CHELSEA — Netflix has released a new adaptation of William Golding's Lord of the Flies, created by Jack Thorne. Thorne also co-created Adolescence, a series about youth, violence, and masculinity that premiered in 2025.

In both the Netflix adaptation and the source novel, the character Piggy represents civilization, judicious restraint, and the voice of reason. Piggy is brainy, bespectacled, and overweight, and he cares about others, fire safety, and finding water. He is thoughtful and smart, and is stranded on an island with other boys.

Critic Glen Weldon watched the new adaptation. Weldon said he hated the book when he read it in ninth grade, when his classmates were asked to write 500 words on what Piggy's spectacles represent.

Weldon, who taught writing at the high school and undergraduate levels, observed that his students cared about fiction only if they could see themselves reflected in it. He noted that women, people of color, and queer people are telling their own stories, broadening the literary canon to better reflect the world.

Children's and young adult publishing often focuses on books with kid protagonists. Books with kid protagonists commonly taught include Lord of the Flies, The Hunger Games, and The Catcher in the Rye. Weldon also had his students read John Updike's short story "A&P."

Weldon saw a clip on Instagram from a 2008 interview that Fran Lebowitz conducted with Toni Morrison at the New York Public Library. In the clip, Lebowitz addressed how readers approach books. "People have been taught to look for themselves in books — you always hear people saying this: 'I love this book, this character is just like me.' People have been taught to think of a book as a mirror, instead of a door, or a window. A way out," Lebowitz said. The essay appeared in NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter.