UPDATE! Adaptations of children's literature favourites

Charlie Kaufman

There is big news this week with announcements of film and stage adaptations of two children's literature books. U.S. screenwriter and director Charlie Kaufman has been hired to adapt Patrick Ness' book The Knife of Never Letting Go for the big screen. The book is the first installment in the hugely popular and edgy Chaos Walking trilogy, a series which is already tipped as being the "next Hunger Games". Kaufman is possibly best known for his Oscar winning film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Oscar nominated Adaptation.

Ness' book tells the story of a group of Christian settlers who colonise a far-off planet when their home world becomes uninhabitable. A germ has already killed all the females in the New World; Todd Hewitt is the only boy left in a town of men. Another side effect is that since the settlers have been infected with the Noise germ, Todd can hear everything that the men think, and they can hear his thoughts too. When Todd meets a strangely silent creature: a girl. Just one month away from his thirteenth birthday when he will become a man, Todd must set out on a journey to find out what the town is hiding from him and discover who he truly is.

Also announced this week, Oliver Jeffers much-loved picture book stuck (reviewed here and currently nominated for CBI Award). Big Wooden Horse Theatre Company have announced that their new show will be the premiere stage adaptation of Jeffers' Stuck, which will tour the UK from September 2012. For information on tour dates and venues click here. Watch Jeffers' reading of Stuck below: