CONTEST! Haiku!

Those are a couple of Kaiju Haikus from my latest book, Frankenstein Takes the Cake. "Kaiju" means "strange beast" or "monster" in Japanese. A haiku (and I realize most of you know this already) is a kind of Japanese poem that usually has five syllables, then seven syllables, then five. Here's a not very good haiku that explains what a haiku is:

First, five syllables,
and then seven syllables,
and then five again.

This is all a very simple explanation of haiku, but I bring it up because I'm having a CONTEST! A KAIJU HAIKU CONTEST!
-Submit your best haiku about monsters in the comments. You can also email them here, if you prefer, and I'll post them. It doesn't have to be about a Japanese monster, it can be about any monster or monsters. Even one you made up yourself.
-It DOES have to be 5/7/5, like the examples above.
-You must include your age. The grand prize will go to a kid, but adults can win as well.
-I'll delete any entries I consider inappropriate.
-I'll take haiku entries through creepy Friday the 17th.
-Afterward, the winner will be selected by celebrity judges. I'll announce who these people are soon.

GRAND PRIZE: The kid who wrote the winning entry will receive an illustration of their haiku, drawn by me. It will be on fancy art paper and suitable for framing. This kid will also receive a signed copy of Frankenstein Takes the Cake, a set of Frankenstein wedding bubbles, and a Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich lunchbox filled with weird things.

THREE RUNNERS-UP, of any age, will each receive a signed copy of Frankenstein Takes the Cake with his or her haiku illustrated on the title page.

Teachers! Want to submit the entries of your entire class at once? Post them all together in one comment, or email them to me and I'll do it.

Enter Now! Enter often!

Amazon.com–eerily insightful, or really stupid?

Lately I've noticed that the Amazon page for my new book includes this claim:

To be clear, Amazon is willing to offer you a special deal if you buy them together. My funny rhyming kid's book about monsters and their problems, and Alan Moore's dense, dystopian graphic novel about doomsday anxiety and the nature of heroism.

This is hardly the first time Amazon has surprised me with the odd bit of non sequitur. They've always had a sort of free-associative, Dadaist organizational structure there. One might have expected that Frankenstein Takes the Cake would be "better together" with Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich, its companion book, but...the thing is, I LOVE Watchmen. I've probably read it twenty times. I've finally sort of gently bullied my wife into reading it, in anticipation of the upcoming movie. Is Amazon being absurdly random about their pairings...or are they looking deeply into the souls of each and every one of us? Does Frankenstein Takes the Cake and Watchmen share some unexpected connection, like the one people are always trying to tell you exists between Pink Floyd and The Wizard of OZ?

When the audiobook of Frankenstein and the DVD of Watchmen come out, I'm totally playing them at the same time.

You've won this time, Billy Collins...

This is a little sad. My latest book, Frankenstein Takes the Cake, was reviewed in the New York Times Review of Books yesterday.  Not the sad part yet.  Wait for it.  Sales of Frankenstein received a small bump, insomuch as I could tell from the Amazon sales ranking (this is also not meant to be the sad part, though you may each of you appraise for yourself the existential sadness of checking one's own Amazon sales ranking).  While I was checking the progress of this ranking, my wife noticed that among books, specifically literature and fiction, specifically poetry, specifically United States poetry, specifically 20th century United States poetry, Frankenstein was currently the #2 seller.  Mine was the number two bestselling 20th century United States poetry book on Amazon.

There it is, right beneath former Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins.

Of course, the really funny (and also sad) thing here, is that my book wasn't even published in the 20th century.  But then neither were the books before it or after it.  That's Amazon for you.

Te gusta la comida, ¿no?

I've just learned that my book Frankenstein Takes the Cake has finally come out in a spanish-language edition–my first book to be reprinted in any language other than english. You can check out the catalog listing for Frankenstein se Hace un Sándwich at the Océano website. And for those who can't read spanish, I've had my laptop's language widget translate the catalog entry:

Frankenstein is hungry but no of its neighbors wants to share with him the food and to only they throw rotten foods him. What they ignore is that what for some is stinking sweepings, for others is a delight. The ghost of the Opera is sorry the fact that it cannot compose nothing because it has stuck a song. The creature of the Black Lagoon does not pay attention to the advice to her mother and room to swim too much soon after eating, reason why she sinks in the water for always. Conde Drácula walks for all sides with a spinach obstructed in his eyeteeth because nobody dares to warn to him…

SPECTRUM Preview 2

Some of you might recognize this next guy.

