What’s behind the wave of literary retellings?

On a moonlit night in Hannibal, Missouri, a slave called Jim watches two white boys hiding in the grass. The “little bastards” think he cannot see them. “They were always playing some kind of pretending game where I was either a villain or prey, but certainly their toy,” Jim thinks. Huck and his friend, Tom Sawyer, rustle and giggle: “Those boys couldn’t sneak up on a blind and deaf man while a band was playing.” Jim decides to indulge them anyway—because “it always pays to give white folks what they want.” Stepping into the yard, he calls out into the night, “Who dat dere in da dark lak dat?”