to the land. (WPL Jr DVD)
A Plumm Summer
When TV puppet Froggy Doo is kidnapped and held for ransom, two young brothers and their new neighbor band together to crack the case and get Froggy Doo back on the air. In the process they learn more than just who the kidnapper is - they also learn how to become best friends.
(WPL Jr DVD)
