Weerdest Day Ever!: Interview with author Richard Scrimger

Today I'm please to present, 

as part of Orca Book Publishers' blog tour for

  the Seven Prequels, 

my interview with 

the author of 

Weerdest Day Ever!

by Richard Scrimger

Orca Book Publishers

9781459811553

216 pp.

Ages 9-12

September 2016

Reviewed yesterday

Richard Scrimger

(looking very dapper in a hat)

Many thanks to Orca Book Publishers' publicist Melissa Shirley for arranging this blog tour and to author Richard Scrimger for answering my questions about Weerdest Day Ever!, Bunny and the writing process.

^^^

HK: Of the seven grandsons in the Seven series, Seven Sequels and now Seven Prequels, Bunny is my favourite (please don’t tell the others).  I don’t know if it’s his humility or his special learning needs–perhaps as a teacher I really want to “help” him–but I am consistently drawn to him and his stories and am never disappointed.  How did you ever find Bunny’s voice?

RS: Bunny’s is one of my favorite of my voices.  For all the things he doesn’t know, he knows himself.  And that’s the coolest knowledge of all.  Bunny goes his own way.  He doesn’t ‘fit in’ well – and he is totally ok with that.  Kind of like me.

^^^

HK: As Bunny will attest, his spelling is not always the best.  As an author whose vocation it is to write well, how difficult was it to write as Bunny, spelling and grammatical mistakes and all?

RS: Writing and spelling are different things. I care about writing well.  That is my vocation. I really don’t care about spelling.  My mom would tie herself into knots about the subjunctive mood or the misuse of an apostrophe, but I don’t give a donut. Because I can spell, it’s a bit tricky to write like Bunny.  I have to put myself into his mindset.  Once there, I rite like him.  As you see. Problem is I hav trouble turning him off.  So a letter to a friend mite sound like Bunny and shed rite back: Are you feeling OK?  What’s wrong?

^^^

HK: Readers learn so much from the way characters see and interpret and react but perspective is key.  However, Bunny is very much prone to misinterpret circumstances. Right from the onset of Weerdest Day Ever! Bunny witnesses a re-enactment and believes he’s in the middle of a war.  To what do you attribute his frequent misinterpretation: his naiveté, his inexperience, his gullibility, his benevolence, or something else entirely?

RS: On a human level, Bunny believes what people say. Whether that’s naivete or great wisdom is up to you.  In fact, nothing gives you away so clearly as the lie you tell.   Why are all my stories about people who don’t fit in? Why are they all funny? Why do they all have sadness or loss underneath the humour?  I am telling the truth while I am lying.  This is who I am.  In the same way, re-enactors are not really fighting, but the truth is that they are war-obsessed attention seekers playing dress up.  There is truth there.  And Bunny sees this truth – or some of it.

^^^

HK: Bunny may be a character in a book but, as I’ve read his stories, I’ve come to care what happens to him.  So, please tell me, what kind of a future do you foresee for him (and I’m not talking books here)?

RS: Bunny knows himself, and likes himself well enough. He gets along with his brother, makes new friends, and doesn’t mind risking his heart even though things don’t always work out.   In the long run, Bunny’s going to be fine. (Now if I could just believe that about myself!)

^^^

HK:  I’ve heard you and your collaborative team of Seven series authors discuss the writing process and how the series began.  It sounds very collegial.  Collaboration between two individuals can be tricky, balancing writing styles, egos and intent.  How do you manage it with a group of seven extraordinary writers, each with their own style and vision and probably egos as well?

RS: In fact all of us like each other and play off each other, and tours are a whole lot of fun.  This is good question to ask me specifically, because my and Ted Staunton’s books are probably the closest linked of any in the series.  The problem is to develop story lines that work together.  We want plots that dovetail but don’t give away each other’s endings. For the sequels, I wanted Bunny to be kidnapped. As soon as I said that Ted snapped his fingers and said, “And I know who kidnapped him!” The prequels are extra tightly linked since the brothers share a campsite for a couple days and keep just missing each other.  Ted’s and my plot conversations usually involve a bottle of something.  This conversation went from history to re-enactors to the War of 1812.  Then Ted smiled.  “I just saw Spencer in Laura Secord’s costume,” he said.  “Isn’t that funny,” I replied.  “Because I just saw Bunny as … “

^^^

HK:  Are the Seven Prequels the last of the Seven-based series or is there another in the plans?  Or do you anticipate any other multiple-author collaborations, similar to the Seven series books, with these same writers or others?

RS: As of now, there are no more ‘7’ plans. We’ll wait and see how this one does.  BUT it’s funny you should ask about other co-productions.  Ted and I were talking about how humour writing never gets a fair shake.  So we made some phone calls.  Scholastic jumped at our idea, and (drum roll!!) in two years Kevin Sylvester, Lesley Livingstone, Ted and I will put out 4 linked books starring teens with goofy superpowers.

^^^

Be sure to check out all the blog stops on the Seven Prequels tour, each highlighting one author:

• Norah McClintock at Lost in a Great Book

• Richard Scrimger here at CanLit for LittleCanadians

• Eric Walters at Literary Treats

• John Wilson at teenreads

• Ted Staunton at Young Adult Books Central

• Shane Peacock at MrsReadsBooks

• Sigmund Brouwer at Lost in a Great Book

^^^

Read the Seven Prequels in any order you want. 

