238 – Why Do Story Changes Annoy Us So Much?

The Children's Literature Podcast · May 28, 2026 · 17m

Why do some stories work when they play around with the race, gender, or location of a story and its characters, and why are others an annoying mess? It has to do with the basic split between how story adaptations for stage and screen are framed — either the story will be rooted in an immersive realistic setting, where every little detail matters, or it takes place in the Land of Make-Believe, where only the story and the performance matters and an immersive replication of a world and its characters isn’t needed. Too easily the people on both sides of this debate resort to…