Throwback Thursday: Bunnicula

Seriously, where did the green light for this book series come from? I'm certainly glad some genius editor had the foresight to publish this because how else could I have grown up with fears of a blood sucking bunny? How many people, when you read Bunnicula as kids, thought vampiric pets were actually biologically possible? Raise your hand higher!

Don't you miss the times when small domestic animals were the stars of books? Now it's all about teenagers with their super powers and secret histories. Ugh, homo sapiens, so over it. Give me a mouse on a toy motorcycle any day.

If you'll recall, the original Bunnicula was subtitled "A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery." Thrilling for 1979 but not so exciting now; nobody cares about rabbit mysteries anymore. (Well, unless you count Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.) Taking a cue from the way Hollywood recycles nostalgia, and the recent success of monster mashups like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, it's inevitable that all those crapclassic books we read growing up will soon receive similar makeovers.

Inspired by a long drive up to L.A. in traffic, I thought I'd jump ahead of the slow-footed execs and suggest my version of a Bunnicula redo for the current publishing climate.

Betsy is a young lab-raised rabbit who has never seen sunlight, tasted fresh grass, or left the confines of her cage except to receive injections of promising superdrug Strangé. After giving birth to a litter of babies, Betsy dies and is discarded by the human researchers. The next morning, Chester and Harold, a street wise cat and dog duo, are digging through the trash when they find a revived and weakened Betsy. Having never seen anything as pure and beautiful as a white bunny before, gruff but softhearted Harold convinces Chester to let him take the rabbit home.

Despite his best efforts, Harold can't nurse Betsy back to health. Even with chocolate cupcakes. When a rival gang attacks, Chester and Harold are desperately outnumbered but saved by a suddenly very alive Betsy, who has gone into a blood frenzy and kills Odie, the leader of the (other) pack. With their top dog gone, gone, gone, the surviving motley crew of cats and pigeons slink/scamper/crawl/fly/two-step away.

Stunned by the transformation of their ward, Chester and Harold are now afraid of the death bunny. They are about to leave her -- still sucking on Odie's neck -- when Betsy pleads with them to stay. Communicating images and emotions via touch, Betsy shows Chester and Harold the laboratory and the cruel testing she had to endure there.

Moved by her tale, Chester and Harold agree to help Betsy rescue her children. While still not fully understanding Betsy's condition, they work around her blood lust by feeding her non-organic fruits and vegetables (the synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers keep her strong). The main hurdle they encounter is that Betsy's animal nature is to be prey. Aside from that first desperate battle, Betsy's instincts are to zig zag and run around in circles. And to cower in fear.

While this passivity proved useful in the evolutionary survival of her order, Betsy needs Chester and Harold to give her lessons in offensive snarling, pouncing, swatting, and using her tiny fangs and oversized ears as weapons. The three friends will have to work together to infiltrate the lab and then lead the fight against animal experimentation. Coming to you this summer: Bunnicula Begins!

If anyone wants to go ahead and buy this right now, it's an almost complete WIP of about 350+ words, with merchandising rights also available immediately. And could someone else please redo Little House on the Prairie as dystopian?

Actually, if late 1800's Kansas wasn't already a dystopia, then I read Laura Ingalls Wilder all wrong.

Stuff I've Been Consuming 1

BOOKS READ:

• Hyperion, Dan Simmons
• Shatter Me, Tahereh Mafi
• Under the Never Sky, Veronica Rossi
• Starstruck: The Business of Celebrity, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett
• The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, Jennifer E. Smith

MOVIES WATCHED:

• Young Adult, Jason Reitman
• The Descendents, Alexander Payne
• Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, David Fincher
• No Strings Attached, Ivan Reitman
• Friends With Benefits, Will Gluck
• War Horse, Steven Spielberg
• Haywire, Steven Soderbergh

Month one of the Fiftyfifty.me Challenge went well as I forced myself to start the year off right with seven movies and five books. We've got almost 300 sign ups and some people are powering through so many movies and books that I'm way intimidated. But in a good way. I think.

My fiftyfifty.me Pinterest is here and we've realized it's one of the easier ways to keep track of everything -- and by far the prettiest. I also use a Google Doc to track everything because I like saving more info for posterity and really, spreadsheets are the answer to any and all questions.

Let's talk about Hyperion, the book I started 2012 off with. Despite the stellar reviews, a high recommendation from a friend who knows his sci-fi, I struggled with it. What annoyed me the most was the structure, which is based on The Canterbury Tales, with each of six pilgrims telling their backstory as they travel to the planet Hyperion. While Simmons is rightfully lauded for his ability to write so many compelling voices -- and in varied styles -- I was bored bored bored. I felt like all I was being given was backstory, with no plot to move the book along.

After a few tries, I made the executive decision to quit the book halfway through -- returning later to finish it out of pure guilt. All I wanted to know was the fate of the characters and Wikipedia provided that in ten minutes. Good enough for me. I'm sure the rest of the Hyperion Cantos could be very good but I couldn't do it. The world was more interesting than the the story, and I didn't like being force fed all this stuff over hundreds of pages of frame story. My friend assured me that even non-scifi fans would like Hyperion but after reading (most) of it, I need to ask him why he made such a strong recommendation. Your taste are now suspect friend person!

