It’s so unfair that I just found out about this. Gris Grimly, illustrator of two very creepy books of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories (Tales of Death and Dementia and Tales of Mystery and Madness (reviewed here), now has an illustrated version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, just out since August 27. Grimly was interviewed by Publisher’s Weekly about the process of re-creating, designing, and illustrating Frankenstein, a story which has been adapted and presented in many different ways (it’s a really interesting interview, and here is a link so you can check it out for yourself). One of the things I learned from reading it was that Grimly had blogged about the process as he worked through the book, created illustrations, got frustrated, made changes, and pulled it all together. For four years. How I missed knowing that a brilliant illustrator of both children’s and YA books was working on, and blogging about, this fantastic project for FOUR YEARS is crazy! I so wish the publisher had contacted us and offered a copy to us for review. Anyway, the blog he wrote as he was creating this book is a pretty neat look into the mind of an illustrator who is serious about respecting the author’s intent while also making the story his own, and here is a link so you can visit there. I loved Kenneth Oppell’s prequel to the Frankenstein story, This Dark Endeavor (reviewed here), which (at least in the Kindle version) was paired with the original novel, and is intriguing and gripping enough to motivate some kids into attempting the original. However, from what he says, Grimly takes what appears to be a much more direct, visual, and fantastic approach to the story, one that may draw in an entirely different audience of YA readers. But mainly, right now, I’m just bummed that, with the book four years in the making, and Grimly publicly blogging about it, that I didn’t know about it until now. And if you didn’t know about it before, and you see just the bits he shows on his blog, I suspect you’ll want to know more, too.
Frankenweenie as a Gateway to Literature and Life Lessons
We watched Frankenweenie last night (I explained to the kids that some parts would be sad or scary and they voted to try it) and both during the movie and this morning it was interesting to see what they had picked up. I don’t think Tim Burton was trying to teach my kids about the literature and movies of the horror genre, or offer them life lessons, but Frankenweenie opened up opportunities to talk about these things.
Most people probably don’t have kids who immerse themselves in everything they can find out about monster movies and stop motion animation. But I do have one of those kids. To be clear, he hasn’t seen the Universal monster movies, but he is fascinated by them and reads everything he can find. He’s watched a lot of the Japanese monster movies and cheesy science fiction movies of the 1950s and 1960s, and has managed to see many of the movies Ray Harryhausen worked on. He also has started to notice plays on words, and he saw a lot of things in Frankenweenie that he picked up on right away, like, say, a main character named Victor Frankenstein who digs up a body in a graveyard and brings a creature back to life during an electrical storm. “This movie is like Frankenstein! The name is the same!” He noticed that Victor’s dog is named Sparky, “like electricity has sparks, and Sparky has electricity.” The turtle that comes back to life is gigantic “like Gamera”! It’s also named Shelley “because turtles have shells”. I told him that Shelley was also the last name of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. “Oh yeah! That’s cool! The name is both of those things!” We also talked about how Elsa’s last name, Van Helsing, is the name of the vampire slayer in Dracula, and that she gets kidnapped by a bat; that the mayor is called the Burgermeister, like in Rankin-Bass’ stop motion Christmas special “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”; that the movie, which is a stop-motion animation movie, starts with Victor showing a stop-animation film; that the movie is black and white, like the original Frankenstein movie; and that the science teacher looked a lot like Vincent Price. That’s a lot to unpack from an animated children’s movie.
The movie had a much different effect on my daughter. The attack of the reanimated pets on the town really scared her and I had to leave the room with her for awhile. She asked “did anybody get hurt”? Well, the attack is scary, but nobody is really hurt, and parts are even a little funny. Then she wanted to know why the animals turned out differently from Sparky. So we talked about how Victor decided to bring Sparky back because he loved him, but the other kids brought their pets back because they wanted to win the science fair. That was something the science teacher had talked about, the importance of doing science with love, and doing the right thing. Then she asked if bringing Sparky back, even out of love, was the right thing. At that point in the movie, Sparky had escaped from Victor’s house and returned to the cemetery. It seemed like that was where he wanted to be, at rest in the cemetery. “Sparky wasn’t ready to die. But he did, and he wants to be at rest, so maybe he should be at rest. Victor should let him.” Smart little girl.
