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Wishing for a re-write?

Written by Kirsten on June 15th, 2009

the giver
I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book and wished the author would re-write it until I read Lois Lowry’s The Giver. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not because it was poorly written, or because I think she made a mistake in the plot (how cheeky!). I just wish there had been more of it. More of it ALL. More depth, more description, more story, more intensity. There was all of this already; if there weren’t, it wouldn’t have received a five-star rating from me. I just found myself at the end of the book thinking, “This would make an amazing premise for a big fat fantasy novel.”

Illustrated Classics are derived from full-length “adult” novels; what about the reverse? Have you ever read a children’s or YA novel that you wish could be “adultified?”

 

3 Comments so far ↓

  1. Nicole says:

    Well more, more, more is definitely a ringing endorsement. This is a series, right? I have been circling around this one for awhile. Might have to move it up on my list of priorities.

    • Kirsten says:

      It is, indeed :) I just picked up the companion novels this week; my understanding is that they also take place in this alternate/future reality, but they’re not a continuation of Jonas’s story. I could be wrong, though – he may be a peripheral character, or just not appear in the blurb on the back of either.

      In checking out The Giver on LibraryThing, I just noticed a review where someone said it reminds them of Ayn Rand’s Anthem, but with a younger protagonist. I wonder if that might be the answer to my plea?

  2. foggidawn says:

    I agree that the world Lowry created in The Giver could be expanded into a much larger work. (By the way, I’ve read the other two, but they didn’t stick with me the way The Giver did.)

    I read a lot of juvi and YA fiction (occupational hazard of being a children’s librarian, perhaps) and while I often find myself closing a book and wishing that there was still more of it to read, I’m usually pretty content with the briefness of the story. I do read the occasional “big fat fantasy novel,” but the brevity of kid lit makes it easy for me to read a lot of books, to enter into a lot of different worlds, and I kinda like that.

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