For an example of world building that seamlessly worked into the story, turn to Under the Never Sky. I blew through Veronica Rossi's debut in one sitting and aside from her stellar writing, I was impressed with how smoothly she integrated backstory, an intriguing universe, and characters you cared about. Unlike with Hyperion, I wanted to return to Aria and Perry's world immediately. Can't wait for the sequel.

I already talked about how 2011 was a horrible year for movies. A late contender for best of the year, Young Adult is fantastic. Some people don't like protagonists that are unlikeable or mean but I love'em. The pairing of narcissistic glam queen Charlize Theron and dumpy Patton Oswalt is perfect.

The early months of each year are traditionally the dumping ground for crappy movies so for this upcoming month I'm gonna try to just stick to Netflix and indie stuff. Well except for Act of Valor. We've already got plans to watch this two hour commercial for the SEALs as soon as it hits theaters. Frag out! And oh yeah, in the head to head battle of No Strings Attached versus Friends With Benefits, the latter wins in a landslide. There can be no argument.

Five and Dime

A sorta weekly feature of things I co-sign:

(1) Diversity in YA Fiction website and tour just came to an end. So sad, so true, but here is Melinda and Cindy's wrap up post!

(2) Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots. 1,462 plots for you to use. I guess it's more varied than following Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey arc right?

(3) How Not to Blog: Beginning Blogging for Authors Part II. If I could find the proper motivation I'd like to do one of these posts as I have some strong feelings about author/writing blogs.

(4) Can a YA Writer "make it" as an indie? Katie Klein's been at it for a year and she's here to share her insights and numbers.

(5) Hating on Writing Exercises. I haven't taken a lot of writing classes but I coudn't agree with this more. I hate the fifteen minutes when you're given a prompt. Usually I just take the time to check email.

End of the Beginning

It's a good thing for social media, otherwise I never would have realized that today was Chinese New Year. Last year for this special occasion I was tromping through New York's Chinatown, trying to lead some people in search of a good meal. Little did they know that my Chinese food ordering abilities suck. All noodles, dumplings, and vegetables. Piles of side dishes and no meat. I vowed to make it up to them but haven't had a chance to yet. Next year guys, my Mandarin will be up to the task!

Since the new year is traditionally for goal setting, I'll lay out a few for myself. The Year of the Dragon is the year I'd like to attend a writers conference, hit up a workshop or two, and get myself into the big bad world of ePublishing. Oh and I would like to sell another book or two. Or five.

Today also coincides with the announcement of quite a few children's and young adult book awards. At least that's what I think is happening according to my Twitter. The Caldecott, the Morris, the Newbery, the something something.

On 30 Rock, Tracy Morgan's character wears an "EGOT" necklace, which stands for "Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony." What's the writerly equivalent of that? Pulitzer, Nobel, Man Booker, National Book Award, Hugo, PEN/Faulkner, MacArthur? We're gonna need some vowels in there. Too bad Oprah's Book Club is essentially defunct. If we toss in the Astrid Lindgren award, maybe we could come up with an acronym like NOPALM (Nobel, Oprah, Pulitzer, Astrid Lindgren, MacArthur) for aspirational writing achievements?

Did you know that Whoopi Goldberg is one of the handful of people to have actually accomplished EGOT? Astonishing no? She won a Grammy and Tony as a producer for Thoroughly Modern Millie, an Oscar for Ghost, and a few Emmys for TV stuff like being a co-host on The View. She was also inducted in 1990 as an honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters. Whoopi: living legend, baller.

"With the Canadian media's coverage of books becoming increasingly sporadic, fewer titles each season are able to distinguish themselves from the pack, and awards are being forced to shoulder more and more of the cultural conversation. As a result, the shortlist has emerged as one of the few remaining tools for keeping multiple books on the nation's radar at one time....Since then, Coady says award culture has only gotten larger, 'whereas book culture in general has shrunk.'"
-More Than An Honour-

Veera Hiranandani

I love book titles that make you shake your head in wonder because they are so poetic and fitting. Like The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things. Like The Whole Story of Half a Girl.

When I saw the book's title floating around on blogs months ago, I knew I had to read it. Even more so when I found out the protagonist was a half Indian, half Jewish-American girl.

"After her father loses his job, Sonia Nadhamuni, half Indian and half Jewish American, finds herself yanked out of private school and thrown into the unfamiliar world of public education. For the first time, Sonia's mixed heritage makes her classmates ask questions -- questions Sonia doesn't always know how to answer -- as she navigates between a group of popular girls who want her to try out for the cheerleading squad and other students who aren't part of the 'in' crowd.

At the same time that Sonia is trying to make new friends, she's dealing with what it means to have an out-of-work parent -- it's hard for her family to adjust to their changed circumstances. And then, one day, Sonia's father goes missing. Now Sonia wonders if she ever really knew him. As she begins to look for answers, she must decide what really matters and who her true friends are -- and whether her two halves, no matter how different, can make her a whole."

Veera's bio reveals that she's been in the writing and teaching fields for some time and while this is her first middle grade book, she's done of lot of picture books, especially quite a bit of work with Dora the Explorer! The Whole Story of Half a Girl just released about a week ago so go congratulate Veera and read her unique and amazing book.

• Website | Blog | Twitter
• Kirkus Interview: A Judy Blume for This Generation
• Publisher's Weekly review
• Happy Nappy Bookseller review
• mclicious.org: biracial literature #4: not making racial identity the whole story
• S.Krishna's review