Later, both kids asked why the parents made the science teacher leave, because “it’s important to learn science”. It’s hard to explain to kids that adults don’t always want to understand the world, or want their kids to understand. “But science is good”! I reminded them that the science teacher had said that science is neither bad nor good– and that’s why you should be careful with how you use it.
That message gets somewhat lost at the movie’s ending, because after Sparky saves the day at the expense of his own life, and Victor is able to finally let go of his grief, his parents convince the rest of the adults in town to bring back Sparky once again. The same unthinking adults who got rid of the science teacher out of fear reanimate a dead dog without any further thought as to whether it’s right or wrong (I didn’t discuss this part with my kids). In spite of the pasted-on happy ending, though, Frankenweenie, quite unexpectedly, offered a lot of food for thought as well as entertainment value.
Although most people aren’t watching scary movies to improve their cultural literacy or provide them with opportunities for deep philosophical discussions, we can watch out for those teachable moments. It doesn’t take forever to point out a literary or cultural reference when you see it, and if your kids are interested, the Internet makes it easy to explore further. If your kids come up with a question that they really want to talk about, take it seriously and do your best to help them figure things out. In Frankenweenie, Tim Burton provided a gateway, but I held my kids’ hands as we walked through to a larger world.
Here are a few other scary movies for kids that might lend themselves to more than just entertainment. As always, not every movie is appropriate for every child.
Toy Story
Monsters, Inc
Spirited Away
The Neverending Story
Coraline
Women in Horror Month: Guest Post by Colleen Wanglund– Women Writers of Horror
Yes, I know it’s March 1. Believe me, this guest post is worth extending Women in Horror Month for an extra day.
Colleen Wanglund is a reviewer, writer, and passionate reader of (and about) horror, both in cinema and on the printed page. She reviews books for MonsterLibrarian.com and Horror Fiction Review (among other places) and writes about Asian horror films as the Geisha of Gore for Cinema Knife Fight. In short, she is one of the awesome women of horror this month celebrates.
Because Women in Horror Month usually focuses on horror movies, Colleen wanted to make sure that the women writers of horror and their books got some recognition too. She has written a fantastic piece that is essential reading for anyone seeking out excellent women authors of horror and their books, from Frankenstein to the present. These are her personal choices, not a canonical list, but you can rest assured she has read every one of these books and authors, and many, many more. If you love to read horror, any horror, or if you’re looking to specifically seek out great women writers in the genre, read what she’s written, print it out, and, if you are a reader’s advisory librarian, keep it with your Reader’s Advisory Guide to Horror.
Women in Horror
February is Women in Horror Recognition Month, thanks to a cool chick and my friend Hannah Neurotica. While most of the focus tends to be on the film industry (after all it is a boys’ club) I’m pushing female horror authors. I recently saw a comment left on a particular forum where someone had asked for some recommendations for female authors. The comment in question was a response and went something like “….it is an unassailable fact that men are better writers…” and it really pissed me off. Really? You think across the board that men write better than women? Well, tell me, my friend, who have you been reading? I can name dozens of female horror authors that write stories that are just as disturbing, if not more so. Personally, I believe women can tap into the deep well of our emotions because we tend to lead with them, whether they are positive or negative. This gives women a perspective that men don’t necessarily have.
Let me begin with the obvious. Mary Shelley. Without her there would be no Frankenstein or his monster. There have been countless books and movies that use Shelley’s central theme against playing God, whether it’s creating life or destroying it. Sadly, when her novel Frankenstein was first published, it was done so anonymously, because it was believed that no one would read the book if it were written by a woman.
Then there’s Anne Rice. Lestat is easily one of my favorite literary characters. In the third book of the Vampire Chronicles, Queen of the Damned (Ballantine Books 1989), Rice presents one of the best origin stories I’ve ever read for vampires, and Maharet cuts an imposing figure. How about Shirley Jackson and her novel The Haunting of Hill House (Penguin Books 1959)? It’s been adapted into a few successful films over the years. Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (Penguin Books 1969) was adapted into a film by Alfred Hitchcock. Two short stories by du Maurier were adapted into Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) and Don’t Look Now (1973) which has turned up on a few scariest horror movie lists.
