20 Young Adult Movies Based on Books

Zusak’s 2005 novel has the double appeal of a book that has a movie adaptation (2013) and a book about war. The book is narrated by Death, busy in the midst of World War II. He tells the story of Liesel, who is traveling to Munich with her mother and brother Werner, when her brother suddenly dies.

After they depart the train to bury the body, one of the gravediggers drops The Gravediggers’ Handbook, which Liesel steals, beginning her career as a book thief. Liesel’s mother takes Liesel to live with foster parents Hans and Rosa, and when Hans starts teaching Liesel to read, something she hasn’t had the chance to learn before, her fascination with the power of words leads her to steal more books for her collection.

Liesel and her foster parents face significant challenges. Hans does not join the Nazi Party, setting him apart from his neighbors, and when the family takes in a German Jew named Max, their lives become even more dangerous. Stories are what connect Liesel and Max, and she begins writing her own manuscript as the novel moves towards its sad ending (it’s narrated by Death—how could it end any other way?).

The unique narrator, poetic prose, and emphasis on the power of words have started to land The Book Thief on district curriculum guides, but it still makes a great independent reading choice for students who gravitate toward realistic or historical fiction.

Kamkwamba’s 2009 memoir tells the story of his life in Malawi.

When a famine hit in 2002, Kamkwamba’s family fell into poverty and could no longer afford to send him to school. Having learned about windmills in science class, he taught himself how to build one, using parts of old tractors, scrap metal, and pieces of bicycles. The people in his village thought he was crazy, but his contraption worked. He created two windmills, one that powered electric lights in four homes and another that powered a water pump.

In addition to his easy-to-read memoir, Kamkwamba shared his inspiring story in a 2009 TED Talk, and Netflix produced a film version in 2019.

We, and our students, loved Roth’s 2011 dystopian novel. The 2014 movie was a hit, and, with a reread a decade plus later, Steph’s happy to say it still holds up (though the first book is far better than the rest of the series).

Tris’s society is divided into factions: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless, and Erudite. When young men and women come of age, they take a test to see which faction their qualities most align with, and then formally choose which faction they will join. When Tris takes her test, she discovers she is Divergent, meaning she would fit equally well into multiple factions, a result seen as a threat in her society.

Tris makes the hard decision to leave Abnegation, the faction she grew up in, for Dauntless. The initiation process is rigorous, as she competes to be a part of the faction and not end up factionless, abandoned by society and left to care of herself. She makes new friends, grows in self-confidence, falls in love, and discovers that all is not as perfect as it seems in her society, and she must decide how to act.

While just a really good, action-packed story, Divergent also raises interesting questions about the characteristics that both hinder and help our ability to survive as a society and what place there is for those who don’t neatly conform to society’s categories.

Weirdly for those of us who have been around the YA book world for a while, your students might be more likely to know John Green from his excellent Crash Course videos than as a young adult author. But a decade ago, John Green reigned as king in the young adult book world.

His most popular book by far is 2012’s The Fault in Our Stars, which tells the story of Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters, who meet in a support group for cancer patients and survivors. As the two become friends, Hazel convinces Augustus to read her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, about a young girl with cancer whose story is similar to her own. The book, however, ends abruptly, and Hazel and Augustus desperately want to know how it was supposed to end, eventually taking them to Amsterdam to meet the author.

Both the novel and the 2014 film adaptation were huge hits, thanks to the combination of snarky, philosophical teens and tragic love story, both catnip for teenage readers.

The younger cousin of The Fault in Our Stars, Five Feet Apart tells the story of Stella Grant and Will Newman, who meet in the hospital where they are both receiving treatment for cystic fibrosis. Stella, who hosts a popular YouTube channel about cystic fibrosis, is doing everything she can to remain eligible for a desperately needed lung transplant, while Will is tired of treatment and counting down the days until he turns 18 and can make his own medical decisions, namely to stop receiving treatment and live beyond the hospital walls.

Because of their disease, Stella and Will must remain six feet apart at all times to avoid transmitting bacteria that could be fatal to either one of them (or ruin Stella’s eligibility for a lung transplant). This becomes challenging, however, when the two fall in love and want nothing more than to narrow the gap between them, even if only by one foot.

Our students were drawn toward tragic love stories and realistic books about teenagers fighting deadly illnesses, so this was right up their alley, and many of our students loved both the book and the 2019 film.

Like The Book Thief, The Hate U Give is starting to make regular appearances on district curriculum maps. And with good reason. Thomas’s 2017 novel begins when Starr Carter witnesses the police shooting of her unarmed best friend Khalil. Starr has long struggled to keep her two worlds separate—the poor neighborhood she lives in and the fancy prep school she attends—and after Khalil’s shooting, this becomes harder than ever.

