Yesterday, Tavia kindly wrote me a note telling me she’s been selected by Blackstone Audio to narrate the audiobook of The Heroine’s Bookshelf. I immediately went to Google and found out that Tavia is not only an Audie nominee, Library Journal Top Audiobook winner, and Earphones winner, but that she brings some serious intention, purpose, and skill to her craft.  The thought of someone I’ve never met speaking in my words in a studio all the way across the country is slightly surreal…and I’m so excited to hear the results.

Think I’m being cheesy?  Just think of Louisa May Alcott, tart author of Little Women and other beloved girls’ classics, and the hurried way in which she had to write her books.  She was so busy sewing, going out as a servant, and caring for her impoverished family that she never had much time for revision.  In a way, though, much of her literary work was revision: editing out (sometimes ineffectively) her frustration over her ongoing poverty, her family’s crushing expectations, and her never-met ambitions.  Writing is rewriting, and Louy spent much time rewriting herself into something more socially acceptable than the clumsy, sarcastic, workaholic who was just as compelling as any of her heroines.

…[Jo] read several liberal offers from budding magazines for her to edit them gratis; one long letter from a young girl inconsolable because her favourite hero died, and ‘would dear Mrs Bhaer rewrite the tale, and make it end good?’ another from an irate boy denied an autograph, who darkly foretold financial ruin and loss of favour if she did not send him and all other fellows who asked autographs, photographs, and auto-biographical sketches; a minister wished to know her religion; and an undecided maiden asked which of her two lovers she should marry. These samples will suffice to show a few of the claims made on a busy woman’s time, and make my readers pardon Mrs Jo if she did not carefully reply to all.

- Louisa May Alcott, Jo’s Boys

Think I’m giving an awful lot of screen space to Miss Alcott these days?  Yup.  I’ll admit it:  my interest in the woman who gave us Jo March has become somewhat of an obsession.  I’ll stop now lest I expose too much of my nerdiness up front.

But that’s not what I really want to talk about.  I want to talk about prequels.

See, in perusing the news over TBAQ’s October debut, I found a note that Before Green Gables, Budge Wilson’s prequel to Anne, has already sold a whopping 50,000 copies.

Can I get a whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!

Though I am sure Wilson’s readers love his book for good reason, the popularity of prequels never ceases to amaze me.  Mike has often been witness to my not-so-silent rage over, for example, the hideous monstrosity that is the Little House on the Prairie sequels, the bizarre reimagining that is the Little Women diaries for girls.

Here’s the problem with prequels:  They are produced by writers who will never, ever be able to recreate the inner landscape, historical context, or internal motivations brought to the table by the original author.  For me, prequels puncture part of the magic of the Heroine’s Bookshelf…the existence of stories that won’t ever be fully imagined or completed.  My imagination (shock!) or my historical research always had to fill in the tantalizing blank spaces, gray areas, and gaps left by my favorite authors…and I am very okay with that.

What’s your take on prequels?