Scholastic - Blog Posts

There’s got to be a term to describe that like. Extremely specific era of children’s literature where all the books were novellas printed on low quality paper, pumped out on a near monthly basis, and made for series that sometimes stretched into hundreds of books

Animorphs. Goosebumps. Bailey School Kids. Babysitter’s Club. Magic Treehouse. Series that plague public libraries and second hand book stores to this day. A genre that was nearly wiped out overnight by the success of Harry Potter, and the newfound desire for kids to read long form literature

It was like pulp fiction for kids

Meilin of Zhong [Spirit Animals] Doodles

A doodle session of Meilin from Fall of the Beasts in really inconsistent art styles. (And an unnecessary story below about her clothes)

According to Google, Zhong (Meilin's country if you're unfamiliar) is based primarily on China and a few other Asian influences. While looking at the cover art on some of the Spirit Animal books, I've determined what Meilin is wearing kinda resembles a white cheongsam under a blue puffy parka looking thing.

(I'm not an expert on clothes, just a rabbit hole diver)

Looking up what dynasty would have their women wear cheongsams and blue parkas, Google says that women apparently wore cheongsams in the Ming Dynasty. So I said great, I'll base off her clothes off of the hanfu (Chinese historical clothing) from the Ming dynasty.

But then I got deeper into the rabbit hole and thought, "Wait... The Tang Dynasty looks pretty cool and pretty accurate to her outfit in the beginning"

You know the fancy ceremony outfit that Meilin wore for her Nectar ceremony? According to the book, she applied gold flakes, rouge, and white face paint among other things to her face. Tang Dynasty women wore gold flakes on their faces too (I looked up Ming Dynasty and their makeup seems totally different)

Tang Dynasty is also more accurate to what I imagine Zhong was at the time, open to the other three countries and flourishing in trade. It reflects in the fashion, as women's fashion became more diverse with so many different influences. I've also read articles that the fashion was seen as more aggressive, which suits Meilin.

However, I cannot ignore that the cover art Meilin's fashion was most likely made in the likeness of Ming Dynasty clothing. (As it turns out, the not-cheongsam is actually an ao)

And that's how I ended up deciding that (headcanon) Zhong's fashion is mainly inspired from the Tang Dynasty, especially the outfits popular in the imperial court, but there's Ming-esque athleisure I guess. (Conveniently ignoring that women wore pleated skirts and preferred pastel colors)

For her court outfit, I decided on a qixiong ruqun, which uniquely has the waistband above the chest paired with a scarf. As for her casual Hero of Erdas outfit I have her wear a double layered top called an ao (well, ao is the shirt in aoqun the word, so I'm assuming it's just called so), which is worn untucked above the waist over a skirt or in this case a pair of pants.

Obviously I took artistic liberty in literally everything, so please forgive me if I am inaccurate in anyway in the explanation. Just looked up a bunch of stuff and tried to piece everything together, so don't take this explanation too seriously.

Note: @ziseviolet is a good source for those who want to learn more; I simply browsed through their stuff this time, but I plan on reading more cuz it's super fascinating

Aside from Paul Chadwick's Concrete, I strongly feel that this comic series is ripe for adaptation.

I just started re-reading my favorite and, in my opinion, the BEST graphic novel of all time, Jeff Smith's "Bone".

Anybody remember it? If you do and you have read it, you may be wondering why they never did anything with that series (like, it just stopped at comics and two video games). Well, they've tried three separate times to make it into a TV show or a movie.

First, Nickelodeon wanted to make a huge movie out of Bone...and then it got dropped.

And then Warner Bros. wanted to make a trilogy of movies. They wrote up all the scripts...and then it got dropped.

And then Netflix wanted to make a TV series out of Bone...and then it got canceled in 2022.

The first two story arcs (out of nine) were adapted into an adventure game series by Telltale Games in 2005 and 2006. As of now, it's the closest we will ever get to an animated Bone TV series or movie. When is Bone gonna get its justice? Somebody come save Bone...

The works of Jeff Smith are very near and dear to my heart. When it comes to fantasy comics, this guy is one of my personal favorite writers/artists, and the world he created and the stories he crafted are, without a doubt, one of my all-time favorites.

Some exciting news! 

That’s it. All the information is right here.

Dog Man: Big Jim Begins - New Book Announcement + Movie Update!

Dog Man: Big Jim Begins, the 13th book in the series by Dav Pilkey, releases this December 3, 2024! People . com posts its first look at the upcoming book.

And a MOVIE UPDATE! Here's the Logo of the upcoming DreamWorks Dog Man Movie, in theaters January 31, 2025!

Announcement + Sneak Peek: https://people.com/new-dog-man-book-to-publish-this-winter-see-inside-exclusive-8655516

Pre-Order Now: https://www.scholastic.com/content/site/pilkey/dav-pilkey-at-home/dog-man-series.html

I hope you're all excited for more Dog Man, so please Follow me on Instagram and X for more updates from the Pilkeyverse!