Reese Witherspoon is adapting Where The Crawdads Sing into a movie

Reese Witherspoon has lent her talents to many book adaptations over the years – including Big Little Lies and Little Fires Everywhere. Now, the Hollywood star is turning her attention to Delia Owens’ bestseller, Where The Crawdads Sing.

The 44-year-old actress-turned-producer is known as an avid reader, with her own book club and regular Instagram posts about her latest reads. So it should come as no surprise that just two months after her last book-to-screen project, Little Fires Everywhere, landed on Amazon Prime Video, she’s secured the rights to yet another much-talked-about novel – only this time, Witherspoon is creating a movie, as opposed to a television series.

Owens’ celebrated novel, originally published in 2018, follows the trials and tribulations of ‘Marsh Girl’, Kya Clark – a vulnerable child who was abandoned by her mother and siblings, owing to her father’s alcohol abuse and violent tendencies.

Part of the book’s charm and allure is Owens’ dizzying prose and sweeping descriptions of the North Carolina landscape, from the region’s labyrinth of waterways and swampland to its rich and diverse wildlife.

Indeed, it is the natural world that brings comfort to Kya, as she not only learns to support herself from a young age but also negotiates the town’s prejudices against marsh folk and her Black friends.

Running alongside the classic bildungsroman is another parallel storyline that sees two detectives try and crack the murder of a local jock.

According to Hollywood Reporter, Olivia Newman (behind Netflix’s First Match) will be directing the movie, and the film will very much stick to the book’s narrative in that way, as “both a crime thriller and a coming-of-age tale that intertwines two timelines.”

While the script is said to be currently being written, there is no indication of a release date or who could be cast in the new movie. But if her last projects are anything to go by, we are positive Reese will make an appearance in the line-up.

You can buy the book of Where The Crawdads Sing here.