YA authors on...

...the best—and worst—book-to-film adaptations.

Gregory Maguire's bit proves (as if anyone had doubts) that Susan Cooper is TOTALLY BOSS:

I am told that the movie based on “The Dark Is Rising” is pretty lousy; the novelist, Susan Cooper, begged me not to see it, and out of long-standing friendship I have obeyed her.

Diane Duane also bags on it:

The basic concept was eviscerated and left staggering around like a zombie-ized shell of itself, and all the good character business was either dumbed down, ripped out or rendered meaningless. It infuriated me, because that book was the anchor of one of the great mid-’70s YA fantasy series, a nuanced piece of work. 

As does M.T. Anderson:

By sapping the story of everything that made it particular (its mood and its focus on a seductive blend of British mythologies) they left behind only the elements that have been imitated so many times in the 30 years since the book’s publication that they’ve become cliché. So the filmmakers managed to create something that fans of the book hated – because it gutted the original material – while at the same time boring the hell out of everyone who didn’t know the book, because all that was left was insipidly generic.

Meanwhile, Sherman Alexie and I might be in a little bit of a fight (I know, I wouldn't have thought it possible either) because he slighted Our DWJ:

I think “Howl’s Moving Castle” has to be the best film adaptation of a young-adult book. The book is terrific but the movie is better.

CLUTCHES. PEARLS.