The second piece of mine that will be appearing in the Spectrum 14 annual is this depiction of my version of Frankenstein from Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich. This image never appeared in the book, however. I painted it to be a tabletop standee that Harcourt distributed to booksellers as an in-store advertisement. The blank menu board was printed with selected titles of poems from the book.
Here's a bit of the painting in progress, shot by a spectator at the second Art Out Loud event at the Society of illustrators.

You're Cordially Invited...

...to the wedding of Frankenstein and his Bride. Where? Book Expo America 2008, at the Harcourt Children's Books booth (#1400). When? This Friday, May 30th, from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. Will there be cake? THERE WILL BE CAKE.

I will also be signing my new picture book, Frankenstein Takes the Cake.

Sequel to the Best Fan Letter of All Time

Dear Abraham Superlincoln (again),

My two through four favorite books are these: Wonderstruck (Brian Selznick), The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Brian Selznick), and The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien). Although, I do very much like Frankenstein Makes A Sandwich and Other Stories You’re Sure to Like Because They’re All About Monsters and Some of Them are Also About Food. You Like Food Don’t You? Well All Right Then.

We love the Dracula with spinach between his teeth and the Phantom of the Opera.

In fact, my two friends Adam and Ian K. are writing a book of short stories inspired by your Frankenstein Makes A Sandwich and Other Stories You’re Sure to Like Because They’re All About Monsters and Some of Them are Also About Food. You Like Food Don’t You? Well All Right Then.. They’re short stories not poems, mind you. Sorry. So far, I’ve written one called When the Man in the Moon Had to Blink. It was written by guub in co-op with Equivalent Fractions. Ian K. wrote a sequel to Godzilla Pooped on my Honda. It was written by Ian K. in co-op with Miss Prime Minister. Adam wrote a story about why Medusa cut her hair.

I’ll try and send the stories once we finish them.

Your most likely #1 fan (I don’t think anybody is more fanly then me),

Gargantuan Space Scum

An Open Letter to the Mother Who Thinks One of My Monster Poems is Inappropriate for Children

(I received an email from the mother in question a few days ago.  She was kind enough to tell me she and her 8-year-old liked my book Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich, but that the whole family was shocked and disappointed by the opening line from the mummy poem.  The opening lines are: "There's a place in France where the naked ladies dance./ But when King Tut died, he wore bandages for pants."  What follows is my response to her email.)

Letters like yours are always distressing.  It's never been my intention to offend parents or introduce children to any material I believe is inappropriate to their age.  Of course there will always be spirited disagreement about just what is appropriate for children and what is not, and so here we are.

Why did I include the bit about the naked ladies in my poem?  It was my intent with the mummy poem to craft something that would be understood to be read to a particular tune, in much the same way as the Phantom poems are in the same volume.  When we take a cartoonish view of ancient Egypt we often think of a song that's familiar to nearly all Americans, even if most of us are unfamiliar with its actual title and history: "The Streets of Cairo, or The Poor Little Country Maid."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Streets_of_Cairo,_or_the_Poor_Little_Country_Maid

Of course, children everywhere have been singing this song to one another for decades with the schoolyard lyrics, "There's a place in France where the naked ladies dance, there's a hole in the wall where the boys can see it all," etc.  I can't know if your son was familiar with this, of course.  Maybe you weren't either, though I certainly knew it thirty years ago, when I was eight.  My wife tells me that she sang it as a little girl as well.

Regardless, my early drafts of the mummy poem didn't contain that line about the naked ladies.  But I discovered that readers were not intuitively realizing that they should be reading it to the "Streets of Cairo" tune, so I rewrote it with that first line from the playground standard.

I respectfully disagree that the line is inappropriate for school-aged kids, but I don't expect to change your mind.  I take no pleasure, anyway, from learning that it bothered your son.  But I hope you understand that I had an editor on this book, and that editor had a boss, and that boss had a boss.  Likewise the publisher had a sales and marketing team that shared the book with hundreds of teachers and librarians before its publication.  The poem was published as is because none of these people voiced any objections.  Indeed, the book has been available for over five years, and this is the first objection to it I've received.