After the shooting, Starr watches the news media drag Khalil’s name through the mud, suggesting he was a drug dealer or gang member, and her community is upended by protests. Starr and her family are subjected to intimidating threats from both the police and a local drug lord. Starr must ultimately decide whether or not she will speak up about what she witnessed the night Khalil was killed.

Thomas’s novel, and the 2018 film adaptation, address important issues of race, police brutality, the pressure to act in different ways in different worlds, and the importance of finding and using your voice, making them not only engaging for students but timely and important.

[Note: There is a subplot about Starr and her boyfriend that may make you uncomfortable recommending the text to younger readers. If you’re looking for a novel that addresses similar topics without these concerns, we recommend Nic Stone’s Dear Martin or All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely.]

When it comes to young adult blockbusters, The Hunger Games may be second only to the Harry Potter phenomenon. Collins’s story of a dystopian world where children are selected as tributes to compete in the annual Hunger Games (in which they fight to the death as televised entertainment for the citizens of the Capitol) is hard to put down (or turn off, as the case may be).

When Katniss Everdeen volunteers as tribute in District 12 to protect her younger sister Prim, we are whisked into the world of the Hunger Games. When Katniss refuses to play by the Capitol’s rules, inspiring the men and women living in the oppressed districts, we’re caught up in a page-turning trilogy about class conflicts, oppressive governments, rebellion, and love.

The book was made into a blockbuster movie in 2012, cementing the series’s popularity and inspiring an inevitable prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Ballad tells the story of the 10th Hunger Games, when a young Coriolanus Snow is assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird, the charming tribute from District 12. While not quite as good as the original trilogy (which is still just as page-turning over a decade later), fans of the Hunger Games will enjoy seeing not only an early version of the Games but the seeds of the phenomenon the Games will become.

We’re not going to lie: books about battling alien races aren’t in our usual wheelhouse. But after reading this one while previewing schoolwide summer reading novels, we were tempted to check out more.

The first in a series, I Am Number Four is about nine aliens from the planet Lorien who fled to Earth when another alien race, the Mogadorians, destroyed Lorien. These nine escapees have been living in hiding on Earth as they wait for their Legacies, or superpowers, to develop.

Unfortunately, Loriens 1–3 have died (they can only be killed in sequential order), and John Smith knows he’s next on the list. He and his guardian try to stay undercover in Paradise, Ohio, but when Mogadorians show up, John must fight to protect himself, his fellow Loriens, and his new friends on Earth.

The film version came out in 2011, and it’s full of action-packed scenes.

When Mia Hall’s family decides to go for a morning drive on a snowy day in Portland, Oregon, the icy roads lead to a massive car accident that kills Mia’s parents and lands Mia and her brother Teddy in the hospital. While her body lies in a coma, Mia, in an out-of-body experience, watches the doctors fight to save her as her remaining family and friends rush to be by her side.

As she watches the scene unfold, Mia remembers the many years she spent learning to play the cello, falling in love with her boyfriend Adam, and wrestling with the daily challenges of teenage life. Ultimately, Mia must decide if she will join her parents in death or awake from her coma to be with her remaining family, friends, and boyfriend.

The 2009 novel was adapted to a film in 2014, and they both tell a compelling story about an impossible choice.

We’re not sure the Percy Jackson series needs much of an introduction, but, boy, do we love it, and so do our students! The first book in the series tells the story of Percy Jackson, who has a challenging home life and struggles with dyslexia and ADHD (or so he thinks). When Percy finds out his dad is actually the Greek god Poseidon and the gods suspect him of helping his father by stealing Zeus’s famous lightning bolt, he begins a journey that takes him to Camp Half-Blood and ultimately across the United States, encountering monsters and gods along the way.

It’s a compelling adventure story with friendships, family issues, and coming-of-age challenges your students will relate to, but for us, the best part was seeing Riordan adapt the well-known stories of Greek mythology to the modern United States. Many of your students have seen the 2010 film. Riordan’s journey with Percy shows no signs of slowing down with plans for new releases that will only reignite students’ interest in the original.

Whether you’re looking for a high-interest First Chapter Friday recommendation or an engaging and easy way to introduce Greek mythology and the hero’s journey, this book-film pairing is for you.

It wasn’t until we included this super-sweet 2016 novel on our list of young adult summer books that we learned a Netflix adaptation came out in 2022! We added it to our “to watch” list because seeing Lina’s sun-soaked tour of Italy sounds like just the relaxing weekend evening we need!

