cool and unusual punishment

i am very serious about children's literature

i was just going to talk about wolves of the beyond but ended up rambling about like twenty book series so i thought i'd put a spoils warning at the top. there is a spoils. bewarb.

DOES ANYONE REMEMBER THE ENDING TO WOLVES OF THE BEYOND? BECAUSE I'M STILL SALTY ABOUT IT.

if you haven't read wolves of the beyond (and don't plan to) the plot twist is that the series DOESN'T really end. like literally they spend six books getting to this "new world", completely destroying the entire established universe of both that series and the guardians of ga'hoole, and then the chapter they get there it just E N D S with some FUCKING HORSE being like "IT'S YA BOI, THE STAR WOLF"

WHO ARE YOU?
WHAT IS HAPPENING?

and then she releases another series about horses i see what you did there lasky

look i already paid you thirty dollars to douse my childhood in gasoline and then throw a match on it i'm not paying for your potentially tangentially related series about horses as well, you have wounded me dearly

Other memories I have of children's book series:

-Redwall

Redwall was where i got the idea to have a chronology all over the map for the dreamland series, but ALL THE REDWALL BOOKS ARE THE SAME*. seriously have i mentioned i read twenty-something Redwall books in one year during fifth grade and only by the time I finished the sixtieth scene about feasting/singing/etc. did I realize HOLY SHIT THESE PLOTS ARE HELLA SIMILAR. I mean I was kind of a slow kid for being such a fast reader but dang

*This does not apply to Taggerung. I may have only hazy recollections of this whole series besides mice getting wasted and berserker badgers but according to fifth grade Chrona, Taggerung was okay.

-The Last Dragon Chronicles.

I've heard my books compared to Warriors plus ???? and I'd say "The Last Dragon Chronicles" falls pretty squarely in that ???. I would consider it one of the biggest influences on how I write today.

However, that doesn't mean I'm not salty about how hard it is to market the series to people. Do you like dragons? Good, the first book is about saving an injured squirrel with light fantasy elements in the background. Did I mention it's left almost entirely ambiguous if the dragons are real or not, making it seem like the Pennykettles might just be complete nutcases?

But then in the second book, if you liked the whole quaint psuedo-fantasy feel, HOLD ONTO YOUR CLAY DRAGONS, BECAUSE NOW THEY'RE REAL AND THERE'S A CRAZY AUNT AND WHAT IS HAPPENING.

Then by the seventh book there are three parallel dimensions, the family tree is worse than the ones on the Warriors website (okay less incest but still very confusing), and the main character has become king of the polar bears. If you think this is less bizarre in context well boy howdy do I have news for you.

When I was in fifth grade this series was literally my life. My friends and I had this whole multiverse set up using the concepts this series uses as a framework, no lie, and we would always find ways to sneak inside jokes from the series into our books. Mainly the cringy ones, like "I. Am. Not. Human." but also just "SOMETIMES" in irrelevant circumstances. Good times.

-Eragon

I read Eragon in sixth grade (during the standardized test season) and even then, as a fledgeling writer whose skill level was below Double Rainbow levels, I could tell you that the Eragon... series... thing... is garbage. The ending is so baffling. Firnen is like six months old and Sapphira is like "yeah i'd tap that" WHAT

and then Eragon gets on a boat because WHAT

and Arya WHAT

They spend four books building up to this epic boss battle and it lasts like fifteen pages wHHAT