The Disco Mermaids (Robin M. - Jay A. - Eve P.)

No, it’s not a typo. This is our coda to The dePaola Code. One last hurrah for the series of posts that launched our blog into a slightly higher stratum of the blogosphere. A lot of ridiculously cool things have happened to us because of The dePaola Code, so we’re offering to rub some of that coolness off on you!

As you may have read, we met Tomie dePaola at the recent SCBWI National Conference. We came prepared with a printed booklet of The dePaola Code, presented it to him, and he loved it! End of story? No. We had a few more copies on our persons and nervously asked Mr. dePaola if he would be generous enough to sign them. We told him that some copies were for us while some were for...our readers! That’s right, we’re giving away two copies of The dePaola Code autographed by The Man himself. As a bonus, they were also signed by--not one--but all three Disco Mermaids.

We know!!!

Okay, so how do you get one of these extremely rare literary masterworks? There are two ways. One, write something that makes us laugh. Or two, draw something that makes us laugh.

FOR AUTHORS: Write the funniest Disco Mermaid joke and an autographed copy of The dePaola Code is yours! “Why did the Disco Mermaid cross the road?” We don’t know…tell us! “How many Disco Mermaids does it take to screw in a light bulb?” We give up! “Three Disco Mermaids walk into a bar…” Good. Keep going! You can e-mail us as many jokes as you want. To find our address, click View My Complete Profile beneath the kissy-kissy picture near the top right corner of our blog. We’ll post some of our favorite jokes before choosing a winner. And if you really want to brown-nose us, post about this contest on your blog. Since there are three of us, if we have a tie, your post will be the tiebreaker.

FOR ILLUSTRATORS: Design a Disco Mermaid logo and The dePaola Code is yours! A mermaid in a Saturday Night Fever pose? Great! Three mermaids in a conga line? Terrific (we especially like the way you put a goatee on one of the mermaids)! You can e-mail the logo to us, but the same tiebreaker rule applies here. So send us a link to your post and we’ll link to your blog.

How long does it take three Disco Mermaids to make a decision? Ooh...sounds like the beginning of a great joke! But don’t worry, we’ll give you ample warning to submit any last minute jokes or to finish your logos.

Good luck…and have fun!

• Three coffees from the hotel lobby...$18.
• One warm soda and a warm turkey sandwich (that was supposed to be cold)…$9.50 plus tax.
• A pink drink that the bartender in the lobby made up his own name for…$12 (now multiply that by five!).
• Four nights in the hotel, tax, parking, late night phone calls, late night room service, and any damage done to the room…still not sure about this one (Evie’s totaling up the bill from her credit card and I plan to secretly write her a check, without my husband’s knowledge, and never speak of this again).
• Speaking at Lisa Yee’s workshop on blogging…however much 15 sheets of paper cost that we scribbled on while driving down to the conference trying to figure out what in the heck to say!
• The look on oblivious Jay’s face when I told him that Arthur Levine stopped by the blogging workshop to check out what the Disco Mermaids had to say…aaaahhh, that’s right, say it with me…priceless.
• The look on MY face when I saw Jay soar into the sky in his saloon girl outfit, touch his toes while doing air-splits, and land on the dance floor to get “jiggy” with a girl…disgusted.

Today is a Red Letter date in the history of the Disco Mermaids

HolyCrapHolyCrapHolyCrap...Holy...CRAP!!!!

We just delivered our dePaola Code booklets to the man himself: Tomie dePaola. And he absolutely LOVED it. He hugged us. He kissed our cheeks! He told us he felt honored by all the work we put into it. And...HOLY CRAP!!!...he's going to put it up on his very own website!

Okay, we gotta go puke now...

Strega Nona, upon first glance, seems like a typical tale about greed. But this is The dePaola Code...where nothing is as it seems. Strega owns a cooking pot that can make pasta appear out of thin air. She warns Big Anthony never to touch her pot, but does he listen? Noooooooo. And once Mr. Big gets the noodles going, he can’t figure out how to stop them. The town is soon engulfed by noodles (which might not sound that bad, but everyone in this town is watching their carbs).

So what metaphor has Mr. dePaola hidden within his most cherished picturebook? We call it: Strega Nona’s Overpopulation Prophecy.

Three animals play key roles in this story. A rabbit, a peacock, and a goat. And there’s only one scene where all three animals meet with Strega, Anthony, and the pot. Which means this scene overflows with Code material.

As Strega warns Anthony about touching her pot, standing behind Tony are the rabbit and the peacock--common symbols of fertility. Throughout the rest of the book, as the pot continues to produce pasta, the rabbit and peacock appear.

Sitting between Strega and Anthony, as a sort of buffer between the two, is a goat--a popular symbol for the devil. The devil, of course, is the source of Anthony’s disobedience and greed (for a list of six additional deadly sins, look them up yourself…we’re too lazy). But unlike the fertile peacock and the fuzzy widdle wabbit, once Anthony disobeys, the goat is never seen again. Why? Because his job is done.

Okay, so we have two symbols of fertility (because you might overlook just one) and a symbol for the devil. Stop! We know what you’re thinking. The overpopulation metaphor only works if the pot producing the pasta is a symbol for the human race. Good! You’re catching on. Strega refers to her cooking container as a “pot of clay.” And what does the Bible use as a metaphor for humans? Right. Jars of clay! So a big jar (the pot) represents all of us. And Strega’s chant which stops the overproduction of noodles can likewise be seen as instructions to control our own overpopulation. “So simmer down my pot of clay.”

In the end, what advice does Tomie appear to offer to help us stabilize the world’s population? It’s rather simple. “Keep your noodles under control!”

We matched the release of our first dePaola Code to the theatrical release of The DaVinci Code. But instead of starting with Leo's Mona, we start with Tomie's Nana. Both of them!

Nana Upstairs & Nana Downstairs.

Tomie points us toward this particular code through his website, Tomie.com. Of all his books, Mr. dePaola says that this is his favorite. So we can assume it also offers the most important code.

Ask yourself, Who is missing amid Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs? Answer: Nana in the Middle, of course. Rearrange those letters to reveal our first clue. Amend Ninth Ideal. And what is the ninth commandment we should ideally follow? Thou shalt not lie. But what if we can't stop lying? Good question! Read on...

Delete all the repeated words in Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs, thereby tightening the sentence...a key rule in writing for children (one Tomie would not break unless it was intentional!). We are left with Nana Upstairs and Down. Rearrange those letters for our second clue. Satan Unwinds Pandora. Spooky? We know. But what happens when Pandora is fully unwound? Good question! Read on...

Look closer at the only other words on the book's cover: the author/illustrator's name. By long-ago altering the spelling of his name, Mr. deP. thrusts attention upon it (and Tomie is a master wordsmith!). If we spell Tomie the traditional way--Tommy--and rearrange the letters in Tommy dePaola, we learn our third clue...and our destiny...which is best understood in light of all we have learned so far.

1. Amend Ninth Ideal (play loose with the truth)

2. Satan Unwinds Pandora (and all Hell breaks loose)

3. Playmate: Doom (so stop lying!!!)

Did we learn a simple truth today? Yes. But who holds the key to our future? Who holds the hope for our world? The children, of course. And there is no better way to teach children the importance of telling the truth than with a good story...told by a great storyteller.

Thank you, Tomie.

The world thanks you!

Only a few more days till we begin cracking the codes buried within some of the most beloved books for children.

The daVinci Code? What’s that?

Next week, we'll crack the code on the most baffling mystery in the history of children’s literature.

It’ll make the entire publishing world say, “Dan Brown? Who’s that?”