But you'll want to read them all!

Weerdest Day Ever!

First there was the Seven Series.

Then came the Seven Sequels.

Today the long-awaited Seven Prequels launches! 

Get a taste for the Seven Prequels with my review of  

Richard Scrimger's contribution to the series here.

Written by Richard Scrimger

Orca Book Publishers

9781459811553

216 pp.

Ages 9-12

September 2016

Reviewed from advance reading copy

Weerdest Day Ever! is a story that Bunny (Bernard) is writing for his Grade 10 English class about a camping trip with his Grampa and brother Spencer.  It begins with an “Oops. Sorry.” that is pure Bunny.   But as weird as his tale might be, he makes a point of clarifying that it is essentially true, though knowing Bunny, he does tend to misinterpret much since he often takes things literally and at face value.

This story is true–mostly its true.  You wont think so but it is.  Like the war. Yah there reely was a war. Or the cow.  Or the hollow tree. Or what happened to the 1 arm man. (pg. 3)

Since I know he’s got you hooked with that beginning, his story is off to a great start.  And, if I were his teacher, I could easily disregard his spelling mistakes because the content of his story is so engaging.

Grampa doesn’t tell them much about the trip except that there will be surprises at the park that weekend.  His only rule is that, if they go out on their own, that they must stay close and check in.  When Spencer loses his new and distinctly yellow-cased smart phone, Bunny goes exploring by himself and discovers some guys in blue jackets and white pants and tall hats armed with guns that looked longer and fancier than rifles he knew.  He meets two kids, Beth and her quiet brother Tyler, both dressed in fringed leather clothing and with makeup, sneaking through the woods.  Beth tells them they are with the British and those men in blue are the Americans and there would be in battle tomorrow.  Beth then introduces Bunny to their father, Tecumseh, a general with an impressive sword, at a community of tents, wagons, horses and a log house in a large open area.

Most readers would get that what Bunny is witnessing is a re-enactment from the War of 1812 but Bunny truly believes a war is about take place and feels he must warn his Grampa.  But, Bunny knows how to recognize a bully and, when a blue-coated, one-armed man comes by and taunts Beth’s father and uses discriminatory and rude words like "savages" and "red skins", Bunny calls him out on it, making an enemy of the “reactor” (i.e., re-enactor) whom they learn is an American called Brasher.  Later when Bunny and the silent tracker Tyler go snooping and Bunny sees Brasher with Spencer’s distinctive cell phone, Bunny’s mission becomes two-fold: warn Grampa about the war, and get Spencer’s phone back.  Along the way, though, Bunny and his new friends have another mystery to solve, that of the theft of Tecumseh's sword, solved all the more easily because of Bunny's astute observations.

I can’t possible go into all the layers of Richard Scrimger’s plot but it does encompass a war, a one-armed man, a cow, as Bunny mentions at the onset, but also Laura Secord, a sword, a phone, horseback riding, a re-enactment, budding romances for all three campers, an elderly woman with hearing issues, antagonism with Americans, meaningful ice-cream, a hollow tree, a bully, and a familial rivalry.  It must have seemed like the “weerdest day ever!” for sweet and trusting Bunny who spends most of the weekend worried.  He’s worried about Spencer and his lost phone; about a war they may lose and who might get killed; about Beth and a horse-handler named Clod; about the mean bully named Brasher; and more. But even with all these worries, Bunny’s perspective allows him to see circumstances with wisdom and the humour with which Richard Scrimger’s writing is always imbued.

     “What if we lose?” I said. “What then?”
     Wuld we become American? And what would that mean–being American?
     If I was American Id have a different anthem. O say can you see.  I didnt know it all but I knew that part.  No more standing on gard.  If I was American Id have a president.  My capital city wuld be Washington.  Id have green money. (pg. 104)

How can you not love Bunny?  He may have spelling challenges and trust others too quickly, but he is wise beyond his years (he’s in Grade 6 when the camping trip takes place), recognizing that the only rule he needs to live by is you should do what you want unless it hurts somebody.  

It’s very satisfying to learn a bit about Bunny’s earlier story, as well as get hints of his grandfather David McLean’s covert and romantic entanglements, in this book of the Seven Prequels.  I suspect readers of the remaining Seven Prequels will feel the same after learning a bit more about Spencer, DJ, Webb, Adam, Rennie and Steve.  I can only reiterate what we have said all along about the Seven series, the Seven Sequels and now the Seven Prequels:  read them in any order, just read them.

Be sure to check out all the blog stops on the Seven Prequels tour to launch the series, starting today:

• Norah McClintock at Lost in a Great Book

• Richard Scrimger here at CanLit for LittleCanadians

• Eric Walters at Literary Treats

• John Wilson at teenreads

• Ted Staunton at Young Adult Books Central

• Shane Peacock at MrsReadsBooks

• Sigmund Brouwer at Lost in a Great Book

AND

Check back tomorrow for my own blog tour stop for the Seven Prequels, my interview with author Richard Scrimger.