Zooey Deschanel is playing Miss Edmunds!

Oh my. I just checked the IMDB page for the upcoming film version of Bridge to Terabithia, and discovered that Zooey Deschanel, who I adore, is playing Miss Edmunds. Who, you may ask, is Miss Edmunds? Let me quote from Chapter 2 of Katherine Paterson‘s original novel:

Miss Edmunds was one of [Jess Aaron’s] secrets. He was in love with her. Not the kind of silly stuff Ellie and Brenda giggled about on the telephone. This was too real and too deep to talk about, even to think about very much. Her long swishy black hair and blue, blue eyes. She could play the guitar like a regular recording star, and she had this soft floaty voice that made Jess squish inside. Lord, she was gorgeous. And she liked him, too.

One day last winter he had given her one of his pictures. Just shoved it into her hand after class and run. The next Friday she had asked him to stay a minute after class. She said he was “unusually talented,” and she hoped he wouldn’t let anything discourage him, but would “keep it up.” That meant, Jess believed, that she thought he was the best. It was not the kind of best that counted either at school or at home, but it was a genuine kind of best. He kept the knowledge of it buried inside himself like a pirate treasure. He was rich, very rich, but no one could know about it for now except his fellow outlaw, Julia Edmunds.

Now, see, I bought this book when I was in Grade 6, after my teacher read it to our class; and my teacher played the guitar, not just in our class but also in school assemblies and the like; and my teacher encouraged me and my talents the way that Miss Edmunds encourages Jess in his; and I adored my teacher the way that Jess adores Miss Edmunds. So I am delighted to hear that Zooey Deschanel, who I also adore, is playing this character.

I’m a little worried about other aspects of this film, though. I just came across a two-month-old ComingSoon.net report which suggests that the film will be “a sprawling fantasy adventure“:

Together Jess and Leslie create the world of Terabithia, an imaginary kingdom filled with all manner of magical beings. While the real world of family and school may be filled with challenges, in Terabithia, Jess and Leslie rule as King and Queen.

Brimming with fantastical creatures, palaces and beautiful forests – the kingdom of Terabithia will be brought to life by the creative wizards at the Academy Award winning visual effects facility Weta Digital in Wellington, New Zealand. Weta Digital is responsible for effects in the Academy Award winning “Lord of the Rings” films and King Kong and is co-owned by a team of Academy Award winners including director Peter Jackson, effects specialist Richard Taylor and editor Jamie Selkirk.

This bugs me because Paterson’s novel does not waste a whole lot of ink on the fantasy world of Terabithia itself; when she talks about Jess and Leslie going to the forest and inventing their imaginary kingdom there, she describes the trees, the ropes, the coffee cans, the Pepsi bottles, the sleeping bags, etc. A typical paragraph might go something like this (from Chapter 7):

They swung silently across the creek bed. On the farther bank, Leslie picked up two sticks. “Thy sword, sire,” she whispered.

See? Paterson offers a very naturalistic description of children at play, and she leaves it to the reader — and to the reader’s imagination — to turn these sticks into fantasy weapons. In this way, the reader identifies with Jess, and shares his experience; just as Jess’s imagination is sparked, so too is the reader’s.

Likewise, Donna Diamond’s illustrations — such as the cover of the edition I bought so many years ago, shown here — never depict the imaginary world, only the real world, albeit in a dreamy, or even daydreamy, kind of way. But if the movie visualizes everything for the viewer, then the viewer will not experience the same stimulation of his or her imagination.

What’s more, in order to justify all these special effects, who knows, the filmmakers may have to create a parallel Terabithian storyline that would distract us from the story of Jess, his family, and his schoolmates. And if the book’s very poignant real-world storyline were diminished in any way, that would be a shame.