Fursuiting gig

[altivo]

Thought I had escaped without being asked to fursuit for Summer Reading but the question came today. I agreed to do Argos (since the theme is Reading on the Wild Side, and they are featuring all sorts of wild animal stuff) but only if they find a story to read in which the wolf is NOT the villain. This tends to be harder than you might think.

I found two candidates myself. One is Footprints in the Snow by Mei Matsuoka, in which the Wolf decides to write his own story about a kindhearted wolf who follows tracks in the snow to find a friend. The other is Winston the Book Wolf by Marni McGee, in which Winston loves to eat books because the words are so delicious, but when he gets trapped in the library by an angry librarian and her helpers, a little girl named Rosie helps him to escape and teaches him a new way to enjoy words. Of course we had neither in our library, so I had to request them from another library in the consortium so I can review them. This will force me to make the improvements in Argos that have been on a back burner since MFF last year. The director suggested a third, The Wounded Wolf by Jean Craighead George. Based on an actual incident that was observed by a wildlife scientist, the story tells of a wounded wolf who could not hunt due to a foot injury (possibly caused by a trap) and who crawled into a shelter in the rocks but rather than starving to death, he was fed by the pack alpha who brought him food daily until he recovered and could rejoin the pack. That one is a lovely story but perhaps a bit complex for the under ten set to comprehend.

Other than that, the usual W-day. Long and tiring.

Gloom most of the day, but it didn't rain.

Comments

[silver-kiden.livejournal.com]

i recommend julie of the wolves

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Julie of the Wolves is an excellent book, but too long for a single story hour. By the same author as The Wounded Wolf, mentioned here.

Another good book in that longer range is Jack London's White Fang. And while searching for something of the short picture book type today, I came across The Sight by David Clement-Davies, which I promptly requested so I could read it myself. I knew Clement-Davies as author of Fire-bringer, a long novel about a red deer herd that is similar to Animal Farm or Watership Down in the way in which the author uses the animals to present various aspects of human society and politics, but I didn't know he had also written a wolf book.

[jenwolf.livejournal.com]

Well there are two books I would recommend where the wolf isn't the bad guy. "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" by Jon Scieszka tells the familiar story, only from the wolf's perspective. Also "The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig" by Eugene Trivizas reverses the roles of the characters. Both are story books suitable for small children.

[animist.livejournal.com]

"The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" is fun... I was trying to remember that title when I saw your post. I also recommend it, Altivo.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is good. Just a little subtle for the age group I expect.

There's also an animated film based on Red Riding Hood in which the wolf was framed for something he didn't do. He was actually a journalist who went to interview Granny about her cooking skills, and it was Red who tied Granny up in the closet and stole her recipes. Very funny but much of it goes right over the heads of little kids. The title of the film is Hoodwinked! and it's fairly recent I think.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yep, thanks. We have those. I felt they weren't ideal for this particular use because the first is subtle satire and thus more complex than I wanted to handle, and the second is similar plus it involves multiple wolves and there is only one of me. But they are good books, and judging by the amount of wear on the covers, popular ones.

[jairus-greywolf.livejournal.com]

It's nice to know there are at least a few books out there where the wolf is not the villian.

Hope you have fun performing!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Since it will be in July I made a point of insisting that it take place indoors with the air conditioning working. ;p

[infl8ablewolf.livejournal.com]

Cheers to the suiting opportunity. Glad to see someone stickin' up for our kind :D. My mom bought me a book as a kid ... called Kavik the Wolf-Dog? Or something like that. I'm not sure how long it is, its been that long.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Kavik is a good book, but it's long. Like White Fang or Julie of the Wolves, it's better suited to somewhat older kids and couldn't really be covered in a 30 minute story session. There's a good film version of it too, if you haven't seen it.

[infl8ablewolf.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, cool. I wasn't aware that there was a film version of it. I'll have to look into renting it.

HEY ... I can't believe I've not asked you this. I'm a whore for Jack London, White Fang, Call of the Wild, Sea Wolf, To Build A Fire (INTENSE), Assassinations Bureau Inc (the half the he wrote), etc. Any recommendations on similar authors?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, James Oliver Curwood is the first name that comes to mind. I believe you can get some of his books from Project Gutenberg. The best ones are also still in print in paperback at least.

London is one of my favorite authors as well, and I've never found anyone else who is everything that London was. I sometimes wonder what his works would look like had he lived a full life instead of being cut short as he was.

