By Deirdre Donahue, USA TODAY

Long before that little wizard Harry Potter had become a movie mogul to rival the titans of MGM, Hollywood agents were scanning the shelves, searching for children's books that might translate onto the big screen.

"Even before the (Harry Potter) movie came out we started getting more and more queries," says Carol Roeder, vice president of subsidiary rights at Simon & Schuster children's publishing. "Specifically, Hollywood producers have been interested in family fare that crosses over." An example: Mrs. Doubtfire, which had strong adult appeal and a meaty adult role for Robin Williams.

Louis Sacher's best seller, Holes, fits that description. Expected in theaters in the fall of 2002, the movie version of this young-adult novel is in the midst of being cast, according to one of the producers, Teresa Tucker Davies. The winner of the prestigious 1999 Newbery Award, the tale of a falsely accused young boy resonated with Andrew Davis, who directed the 1993 Harrison Ford/Tommy Lee Jones movie The Fugitive. The role of the female warden is a career-maker: She paints her nails with rattlesnake venom. Sacher has written the screenplay for the film, which is financed by Walden Media.

David Handler has completed a screenplay for young-adult book The Bad Beginning. The San Francisco novelist is better known as Lemony Snicket, creator of the wildly successful A Series of Unfortunate Events (which begins with The Bad Beginning ). Before the books were optioned, Handler says, "I did meet with a lot of people."

Handler has published the eighth of the projected 13 novels about the ill-fated Baudelaire siblings. In hardcover, the books have sold 3.6 million copies. Like the projected Harry Potter movie series, there could be a film. The rights have been sold to Nickelodeon and Paramount.

"The success of Harry Potter has made them even more determined," Handler says.

A film division of Harry Potter 's publisher, Scholastic Entertainment, has optioned Karen Hesse's Music of Dolphins and the Newbery-winning Out of the Dust.

C.S. Lewis penned the acclaimed seven-book series The Chronicles of Narnia. In the mid-1990s, the BBC made videos of several of the novels. According to HarperCollins spokesperson Lisa Herling, the film rights have reverted to the estate. "The Lewis estate is weighing its options," Herling says.

Simon & Schuster's Roeder points out that classic series such as Nancy Drew also are drawing more attention.

"There is a general renewed interest in children's literature," says Ilene Cooper, the children's books editor at Booklist, review journal of the American Library Association. In the '70s and '80s, Cooper was involved in proposing books to be made into after-school TV specials.

Just because a book connects with generation after generation of children does not mean that it makes for a great movie. Cooper did not consider Harriet the Spy a successful film, for example.

And Cooper does caution Hollywood producers about children's literature: "Not every book has three-headed dogs in it."