Some children's books are more well-known than the movies they inspired, but others quietly step back to watch their movie versions shine. There's a hidden gem on the bookshelf for every Because of Winn-Dixie or The Wizard of Oz. Not all film adaptations are faithful to their originating works, as kids' movies sometimes take liberties with stories and characters. It's still quite fun to see where such stories came from in the first place.

RELATED: 10 Non-Disney Versions Of Cinderella, Ranked According To IMDb

There are plenty of movies that fans never knew were actually based on books. From novels to illustrated children's stories, great books often have the potential to become great movies. Here are ten examples, with the movies ranked in order of IMDb score.

Read It And Weep (2006): 5.5

Read it and Weep 2006 DCOM-Jamie and Is

Read It and Weep was a few movies after High School Musical in the Disney Channel Original Movies lineup for 2006. It makes sense for the plot of the movie to have come from a book, but many don't know that Read It and Weep is based on How My Private, Personal Journal Became A Bestseller by Julia DeVillers. The book lays the foundation for Jamie Bartlett's dilemma: she accidentally prints off her journal for a school assignment and then watches it become a bestselling novel.

RELATED: Disney+: 10 Funniest Sitcoms, Ranked According To IMDb

In the movie, Jamie (Kay Panabaker) relies on a slightly more sophisticated alter-ego of herself, Is (Danielle Panabaker). Is's voice becomes too strong and forces Jamie to reexamine who she really is.

Monte Carlo (2011): 5.8

Monte Carlo Selena Gomez, Leighton Meester, Blake Lively

Monte Carlo (2011) is loosely based on the 2001 novel Headhunters by Jules Bass (of Rankin/Bass Productions). The dream team of Selena Gomez, Blake Lively, and Leighton Meester filled the adolescent roles, and Gomez is mistaken for an heiress while all three young women are abroad.

The book Bass wrote features adult women as the main characters, and the movie was originally supposed to have Nicole Kidman as the lead, but adult co-stars' schedules didn't line up with hers.

Zenon: Girl Of The 21st Century (1999): 6.4

zenon on her ipad - disney

It's not often that anyone thinks of Zenon Kar outside of the Disney Channel universe, but she actually started out as a children's book character.

Disney's take on the tale isn't completely the same as Marilyn Sadler's story (illustrated by Roger Bollen), but the title character is still a girl on a space station in 2049 who gets grounded and sent to planet Earth. Millennials everywhere are thankful that Zenon's quest to save her community became a DCOM!

Babe (1995): 6.8

The pig looks up at Farmer Hodgett in Babe

Babe and sequel Babe: Pig in the City (1998) captivated a bunch of 90s kids, but viewers may not have heard of the story that started it all. Dick King-Smith's The Sheep Pig, illustrated by Mary Raynor, was first published in 1983 and is also known as Babe the Gallant Pig.

As in the book, the movie depicts the touching journey of Babe, an orphaned pig who goes home with Farmer Hoggett after the farmer wins him at a fair.

My Dog Skip (2000): 7.0

Frankie Muniz in My Dog Skip

Some viewers who came of age in the late 1990s and early 2000s might remember Frankie Muniz as Willie Morris in My Dog Skip, but Willie Morris is more than a movie character.

He was the writer who authored the 1995 memoir that the movie is based on, all about a young boy and his dog in Yazoo, Mississippi. Sadly, Willie Morris passed away in 1999, before the film was released.

Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993): 7.0

Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey

Sheila Burnford's The Incredible Journey (1961) is the novel that first inspired Disney to tell the story of three pets who are finding their way home.

The 1963 movie The Incredible Journey eventually led to 1993 classic Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, which also had a sequel subtitled Lost in San Francisco (1996). Viewers are still on the edge of their seats when they see how Chance, Sassy, and Shadow handle being left behind.

Mrs. Doubtfire (1993): 7.0

Mrs. Doubtfire cast still

Mrs. Doubtfire was based on Anne Fine's 1987 book titled Alias Madame Doubtfire. Most kids who grew up with the movie simply know the story portrayed on screen by Robin Williams, Sally Field, and the three coolest kids, Matthew Lawrence, Mara Wilson, and Lisa Jakub.

Much like the book, the movie finds Miranda Hillard (Sally Field) dismayed by her ex's behavior and lack of success. She puts restrictions on how much time Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams) can spend with the children, so he disguises himself as the most iconic nanny, Mrs. Doubtfire.

Bambi (1942): 7.3

Bambi acting cute with Thumper

Who knew that Bambi and his family were initially book characters? They came from a 1923 Austrian novel by Felix Salten; its title translates to Bambi, a Life in the Woods. Throw in Thumper the rabbit and Flower the skunk, and Disney had the makings of a feature film.

RELATED: Disney+: 10 Wonderful World Of Disney Movies Subscribers Need

Bambi was portrayed in a Russian live-action film in 1985 called Bambi's Childhood and is expected to have a live-action treatment again with a new Disney movie. There have also been ballets about the sad but treasured story.

Shrek (2001): 7.8

Fiona carrying Shrek to the Swamp

William Steig's fantasy book, Shrek!, was published in 1990. The movie version of the now-famous green ogre was one of Jeffrey Katzenberg's first projects at DreamWorks after he left Disney, and the film was in development as early as 1995.

The book was only twenty-eight pages long, but producer John Williams' kids loved it, and they were on to something. Shrek is now a formidable franchise that only keeps growing and enchanting viewers of all ages.

The Iron Giant (1999): 8.0

Hogarth shows the Iron Giant a comic book

Because it is an underrated kids' movie, The Iron Giant's origins are not as plain as day. Ted Hughes was a British Poet Laureate from 1984 to his death in 1998, and he was married to Sylvia Plath.

Hughes continued to write after Plath's passing and penned The Iron Man (later called The Iron Giant), which was published in 1968. Fast forward three decades and the book inspired a movie about the title character, who was voiced by Vin Diesel. It might come as a surprise that other big-name actors like Jennifer Aniston, John Mahoney, Harry Connick Jr., and Cloris Leachman were voice actors for the film, too.

NEXT: Ranking Disney/Pixar Movie Songs By Spotify Listens