G Whiz

America is predominantly Christian and, as the billionaire pointed out in his 2004 speech, "Hollywood as an industry can at times be insular and doesn't understand the market very well. I saw an opportunity in that fact."

But the bottom line is that moviemakers still have to tell good stories to keep people in their seats. How did Granat and Flaherty find success in getting families into theaters? They credit a secret weapon: librarians.

"It's such an obvious place to look, but Hollywood never looks there," Flaherty says.

Walden has staff members in Boston who make contact with hundreds of thousands of teachers, students and librarians each year to find out what kids are reading. (The movie "Holes," for example, grew out of a Pennsylvania teacher's comment that her pupils loved the book.) "We go to 24 conferences a year . . . heavily focused on librarians, because who knows stories better than librarians?" says Flaherty.

Granat works the movie side in Los Angeles, while Flaherty, who used to work on public policy and education issues for the president of the Massachusetts Senate, runs the education outreach program in Boston. Together the two try to merge education and entertainment, struggling mightily to keep Walden a contradiction: a movie company that tries to get kids to read.

"It's one thing just to drive kids to read, but it's another thing to drive them to great literature, because that will really give them the bug and make them lifelong readers," says Flaherty.

Walden provides activity guides and seminars for teachers interested in involving kids more deeply in the stories their movies are based on. They also sponsor field trips and literacy events around the country, including a "Charlotte's Web" read-athon this month that included 547,826 children in 28 countries. The kids set a Guinness record for "Most People Reading Aloud Simultaneously in Different Locations."

Not a bad way to create word-of-mouth for your movie, either.