Old monsters return in new book by Squirrel Hill author Zoje Stage
'“My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast”' follows characters along a juvenile adventure adults can relish
A writer best known for terror is taking a turn at sweet. Zoje Stage, the USA Today bestselling author of “Baby Teeth,” “Getaway,” “Dear Hanna,” “Wonderland” and “Mothered,” is broadening her scope with “My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast.”
Available from publisher Bad Hand Books on Dec. 3, the Jewish writer’s newest work follows 9-year-old Pru along the age-old quest of determining what lurks at night.
“My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast” begins with a familiar plea from the protagonist’s mother.
Heeding the call, Pru starts cleaning her room; but the task isn’t so simple. Pru has long suspected things living beneath her bed. To her delight, they do. UnderSlumberBumbleBeasts are whimsical and peculiar but not “frightening under-the-bed monsters,” Pru tells readers. Instead, they’re “shy animal-like thingies.”
Stage’s story follows the creatures and Pru along a juvenile adventure adults can relish.
Readers of “Baby Teeth” and “Dear Hanna” will remember the animal-like beasts from Hanna, the star of Stage’s earlier works.
“From the beginning, I wanted “My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast” to be a real book. I felt like it would be a really cool companion piece to ‘Baby Teeth,’ Stage told the Chronicle.
Publishers weren’t always convinced.
Part of the difficulty with bringing “My UnderSlumberBumbleBeast” to print is that it “does not fit neatly into the publishing world’s ideas about what a children’s book should be,” Stage said. “It’s an illustrated book, but not meant for toddlers. It has chapters, but it’s not an early reader kind of chapter book. And it’s not long enough to be a book for true middle grade readers.”
Stage persevered and credited Bad Hand Books founder Doug Murano with not only recognizing the work’s value but “publishing this crazy, little oddball, illustrated children’s book that adults also happen to love.”
The Squirrel Hill resident is eager for readers to delve in, even though the text differs from earlier efforts. Unlike past works, none of Stage’s characters in the new book are Jewish and the setting doesn’t reference Jewish spaces, neighborhoods or local haunts.
Omitting cultural cues, religion and even Pittsburgh from the text lent a certain generality, she said. “With this book and this idea of it being really universal and timeless, I kind of wanted it to have this sense, truly, that any child or any adult could look at it and have it be relatable.”
At the same time — despite its connection to earlier works — Stage wanted the story to function independently.
“I think for adults who have read ‘Baby Teeth’ or ‘Dear Hanna,’ they get an extra element of remembering certain bits of it from the novels,” she said. “But honestly, those are bonuses for adults. I think kids could appreciate it just for what it is and what it was meant to be.”
Enriching Stage’s story are amusing illustrations by J.E. Larson. A glossary of “wonderful words,” compiled by Pru, appended to the text’s end, is also fun.
Along with definitions, the nearly 40-word glossary includes pronunciations devoid of phonetic symbols, “written in a style of “how a 9-year-old would explain these things to another 9-year-old,” Stage said. Omitting carets and upsilons was driven by a desire to create “something that kids could look at, spell out the words and figure out.”
Stage said she loved drafting the glossary and hopes its inclusion spurs a certain fondness for language among young readers.
When kids encounter “weird words in books” the goal is to eschew any fear of looking up the meanings, she said.
Since releasing “Baby Teeth” in 2018, Stage’s books have been celebrated by Forbes Magazine, Library Journal, PopSugar and others. She is currently at work on another terrifying novel for adult readers. Regardless of demographic, she hopes her writings continue igniting imagination.
“To me, that’s what makes life fun,” she said. “Having these amazing discoveries about things you’ve never thought about before, I encourage everybody to do that. It just makes life so much more interesting.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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