If you take apart different aspects of his writing, then for the adventure/suspense element there are a number of authors who were nearly as good, many from the same time period. Harold MacGrath, Rudyard Kipling, even Arthur Conan Doyle. Ernest Hemingway is more recent but owes much to that genre. For the way London got inside the minds of animals and told their stories, though, you have to look elsewhere. Curwood does that, and so do modern writers like David Clement-Davies and Avi.

[infl8ablewolf.livejournal.com]

Heh, in High School I wrote my Senior essay on Jack London and how much of his life is mimiced in his writings. I did another comparing Atavism of Call of the Wild to Existentialism with The Stranger. Yeah. Its safe to say I love the author :P.

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll take a look at em and hopefully pick some up. :)

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

but rather than starving to death, he was fed by the pack alpha who brought him food daily until he recovered and could rejoin the pack.

LOL. Social Democracy in action! :D

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Or something like that. Guessing from behavior I've seen in our own dogs, it's probably an extension of the parenting instincts. Dogs who get along well socially do share food, and parents deliberately offer food to pups. When I got my beardie he was three months old and still very much a puppy. Our three year old male golden retriever "adopted" him and taught him all sorts of stuff. It was obviously a teacher-pupil relationship that eventually blossomed into a sibling-like partnership. They were inseparable until we lost the golden at age nine due to cancer. It was an amazing and complex thing to watch.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Canines are clever. They have grasped that co-operating as a collective of individuals increases the survival odds for all individuals concerned. I wonder when humans will realise this? That was pretty much what I was getting at. ;)

I've never owned a dog sadly. I wish I had. It kind of feels like something was missing from early life. I work too much to responsibly live with a dog now.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Not all dogs are good, but good dogs are GOOD. That's all I can say about that, really. The golden I mentioned above was called Tee and we were depressed for months after he died.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

Little Wolf's Book of Badness. ;P

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll take a look.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Footprints is pretty super delicious, as the kids say.

Being in a fursuit in the summer?

You so crazy!

@.@

*sticks a straw in to your suits muzzle so you can
get some orange juice before you implode*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I did stipulate that the air conditioning had to be working and that I was not going outdoors. In spite of the heavy fur, Argos is not as stifling to wear as Tivo.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

The book wolf the book wolf :D

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The book wolf is definitely at the head of the field. After he learns to read, he gets back into the library by dressing up in a granny dress with a flowery hat and offering to read stories to the children. And when his tail shows under the dress, they all pretend not to notice. ;p

I'll be the book wolf, and the reader can wear a long dress and hat. I'll lend her an extra tail to put under her dress so it shows when she stands up.

from Marni McGee

[(Anonymous)]

Fun to see your review of Winston the Book Wolf, and oddly enough, your search began exactly the way my writing did. I wanted to cast a usually-bad-mean animal as a good-funny-fun one. After discarding snakes and skunks, I chose a wolf but had no plot. So I tucked that wolf-seed into my mind and waited for an idea to bloom. Several days later, I was at a local bookstore where I had an upcoming book signing. As I was chatting with the manager and admiring her window display, a rather unkempt man tried to go inside, but she stopped him -- furious! Turns out, this fellow had surreptitiously creased the pages in many of their expensive art books. Over the course of an afternoon, he had destroyed thousands of dollars worth. I thought, "It's as thought he ATE those books!" And there it was: my plot for WINSTON THE BOOK WOLF. Happy reading! Marni (www:marnimcgee.com)

Re: from Marni McGee

[altivo.livejournal.com]

[Duplicated via e-mail post]

Thanks for your note in my LiveJournal blog about Winston the Book Wolf. We like the story very much and I've decided that yours will be the book we use. The reader will dress in a granny dress with a flowered hat, and I'll supply her with an extra wolf tail to wear under it. I'll wear my wolf costume and sneak in as she begins to read, and pretend to chew a book or two until someone chases me away. Afterward we'll probably have a photo opportunity for kids who want their picture taken with us.

One of my own novels features a pegasus character who was named Menander because as a foal he was raised by the librarians in the great library at Alexandria. Before he learned to read, he also ate some scrolls made of papyrus (which ought to be digestible enough for a horse I think) and, unfortunately, those were the only remaining copies of Menander's plays. He was then taught to read once he promised never to eat another book, and given the name of the ancient Greek playwright since Menander could no longer be remembered by his works that were destroyed. ;D

Altivo, the Clydesdale Librarian
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