Hiya everyone, I hope you’re all having a lovely holiday season filled with… I dunno, holiday stuff.

I took Charlotte to see THE HOBBIT on Friday. She liked it a lot- she got to stay up late and watch a “grown-up movie,” she got all the popcorn she could shove down her throat, and it was just scary enough for her. Charlotte likes scary. Since she was little she’s asked me to tell her scary stories, forcing me to improv not only a horror story, but one that’s good for kids. That’s a tough balance to strike. You have to hit somewhere between scary and too scary, and then you have to consider that some things aren’t scary to kids at all. I did one, once, that was about someone in a house alone getting phone calls from someone that seemed to know what the protagonist was doing. Charlotte said “you can stop now, this isn’t even scary.” Meanwhile, her mother was just about to ask me to stop because it was scaring her to death.

Eventually, I ran out of stories to tell and just began retelling horror movies as scary stories for kids. It’s easy- just boil down the story to its base plot points and tone down the truly horrific parts. Monster movies work best. I don’t recommend trying this with SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, that’s a tricky one. …and if you do, leave out Multiple Miggs.

I trailed off there, for a bit, but yeah: Charlotte enjoyed THE HOBBIT’s kid-sized scary parts. Giant spiders, a dragon, the necromancer, the orcs. And the fighting. Charlotte and Amelia have been shielded from violence all their lives. Now, at 9, Charlotte’s being allowed to see some movies for older audiences. Turns out… she likes violence. When she got home she talked excitedly about Bombur the dwarf “spinning around, killing everyone,” heads getting chopped off and all the instances of Legolas and Tauriel planting arrows through orcs.

You’ll see plenty of Charlotte’s violence in upcoming pages of REVENGE ON RAINBOW GIRL. For a pair of kids shielded against violence, it’s pretty horrific. People die in all sorts of ways. Fire, bullets, bombs, teeth, poison, axes… and rainbows.

KIDS’ QUOTES OF THE WEEK

“My friends Grace and Lianna are werewolves.
They turn into werewolves at night and howl
in their room.” She pauses. “They look
creepy even when they’re not werewolves.”
                                        -Charlotte, 5 years old

Mommy: “Mia, what should we do for
dinner tonight, pizza or Halfway Cafe?”
Amelia: “Halfway Cafe.”
Mommy: “Okay. What do they have
that you like to eat?”
Amelia: “Pizza.”
                                        -Amelia, 3 years old