I also think you should be reading Linda Addison, the first African-American to win a Bram Stoker Award—and she’s won three for her horror poetry collections—Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey Ashes (Space and Time 2001), Being Full of Light, Insubstantial (Space and Time 2007), and How to Recognize A Demon has Become Your Friend (CreateSpace 2011). Elizabeth Massie’s short story “Abed” is one of the most disturbing zombie stories I’ve ever read—by a male or female author. Massie’s Bram Stoker Award-winning novel Sineater (CompletelyNovel 2010) has been re-published for a new audience. Monica O’Rourke’s Jasmine & Garlic (Biting Dog Publications 2011) was so gory and violent it has forever changed how I approach a visit to the gynecologist!
There’s Carole Lanham’s collection The Whisper Jar (Morrigan Books 2011) with its subtle but frightening horror themes, including “The Blue Word”, another very unsettling zombie story with a twist that you won’t see coming. Suzanne Robb’s Z-Boat (CreateSpace 2011) is another great zombie story with a twist—and a relevant message about overpopulation and dwindling resources. Tonia Brown expertly covers all of horror lit’s sub-genres, and Jessy Marie Roberts wrote one of my favorite short stories ever about a woman who literally puts her all into a special Halloween dinner, titled “Pumpkin Soup”.
You should also seek out:
Poppy Z. Brite—Exquisite Corpse (Touchstone 1997), Drawing Blood (Dell 1994)
Mary Sangiovanni—The Hollower (Leisure Books 2007), Found You (Leisure Books 2008)
Carol Weekes—The Color of Bone (Genius Publishing 2012), Dead Reflections (JournalStone 2013)
Lisa Morton—The Castle of Los Angeles (Gray Friar Press 2010), Night-Mantled: The Best of Wily Writers (Wily Writers 2011)
Chesya Burke—Dark Faith (Apex Publications 2010), Dark Dreams: A Collection of Horror and Suspense by Black Writers (Kensington 2004)
Yvonne Navarro—Music of the Spears: Aliens Series (Spectra 1996), Deep Cuts: Mayhem, Menace and Misery (Evil Jester Press 2013)
Melanie Tem—The Deceiver (Leisure Books 2003), Slain in the Spirit (Leisure Books 2002)
Billie Sue Mosiman—Widow (Berkley 1995), Red Moon Rising: A Vampire Novel (DAW 2003)
Caitlin R. Kiernan—The Drowning Girl (Roc Trade 2012), Tales of Pain and Wonder (Subterranean Press 2008)
Gemma Files—Kissing Carrion (Prime Books 2003), The Worm in Every Heart (Prime Books 2006)
Sheri Gambino—Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes: Zany Zombie Poetry for the Undead Head (Coscom Entertainment 2009), Rellik (2011)
Damien Walters Grintalis—Ink (Samhain Publishing 2012), Arcane (CreateSpace 2011)
Fran Friel—Mama’s Boy and Other Dark Tales (Apex Publications 2008), “Wings With Hot Sauce” (The Horror Library 2005)
Tananarive Due—The Between (Harper Perennial 1996), Domino Falls: A Novel (Atria Books 2013)
Lucy Snyder—Chimeric Machines (Creative Guy Publishing 2009), Shotgun Sorceress (Del Rey Books 2010)
Alexandra Sokoloff—The Unseen (St. Martin’s Press 2009), The Harrowing (St. Martin’s Press 2006)
Sarah Pinborough—The Taken (Dorchester Publishing 2007), Breeding Ground (Leisure Books 2006)
Sarah Langan—The Keeper (HarperTorch 2006), Audrey’s Door (Harper Publishing 2009)
Tonia Brown—Badass Zombie Road Trip (Books of the Dead Press 2012), Skin Trade: An Historical Horror (CreateSpace 2012)
Jessy Marie Roberts—Bloody Carnival (Pill Hill Press 2010), Kinberra Down (Pill Hill Press 2010; with Eric S. Brown)
I hope the women I left out will forgive me.
Do yourself a favor and read some of these fantastic women. You will find women have been greatly overlooked in the horror industry, whether it’s film or literature. I’ve heard it said that these women “write like a man” and I guess if that’s what you need to hear to check out female authors, then so be it—but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
~Colleen Wanglund
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