Erin Bowman Takes the Dare!

This fabulous dare came in from Andrea, one of our readers, and it sounded like too much fun to pass up:

Write a short Dr. Seuss-inspired poem version of your book and post it on the blog.

I absolutely adored Dr. Seuss as a child. These stories were some of the first read to me, and the first I was able to read on my own. (Did you know Green Eggs and Ham has just fifty words, only one of which is more than one syllable?) And even with such a simplistic vocabulary, these books were drilling some very important lessons into my little head.

If Dr. Seuss books were titled according to their subtexts, via Buzzfeed

Ahem. Moving on to my dare...

I spent a little time browsing through a bunch of Dr. Seuss books, and finally settled on the one I thought I could rework to represent my debut novel, Taken.

So now, here is my Dr. Seuess-esque poem for Taken, inspired by Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!

Your birthday’s come.
Your birthday’s now.
You’ll go, go, go!
We’re not certain how. 

You will go by Heist.
You will go, ciao!
Gray Weathersby, you’ll be going now. 

You can try to fight it.
You can kick and scream.
But it’s still coming for you.
So don’t struggle,
Please! 

We don’t care.
You can’t escape that light.
You can’t escape that light even if you like.
If you try to run, it will still find you.
Just go, go, go.
Accept it, please do. 

Gray Weathersby, I don’t know how.
Gray Weathersby, you’ll be going now. 

You will go in a flash.
You will go in a blink.
You will go in a burst of light, I think.
If you wish not to, alas you’re stuck
Your birthday’s here, you’re out of luck. 

Don’t run away,
Please, Gray,
You’ll be going either way. 

Gray Weathersby
We don’t know how.
Gray Weathersby
You’ll be going now! 

We said go and go we meant.
The time had come.
So Gray…went.

Yeah, I might have had a little too much fun doing this. Another Thirteener will be up next week to answer a new truth or dare, but until then, you can always get your book-nerd fix on our Thirteeners tumblr.

Thanks again for the fun dare, Andrea!

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Erin Bowman is a YA writer, letterpress lover, and Harry Potter enthusiast living in New Hampshire. Her debut novel, TAKEN is now available from HarperTeen, and FROZEN releases 4/15/14. You can visit her blog (updated occasionally) or find her on twitter (updated obsessively).