Reading Bunnicula and Bunnicula Meets Edgar Allan Crow by James Howe was a
fun and inspiring journey with a vampire bunny and his friends. But what's more, they reminded me why books were so important to my childhood.
These books are undeniably the perfect read for children, but they don't shy away from sophisticated uses of humor and language. They prove children's literature doesn't have to be downgraded to accommodate tiny minds. Because minds can only grow and get bigger when fed with nutrients or in this case, fed with tales of vampire bunnies, cats who read, dogs who don't bark (or are writers themselves), and crows who know how to email. Oh and vegetable juice. I sense an unintentional (or perhaps intentional) plug for V8. Seeing Howe's world come to life and being mesmerized and enamored by it all made me think about all of the other worlds that did the same thing when I was younger. I'm not sure what I would've become if I hadn't been a reader. Probably not a writer, that's for sure.
I know I have my mom to thank for all those nights letting me stay up to read, for books for Christmas and birthdays, for staying up even later with me to read the first Harry Potter book when I was 8. She's the reason I am a bibliophile.
Reading these stories the way I did with just the first and the last of the series was interesting. I didn't even plan it that way, but these just happened to be the two I bought at the Rochester Children's Book Festival. I grabbed the first after a friend admitted it was one of her childhood favorites and the second because I can't resist a good pun. What they taught me had to do with the journey of writing. The first book was written with Howe's wife and published in 1979. His wife never saw the publication of their collaborative work, passing away from cancer before. And Howe admits they weren't trying to write a kid's book. I think that's what makes it so great! It's a book for anyone at any age.
The last book in the series is about another writer, M.T. Graves, author of The Fleshcrawlers series within Howe's fictional world. The metafiction within this book was great and sad at the same time. The author within the book reflects upon the end of his own series, about inspiration, about his muse. Perhaps I read way too much into all of this because I'm a writer too (one who knows her own series will end someday), but that's what I did. In M.T. Graves I saw Howe. And it made sense. Often, as writers, we don't mean to write ourselves into our books. But there are pieces of us on every page. It's inevitable when you expose yourself in words and ink. I think all writers have a muse too. Whether we know them doesn't really matter. And in Edgar Allan Crow, I got a sense that Howe was saying goodbye to his wife in a way. Sure he's remarried, but with the end of the series, it almost seems like an end to what they created all those years before. Spoiler: Graves' releases his crow, his muse, and I think Howe did the same with the end of this book. I'm not at all embarrassed to admit that the last bit of the story made me tear up a bit. In fact, I think it shows what a great read it was! So whether you're a reader, a writer, a child, or a grown-up, I suggest picking up one of these Rabbit- Tales of Mystery. They're hilarious and fantastical and every bit as real as you need them to be.
xoxo
K.K