None of this means you're wrong, of course.  You're certainly not wrong about the care and raising of your own son.  But I want you to understand that there was nothing careless or cavalier about the years-long process of writing and producing Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich.  I hope you'll continue to enjoy it with your son, and to paperclip together the pages of the mummy poem until you return it to your library.

Best Wishes,

Adam

Mail Call

Interesting things I got in the mail recently:

Douglas Florian sent me a Frankenstein's Monster head he recently found on the streets of Hell's Kitchen (a neighborhood in New York City, not Hell's actual kitchen). Because I now hold the curious position of being a person of whom people are reminded when they see Frankenstein. It's so rough on the outside because it's actually a mold, once used to make some kind of soft-headed monster toy. Look at that detailed face inside.

I also received my first finished copy of Guess Again!, my next book with author Mac Barnett (who also wrote Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem). This book is going to make your head bleed rainbows. It was wicked hard to put together but worth it. I'll be posting art from it soon.

The Best Man of Frankenstein Makes a Trip to the Buffet

Another one from the new book, Frankenstein Takes the Cake.

I've been getting reports from people who've already found the book on shelves, and Amazon is already shipping it, so I'm going to go ahead and say AVAILABLE NOW! NOW! There.
In keeping with the monster spirit, I recently purchased myself a Monstera Deliciosa, or Monster fruit. Here's a picture of it. These things are delicious. They taste like banana Sprite. But I can't eat this one until the scales fall off or it'll be poisonous. MMMMMMMonstera!

Own a piece of Frankenstein

So to speak. Some original art from my picture book Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich is currently part of a charity auction here. This is what it looks like, please pardon the watermark:

There's also a great piece of original Charles Schulz art from Peanuts if you happen to be rich, or have some money that was cursed by gypsies so that you have to spend it before the week is done else ill luck plague your house or something.

No offense meant to my Romany readers.

If you'd like to learn more about the charity, try here.

MONSTERS!

Here's a look at the busts I sculpted to use as models for my story collection, FRANKENSTEIN MAKES A SANDWICH. From left to right: the Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein, and my zombies Zorba and Zeus. These were made with Sculpey and various other materials, and painted with acrylics. Frank's sweater is the toe of an old gym sock.

Frankenstein Takes the Cake

I think it's about time to start previewing stuff from my September book, Frankenstein Takes the Cake. Details about it have already been trickling onto the web, including some nice reviews here and here.
So this blog is far from the only place where you can see the finished cover, but first thing's first. I also posted a color sketch of same previously. Oh, and happy 4th, if you're American.

Adam will bw signing copies of his new picture books, TREE RING CIRCUS and FRANKENSTEIN MAKES A SANDWICH, at Book Expo America in beautiful bureaucratic Washington, DC on Friday, May 19th. If you're an attendee, please come say hi at the Harcourt Booth on the Upper Level from 11 AM to 12. There may well be free posters.

EDIT–5.25.06–Thanks to all who came out to see me at BEA. I had a great signing, thanks largely to the promotional efforts of my Editor Tamson Weston, and Marketing Director Steve Kasdin. There were not only free posters at the signing, but free stuffed monsters and the occasional free lunchbox. Frankenstein had such a good time he dressed up and everything (see left).

BEA Memories

'Bout time I posted some pictures from my visit to Book Expo last month in LA. This was hands down the most fun I've ever had at a signing. No offense to the guy last year in the gorilla suit.

I include the first photo, in which I am relaxing in a rotating restaurant/bar with the Gorgeous Ladies of Harcourt (GLOH), only to document that I'm drinking something called a Gummitini that has actual Gummi bears drowned at the bottom, silently evanescing in their boozy grave.

The remaining photos document the signing itself, at which Frankenstein and his Bride renewed their vows and had cake. It was all, of course, to commemorate the debut of my new book, Frankenstein Takes the Cake, which will be in stores in September.

Off to North Carolina

I'm proud to report that I leave soon for Winston-Salem, where I'll be receiving the North Carolina Book Award for Frankenstein Takes the Cake.  

