Rowling; Pratchett; Pullman

I have various items of children's literature news to share today - mostly it's about books being made into films (now there's a new trend... !)

First though, the latest issue of The Tatler magazine has an exclusive interview with J K Rowling. You'll find more at the Daily Telegraph website. CBBC reports that Rowling has also written a new children's book about a monster, and a number of short stories. Kelly over at Big A, little a shares this article from the Washington Post about the questions raised by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Thanks for bringing that to my attention, Kelly.

Meanwhile, CBBC also reports that Billie Piper (late of Doctor Who fame) is to star in the BBC adaptation of Philip Pullman's The Ruby in the Smoke as Sally Lockhart. Filming starts in May. They also intend to film The Shadow in the North immediately afterwards (and presumably if one or both of those goes down well, they'll film the final two books in the quartet ?)

Finally (and to my personal surprise) it's been reported that Terry Pratchett's excellent The Wee Free Men will be made into a film, directed by Spiderman's Sam Raimi. Apparently Sony Pictures Entertainment has acquired the book and set Pamela Pettler (of Tim Burton's Corpse Bride) to write the script. The trade magazine Variety reports that says the studio is aiming to develop an event-sized live-action family film. My surprise is that Terry Pratchett has agreed to the book being filmed, since he said, as recently as Spring 2005 (at the Oxford Festival of Literature) that he was not particularly interested in films being made of his books because they were never good enough, script-wise. Still, if it means we'll get to see a film version of A Hat Full of Sky (which I love and think is one of the best books ever written about the power of storytelling), I'll be happy to see The Wee Free Men on the big screen.

On a personal note, I'm hoping to update my Blog regularly again now that my Tolkien paper is done (I've still got to proof read it, but the writing is finished.)