Lina grew up without knowing her father, but when her mother dies of cancer, Lina spends the summer with him in Italy. As she grieves, gets to know him, reads her mother’s journal of falling in love, makes new friends, and explores Italy, Lina discovers new things about herself and ends the summer much stronger than when it began. 

The novel is the perfect summer read, light and fizzy, allowing readers to vicariously travel and, just maybe, fall in love.

The inspiration for this 2011 novel might be one of our favorite things about it. Riggs began collecting vintage photographs as a child when his grandmother took him to swap meets and secondhand shops. The photographs are often haunting and eerie, and those featuring “peculiar” Victorian-era children formed the basis for his novel; the photos themselves are interspersed throughout the book’s pages.

Jacob Portman grew up hearing his grandfather Abraham’s stories about surviving the Holocaust and living on a mysterious island with unusual children, all guarded from monsters by a bird. When Abraham dies, Jacob sees one of the monsters his grandfather told stories about and has a psychotic break. Eventually, the psychiatrist recommends his parents take him to the town in Wales where his grandfather grew up.

Once in Wales, Jacob finds his grandfather’s childhood home deserted, but when he encounters a mysterious girl who can conjure fire with her hands, he begins an adventure that involves time loops, children with unusual powers, and dangerous monsters called hollowgasts and wights.

The first book in the series is the best one (and, of course, better than the movie), but Tim Burton was an obvious choice to direct the 2016 film. We’re confident you have students who will enjoy this imaginative adventure. And who knows? Maybe they’ll be inspired to write their own stories about Riggs’s photos.

Set in the same neighborhood as The Hate U Give, Thomas’s second novel tells the story of Bri, the daughter of a hip-hop artist killed before his career could really take off. She is determined to be a successful rapper herself, but her career gets off to a rocky start when her song about being racially profiled and assaulted by white security guards at school goes viral. She’s portrayed as an angry Black girl trying to incite violence, and the fallout causes her mother to lose her job and damages her relationship with her aunt.

The book takes readers into the music industry and the world of rap battles while telling a compelling story that addresses real issues relating to poverty, addiction, systemic racism, and gang violence.

The novel was adapted into a film in 2022, making Bri’s rap songs more than just words on a page.

We highlighted Karen McManus in our list of mystery novels for young adults, and while she has published quite a few teen mysteries, One of Us Is Lying is definitely the best one, and it was adapted into a TV show on Peacock in 2021.

Initially sounding just like an updated version of The Breakfast Club, five students—the brain, the beauty, the criminal, the athlete, and the outcast—walk into detention at Bayview High School. But everything changes when only four of them make it out of detention alive.

Simon (the outcast and victim) created the high school’s gossip app, and it turns out he had major dirt on the four students trapped in detention with him, which he planned to post on the app the next day. What lengths would they be willing to go to prevent their secrets from getting out? And if they didn’t murder Simon (as they insist), who did?

We did not see the end of the mystery coming (always a genuine treat, especially when you read as many mysteries as Steph does), but do be mindful of your students before recommending this one. The ending is disturbing, and you’ll want to be confident your students can handle it.

Quentin “Q” Jackson grew up with a major crush on his neighbor, Margo Roth Spiegelman. But he and his friends are outcasts, while she is one of the school’s most popular girls.

One month before graduation, Margo appears in Q’s bedroom window, asking for help carrying out a revenge plot against eleven classmates she claims have wronged her. After an adventurous night carrying out Margo’s plan, Q assumes they will spend more time together, but Margo isn’t at school, and a few days later, her parents report her missing.

When Q starts discovering clues Margo left behind for him, he and his friends take off on a mission to find Margo. Their adventures along the way show him that he’s missing out on a lot of living when he stays in his comfort zone, but he also has to confront the idea that reality may not match up with what he’s always dreamed of.

Green’s 2008 novel (adapted to a film in 2015) makes use of the idea of paper towns, including the fictional settlement of Agloe, which plays heavily in Peng Shepherd’s The Cartographers, an excellent read if you’re looking for your own independent reading novel!

Rodriguez’s 2012 memoir describes her school project, in which she pretended to be pregnant in order to observe the reactions of friends, family, and community. Her mother and older sisters both got pregnant as teenagers, and despite Rodriguez’s ambition of becoming a doctor and strong transcript, it seemed expected that she would follow in their footsteps and become another teen pregnancy statistic.

