The Wee Adventures of Shabu Shabu

Saturday, 7 September 2013 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Cassandra Mascarenhas From being an English teacher’s pet rabbit in Taiwan, Shabu Shabu has come a long way in every sense in the space of eight years, immortalised in her very own children’s adventure series comprising of eight books, dominating the interwebs and mobile platforms, and loved by young fans all across the world – every inch the young, adventurous and innovative character that she is portrayed to be by her creators. Co-authored by Kristina Thornton and Michael Joseph Csokas, ‘The Wee Adventures of Shabu Shabu’ narrates the tale of a young rabbit’s excursions across the world and is brought to life by Csokas’s beautiful illustrations. Shabu Shabu, the granddaughter and protégé of a famous inventor, spends her childhood tinkering in the lab and dreaming of joining her grandfather on his adventures, and then stumbles upon the chance to do so. The first book in the series, ‘The Jade Legend,’ has already been released and was officially launched in Sri Lanka at Barefoot last week by co-author Kristina Thornton who was in the country for a couple of weeks along with Business Development Director Ola Olaniyi to promote the character and meet her young fans in person, through a series of activities that were held in Colombo and its suburbs. What makes the adventure series truly unique is the fact that it has quickly evolved beyond print publication, entertaining kids and inspiring innovation and intellectual curiosity in them by being available on a series of platforms, allowing young readers to interact with the character in novel ways. Currently, the first book is offered via the Apple App Store and on the Android platform. It functions as an interactive application for touch screen devices with stunning illustrations, interactive animations and mini-games. Additionally, an e-book version can also be purchased on Shabu Shabu’s official webpage and popular online retail stores such as Amazon. Pet rabbit “This is a story that came about eight years ago when I was living in Taiwan. I had a pet rabbit and her name became Shabu Shabu,” explained Kristina Thornton during a brief chat in between the various activities and workshops she attended in Colombo. “I was teaching eight and nine-year-old children at the time and when you work with kids, they need to be pulled in a bit – they need a warm-up – so I started telling them stories about my rabbit and I just made them up,” she said laughing. “They worked really well. I would tell them that while I was teaching them, my rabbit was going out and having adventures.” Her co-worker at the time, Michael Csokas, had been a children’s book illustrator in the past and was on a hiatus, teaching English along with Kristina. It was in fact his idea to compile a children’s book and Kristina in turn was elated to have someone so talented work on a story with her. “He started doing illustrations right away and helped develop the stories. From that point on, it was a complete joint effort and we are co-authors. We developed the story together, worked on the characters for years and finally, about one and a half years ago, we finalised Shabu Shabu, her character and her eight adventures that are the main parts of the story.” Constant innovation Ola Olaniyi joined them around this time, initially coming in to see how the story could be extended beyond the print book. Neither a writer nor an illustrator, Ola’s task is to push boundaries and introduce the story to fans via additional platforms. “It’s a really good set of stories and a very attractive character, not just from an appearance perspective but personality-wise creative and adaptable, and I was quite motivated by that and it was a matter of taking that and seeing what else we could do with it,” he explained. Ola added that the eight stories will be the key focus over the next few years but beyond that, they now see that there’s a lot more that can be done with the story. Shabu Shabu merchandise is already available – journals, gift sets and t-shirts. “We didn’t even think that we were ready for merchandise at the time but when we launched in Singapore, we thought it would be cool if those of us involved and our friends showed up in a Shabu t-shirt so we made a limited amount at the time and it was sold out in days. That was very encouraging and now we have t-shirts as well.” The Shabu team is also looking at the possibility of launching some games based on the character and books further down the line. They have also been approached by a production company with the potential of doing an animated series based on Shabu. Educational materials maybe on the cards as well as yet another company that has taken a shine to the character are interested in marketing Shabu to teach science to kids. Adapting to mobile The team observed that both in Sri Lanka and beyond, there has been an increase in the penetration of tablets and along with that, the adoption of e-reader platforms, shifts from traditional print to more electronic media in terms of reading. “For a team like ours, that’s very exciting because now, we can do something really cool, things that are relatively new to the market and what not everyone is doing yet, especially if you take our app for example, its interactive component – you’re reading the book, you’re part of the story, there’s sounds in the background and for younger kids, you can have the app read back to you,” Ola noted. “It’s also provided a global platform for us. In the past, it would have taken years for us to go global but here, from day one, we’re available pretty much everywhere.” Kristina added: “It’s also very much in keeping with the spirit of Shabu Shabu herself because as a character, she’s very innovative, she’s a scientist, an inventor and so of course, if we have the opportunity to do that in real life, having an interactive element to the story is still quite innovative.” A dream come true Kristina described the entire journey as a dream come true. While she didn’t intend on going into writing fulltime, she always foresaw Shabu Shabu been taken further. “From when the character first came into being, from when it went from being my actual pet to this character with Michael’s help, it was a gut feeling I had that we could do so much with this character. To see it actualised now as a book, at that moment when you have the first book handed to you, it’s just incredible – there’s no possible way to describe how good it feels to see something happen that was meant to be.” “To see kids’ reactions even now in a place like Sri Lanka – she’s such an international rabbit! She’s really going around the world just like she does in her books. I could say it’s a dream come true, that’s applicable to the character herself, and it’s also a very humbling experience to be a part of something that’s becoming quite big so I’m quite honoured.”