Pages from Selznick's book, from the New York Times

This morning the eyes of the entertainment industry and people who love movies were glued to TV sets and computers as the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences — or the people who give out the Academy Awards — announced this year’s Oscar nominees. And it was a big year for the adaptation!

Leading the charge are two movies based on Scholastic titles. Hugo, based on Brian Selznick’s book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, led all nominees with 11 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Michael Morpurgo’s book War Horse was turned into a movie by Steven Spielberg and has claimed six nominations, including Best Picture, Best Cinematography, and Best Score.

In all, six of the nine films nominated for Best Picture are based on books:  Hugo, War Horse, Moneyball, The Help, The Descendants, and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. The other Best Picture nominees are The Artist, Midnight in Paris, and Tree of Life.

But beyond Best Picture, movies based on books garnered a lion’s share of the nominations. Hugo and War Horse are just the tip of the library. Moneyball has six nominations, The Descendants and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo have five nominations, The Help has four nominations, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 have three nominations.

There are other books in there, too, but you get the idea. Hollywood loves turning books into movies, and this year the Academy says the best American movies overwhelmingly came from books. (You can find the complete list of the Academy Award nominations on the Oscars website.) Do you agree? What do you think of this year’s nominations? Any predictions? What book would you like to see turned into a movie? Let us know in the comments section!