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Best Anthropomorphic Animals in Children’s Books

Happy birthday week, E.B. White! While we enjoy your general writing advice, what we really love are your children’s books. In honor of them, we are listing the best anthropomorphic animals in children’s books. We apologize to Stuart Little for not making the cut. As city dwellers, we think he looks too close to a rat for comfort.

 

Peter Rabbit from The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter

We will say this: Peter Rabbit has the best fashion sense of all the animals. He loves rocking the human threads, and we absolutely adore it. We are completely on his side in the Mr. McGregor conflict. Using his awesome blue jacket to decorate his scarecrow? We say that is pretty messed up. At least Peter has his well-furnished home as consolation. Props for bypassing Ikea for handcrafted furniture.

 

Winnie-the-Pooh from Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne

We aren’t going to lie; we were really torn between Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger. We picked Pooh because we feel the classic choice is always the correct one. There are definitely some negative aspects to Pooh: he has no brain and a honey addiction. Yet we cannot help but love him. We admire his peaceful attitude and friendly nature. His friendship knows no species boundaries; we think he is a good example on how to be a good friend.

 

Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

We know the obvious answer might be Wilbur, but we definitely have to go with Charlotte as the best. As people who have been hooked on phonics since we were tiny toddlers, we cannot help but love a spider that knows how to spell. She is also an amazing friend; she saves Wilbur’s life by complimenting him in her cobwebs.  Charlotte, we salute you. You have done wonders for spiders’ PR.  

 

The Cat in the Hat from The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss

The Cat in the Hat is the best creature to have at your party. He will make sure everyone has a great time, even if it is raining, and he brings his own entourage. As if that were not enough, he can also clean up the party quickly with his quirky clean-up machine. If we did invite him to our party, we would hope he would bring some hats. Those hats would look amazing on Instagram.

 

Frog and Toad from Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel

We know Frog and Toad are separate people and probably each deserve their own discussion, but they are so inseparable that we have to place them together. Like Peter Rabbit, the two amphibians demonstrate wonderful fashion sense by wearing human clothing. They also offer us an animal example of the Odd Couple. Frog is the relaxed one in the friendship while Toad is way more neurotic. Despite these differences, the two manage to have a beautiful friendship. We think they are a great example of how two different personalities can complement each other.

Posted by Sarah Fox

5 More Campy Movies We Want to See Gender-Swapped

The female version of Ghostbusters is hitting theaters this week, and we at Quirk are getting stoked. So stoked, in fact, that we’ve prolonged the thought experiment. What other campy movies would we flock to again, just to see the genders reversed?  Here are our top picks.

 

Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion

Posted by Eve Legato

Comic Crossover Crazy

Over the last few years DC comics has been putting out its superhero comics under the banner of The New 52. This new take on the DC Universe characters change a considerable amount of continuity. Recently, DC has decided to take its comics in a new direction with a story line titled Rebirth. While this story has yet to be fully solidified in the comics, one thing has become clear, it contains one of the most interesting crossovers ever to be brought into comics. In 1986 Vertigo Comics released Alan Moore’s seminal comic Watchmen which was an indictment of modern superhero comics. Now, thirty years later, characters from Watchmen are being introduced into the continuity of the DC Universe. In celebration of this new direction, here is a list of some of the greatest comic crossovers ever. 

Posted by David Winnick

Embrace Your Geekness With Sam Maggs

Today is Embrace Your Geekness Day and we're celebrating everything that makes our readers awesome

While geekness can be broadly defined, we like to think of it as the inner overly-obsessed fangirl in all of us. And, as if the stars perfectly aligned, The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy is July's Summer Book Club selection. Tonight at 7 p.m. EST Sam Maggs will on Facebook Live, taking your questions and showing off her geek collections. Plus, we hear there will be massive giveaways—including ARCs of her new book, Wonder Women.

In the meantime, don't miss out on this awesome Flash Giveaway happening now.

Posted by Valerie Cole

Embrace Your Geekness Day

In honor of Embrace your Geekness Day, here are a few literary geeks that saved the day!

Go geeks!

 

Posted by Sandra Woolf

Best and Worst Fathers of Star Trek

Star Trek, like the two earliest Enterprises (the USS and the NX-01), began with a narrow focus on an elite crew of scientists and military men.  These ships were more similar to a modern military vessel, spartan and only consisting of active duty officers.  Yet as time went on, as the United Federation of Planets and its exploratory arm, Starfleet, continued to develop, the Enterprise broadened into a concurrent scientific ship and family home – and with this evolution, required to deal with the complications and dramas so inherent to any family home. 

One of the most complicated relationships throughout Star Trek, explored throughout centuries and across the galaxies, is that of  the legacies of fathers and their children.  From Sarek, struggling to understand the effects of Spock’s human emotions to Jake Sisko, searching to separate his identity from that of his father while isolated on a deep space Starfleet base.  Yet amongst the multitude of Starfleet officers with children, there are some particularly notable Starfleet officers, at both extreme ends of parenting.  Here we have not the best and worst Starfleet officers (indeed, one of the worst fathers on this list is arguably the best Starfleet officer of all time,) but a judgement as to their personal lives.  Who are the best and worst fathers in Starfleet?

Worst: James T. Kirk

Posted by Nick Beard