Local news channels ran stories about Rodriguez’s project, and her memoir was adapted into a Lifetime movie in 2012. The experience raises interesting questions about stereotypes and the damage low expectations can have on entire communities, and our students found a lot to relate to in Rodriguez’s experience.

In a world where it’s tough to get into top-tier colleges without taking the initiative to carry out passion projects and conduct meaningful research, it’s inspiring to see the meaningful projects teenagers are capable of carrying out (whether you agree with the wisdom of Rodriguez’s tactics or not).

One reason young adult novels are so popular (amongst young adults and adults alike) is that the years brought to life in these books are some of the most monumental moments in our lives. Before even reaching legal adulthood, we have to make huge decisions that determine the direction our entire lives will take. It’s an exciting time, but it’s also stressful: the choices we make in high school can determine our future job, home, friends, even spouse, in a way that is much more concentrated than the decisions we make in years to come.

In Yoon’s 2016 novel, Daniel and Natasha are on the precipice of these life-altering choices. Natasha and her family, undocumented Jamaican immigrants, are twelve hours away from being deported, and Natasha is navigating the streets of New York City in one last attempt to avoid leaving. Daniel, a Korean American expected by his parents to earn early acceptance to Yale and eventually become a doctor even though he’d prefer to write poetry, is on his way to his college interview.

When the two meet, they’re forced to reconsider everything. Told over the course of one day and from multiple perspectives, Yoon’s novel raises big questions about immigration, fate, the decisions we make, the influence we have on one another’s lives, and, of course, love. The trailer for the 2019 film adaptation drips with the angst and heightened sense of drama that makes young adult fiction so appealing.

As we compile this list and reflect on our experiences with young adult movies based on books, we’re recalling tons of memories from our teaching careers. It’s hard to keep up with the ever-changing trends of young adult fiction, but the intensity of the trends is so.much.fun. There’s something special about inhaling the same books your students are reading and gushing over the adaptations together.

One major wildfire reading trend we experienced with our students was over To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before just before the Netflix adaptation dropped in 2018 and everyone was sighing over Peter.Kavinsky. Lara Jean Song deals with the INTENSE feelings she has for her crushes by writing them a letter, which she stores in a box in her closet. When someone not only finds the letters, but mails them out? Embarrassing drama ensues.

Lara Jean finds herself fake dating school lacrosse hero Peter Kavinsky, and, as we’ve learned to expect from fake dating stories, their feelings become all-too-real. The trilogy of books is super sweet and lots of fun, and we had students hiding copies in our cabinets to reserve them.

Did Kate have a life-size Edward Cullen cutout in her classroom for a few years? Did Steph drag her parents to Forks on a family vacation to Seattle? Yes and yes (we admit with only a slight cringe). [Editor’s note: Kate did not purchase the life-size cutout. It was a gift from Twilight superfan students . . . a much appreciated gift.]

Meyer’s series about a love triangle between a human girl, a sparkly vampire, and a Native American werewolf took the world by storm between 2005 (the publication of the first book in the series) and 2012 (the debut of the last film in the series), right at the beginning of our teaching careers. Students were obsessed, we were obsessed, and it really didn’t matter to anyone that the story was completely nuts.

Yes, vampires and werewolves have always been appealing, but what made Twilight catch on so intensely is the all-consuming first love between Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, capturing the angst and feelings that characterize young adult literature and that our students can either relate to or long to experience (and the film’s soundtrack is excellent).

We love Hillenbrand’s 2010 nonfiction bestseller (adapted for young adults in 2014), narrating the unbelievable life of Louis Zamperini.

We meet Louie as a mischievous young man, wreaking havoc in his Southern California neighborhood. His older brother focuses Louie, channeling his energy into running. Louie becomes a local track star, going on to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. His hopes of competing in the next Olympics in Tokyo are dashed when World War II breaks out, and Louie enlists in the army, becoming a pilot stationed in the Pacific.

On a search mission, Louie’s plane (the Green Hornet) goes down in the ocean, and he and two other men are stranded in a life raft for 46 days. Upon rescue, however, Louie is imprisoned in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, where he is relentlessly tortured by an officer known as The Bird. Even when Louie returns home, his story isn’t over, as he spends years wrestling with the trauma he has endured and his anger toward The Bird.

Any one of these pieces of Zamperini’s life would make a compelling story all on its own, so to read about a man who endured all these things while maintaining an optimistic spirit and sense of humor is awe-inspiring. Even the last part of the story, where it seems all that happened to Zamperini has finally caught up with him, ultimately ends with hope, redemption, and forgiveness.

The 2014 film adaptation captures the biography’s inspirational spirit, and our students found the biography an inspiring read. We think your students will love it, too.