Before you roll your eyes and exclaim, “Not another person jumping on the Y.A. movie bandwagon,” consider the book that Lena Dunham wants to adapt. It’s not dystopian, or an angst-filled teen romance, but Karen Cushman’s Catherine, Called Birdy, (HMH/Clarion) the 1994 Newbery Honor book about a girl growing up in the 13th century.

Interviewed at the New Yorker Festival on Friday night, Dunham said, “I’m going to adapt it and hopefully direct it, I just need to find someone who wants to fund a PG-13 medieval movie.”

She also said she has been obsessed with the book since she was a kid. If her tattoos from children’s books didn’t already tip you off, she is a big reader. In a 2012 NYT Book Review interview, she mentioned dozens of books, and said Birdy one of the two best books she’s ever read about girls. The other one? Nabokov’s Lolita.

UPDATE:
EarlyWord Kids Correspondent Lisa Von Drasek is such a fan of this book that, when told her the news, she instantly recalled the opening lines, nearly verbatim (we know; checked the OverDrive Sample):

I am commanded to write an account of my days; I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say.

The 20th anniversary edition, published as part of a re-release of 4 of Cushman’s books in trade paperback, includes an intro by Linda Sue Park (also on the OverDrive Sample), who says, “Cushman shows us a very different image of medieval England from the one we are used to seeing. Dirtier and smellier, yes, but also fuller, richer and more complete.”

We have to wonder how Dunham, who says in her memoir, Not That Kind of Girl, that she was a germaphobe as a kid, was able to deal with those details.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 13th, 2014 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Books & Movies, Childrens and YA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.