Anyone in the Raleigh area?  I'll be appearing at Quail Ridge Books from 3-5 PM on November 1st, which readers of my book Frankenstein Takes the Cake will recognize as Folloween.

Regardless, check back here tomorrow for the winners of the KAIJU HAIKU CONTEST.

Bookie Woogie

I had a really fun time video-chatting with the Z-Kids from the blog Bookie Woogie the other day; and their dad, Aaron Zenz, just completed the harrowing task of transcribing our meandering conversation and posting it as an interview. So please go check out what Isaac, Gracie, Lily, and I (and Aaron) had to say to each other. illustration above of zombies at the zoo by Lily Zenz, age 7, based on the zombies from Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich by Adam Rex, age 36.

WINNERS!

What a great bunch of kaiju haiku I got. Go read 'em if you don't believe me. There were more than 180 entries, but there can be only one GRAND PRIZE WINNER. Oh wait, no, there's two:

That kaiku was written by Lily, age 5. This next one is by Anna, age 12:

I got such a wide age range of kids that I thought I should have a GRAND PRIZE for both a 3-8 category and a 9-13 category, and those are they. My attractive celebrity judges also selected three runners up. In no particular order...

by Veronica, age 9:
Cerberus is sad
he wants a ball, a bone, and
someone to play with

by Trevor, age 4:
Dad, I know what the
important thing about horned
monsters is: the horns

by Jack, age 3 1/2:
I love aliens.
One, two, three, four, five of them,
flying in spaceships.

The GRAND PRIZE winners will receive the original art posted above, a signed copy of Frankenstein Takes the Cake, and a lunchbox filed with mysterious things. Runners-up will receive books with their haiku drawn on the title page. I probably won't send anything out until November, as I'm about to leave for North Carolina for a bit. I need Jack and Veronica's parents or guardian to email me so I can get an address to which I can send your books. I think I can reach everyone else through the email addresses posted on their profiles or blogs.
I think that's it.

A Poem I Don't Think I've Shared Here Before:

E.T.MAIL

We assumed it was the case

that in a place as big as space

we’d find some trace of other races

with our scientific bases.

When a signal was detected

it was not what we expected.

In the subject line it pleaded,

PLEASE REPLY–ASSISTENCE NEEDED

SALUTATIONS TO YOUR HEALTH.

PLEASE HELP ME TRANSFER ALL MY WEALTH

INTO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT ON EARTH–

ELEVEN MILLION DOLLARS WORTH.

I NEED YOUR ANSWER RIGHT AWAY.

PLEASE SEND A LETTER BACK TODAY

(ALONG WITH FIFTY DOLLARS, PLEASE,

TO PAY THE MONEY TRANSFER FEES).

We gasped–a message from the stars!

And then another came from Mars:

NEED BIGGER, YELLOWER ANTENNAE?

HAVE TO FEW OR HAVE TOO MANY?

LOSS OF VIGOR? LOUSY SLEEPER?

OUR PRESCRIPTION DRUGS ARE CHEAPER!!!

We were noticing a pattern,

when a bunch arrived from Saturn–

FANCY WATCHES! CLICK AND SEE!

and GET YOUR HYPERSCHOOL DEGREE.

At SINGLES IN YOUR SECTOR!!!

we disabled our detector.

Then we emptied out the cache

and dragged the letters to the trash.

So that’s the fact we had to face:

there’s no intelligence in space.

But that’s okay–for what it’s worth,

there isn’t much of it on Earth.

Copyright 2008 Adam Rex

From Frankenstein Takes the Cake

So I wrote this a few years ago, and always thought its natural habitat was the internet. Of course I control the rights to this poem–there's a copyright notice and everything following the verse. But I am curious to see if people like it enough to share it, and if so how long it takes before it's forwarded to me or someone I know. I also understand that all creative writing on the internet eventually gets attributed to Kurt Vonnegut, so we'll see how long that takes.

New Glasses

In her classes, without glasses, she could barely see the board.
With her specs she checks the teachers, sees their frightened, frozen features...

Oh. So that's why, when she raised her hand, Medusa was ignored.

From Frankenstein Takes the Cake, in stores now.