Like it or not, the classics came to most of us through chopped-down Little Golden Books, sanitized Disney films and stories, and that famous-but-now-abandoned line of Classic Comics. Of course, few parents have ever read The Hunchback of Notre Dame or more than a handful of other classics in the original, so the somewhat-brightened ending might well go unnoticed.
Wynne-Jones even managed to soften the dire ending of Victor Hugo’s classic without offending the critical world. Gwyneth Evans, writing in Quill & Quire, gave his Hunchback a starred review, praising the book’s vivid dialogue and powerful descriptive passages, contrasting his “rich and active prose” with the saccharine mess offered up by the Disney studios.
Nor did his golden touch fail him in the process of adapting the book. So Tim Wynne-Jones wasn’t risking his critical reputation when he adapted The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Children never did – these adult novels were read to the whole family, with children included only when they were in earshot of whoever in the household was literate enough to read aloud. While we still expect Canadian children to read Anne of Green Gables in the original as a rite of pre-teen passage, no one expects kids to handle Victor Hugo or Bram Stoker in the original. While teachers and librarians might quietly praise her efforts to bring the book to younger and less-able readers, critics were not nearly as kind.īut Tim Wynne-Jones is luckily not tampering with semi-sacred Canadian works.
Just ask Barbara Greenwood, whose efforts to retell Anne of Green Gables garnered a number of critical brickbats for tampering with a Canadian classic. Such adaptations can be a risky enterprise. Lately – between serious kids’ books, you might say – Wynne-Jones has turned his hand to retelling the classics: The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1996 and Dracula for this fall’s book season. His more recent young-adult works, Some of the Kinder Planets and The Maestro, have garnered Governor General’s awards and bestsellerdom. His very first book, Zoom, was a huge Canadian and international success with its combination of Wynne-Jones’s own bizarre imagination and a staple of the children’s book trade, an interesting animal. Tim Wynne-Jones seems to have a golden touch when it comes to books for young people.
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