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“They f**k you up, your mum and dad.  

They may not mean to, but they do…”

Philip Larkin’s "This Be The Verse" gets straight to the point. Parents, no matter how hard they try, are only human and mess up sometimes when it comes to raising children. But Larkin’s pithy poem isn’t just about laying blame, but understanding. Parents aren’t perfect, and Forgive Mom and Dad Day encourages kids to see the ones who raised them not just as parents, but as people.

So this March, which literary parents might deserve a little forgiveness? Are these moms and dads actually sympathetic people, struggling to do their best and failing despite good intentions? Or perhaps, have these book-based parents gone so fictionally far that there’s just no forgiveness possible?

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

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There are a ton of great characters out there in the literary and popular culture world. Some of them have become so iconic that they are almost a part of the social zeitgeist. There are so few people who don’t know Holden Caulfield or Victor Frankenstein, those characters who just steal the show, but what about the side characters? The ones who hold up a story like scaffolding but are often overlooked? Well, Disney and Marvel have seen fit to give a pair of those characters, Sam Wilson a.k.a. The Falcon and James Buchanan “Bucky” Barns a.k.a. The Winter Soldier their own spin-off tv show. To celebrate the release of Falcon and The Winter Soldier on Disney+, we at Quirk wanted to take a look at some other pairs who could use their own spin-offs.

[Photo by cottonbro from Pexels]

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It’s National Promposal Day today and while prom is looking a little different this year (okay, a lot different) there’s still room to get creative and flex your promposal skills. In honor of this fun and festive day, we’re reading some of our favorite prom-centric young adult novels. Let’s dance!

[Photo by Louis from Pexels]

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We’re big fans of Oscar Isaac over here at Quirk HQ, so it’s only fitting that we celebrate him in the most joyful way we know how: by dream casting him in all of our favorite books. We already know that he’s a literary darling; just look at his work in Robin Hood, Annihilation, and the upcoming Dune adaptation. But what would an Oscar Isaac romcom be like? Or a horror movie? Grab a book and dive on in!

[Photo by Elina Krima from Pexels]

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Netflix is really hitting it out of the park with adaptations of young adult novels these days, and it looks like Moxie is no exception. We’re thrilled that Jennifer Mathieu’s incredible book is getting so much attention, and we’re so excited that Amy Poehler is involved! Because zine culture is at the core of Moxie, we wanted to play around with some of our favorite young adult novels – and imagine what they might look like as zines.   

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels

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Here at Quirk we’re pretty passionate about the oldies, whether they be pop culture favorites or canon works of the literary world. That’s why we have series like the Pop Classics (adorably illustrated picture books of cult films and TV series like The Karate Kid and Elf), the Quirk Classics (horror takes on literary masterpieces like the New York Times bestseller Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), and Ian Doescher’s Shakespearean takes on Back to the Future, Mean Girls, Clueless, and Star Wars.

There’s something appealing with revisiting what writers and audiences have known to be compelling, but doing so through a new lens that revitalizes one’s love for the original. That’s why for National Old Stuff Day, we’re looking at some of the literary classics and their modern day retellings.