While some critics enjoyed the story, Weetzie Bat stirred up some controversy, too, particularly among librarians. It was praised as an "off-beat tale that has great charm, poignancy, and touches of fantasy," by Anne Osborn in School Library Journal. A modern fairy tale, Weetzie Bat is written in a mixture of L.A. When a baby named Cherokee is born, everyone adopts it as an extended family, and Witch Baby, child of My Secret Agent Lover Man, also joins the family. Soon Dirk finds love with a surfer named Duck, while Weetzie meets My Secret Agent Lover Man. Weetzie Bat tells the story of Weetzie and her gay friend Dirk-the only person who seems to understand her-who set up house together in a modest home in Los Angeles. In 1989 a friend at the gallery where she worked read the manuscript of Weetzie Bat, was impressed, and sent it off to editor Charlotte Zolotow at HarperCollins, which published the book. After graduation, she returned to Los Angeles, worked in an art gallery, and wrote two novels and several short stories.
While Block was studying at the University of California, her father passed away, which was difficult for her to deal with. A name later attached itself to this character when Block saw a pink Ford Pinto on the freeway with a driver who looked like that hitchhiker the license plate of the car was "WEETZIE." Block began making up stories about Weetzie and drew her innumerable times long before casting the character in her first novel. It was in Hollywood that Block first saw the prototype of Weetzie: a hitchhiker with "spiky bleached hair, a very pink '50s prom dress and cowboy boots," as she later described her.
"It was an incredibly rich upbringing."Īs a teen in the late 1970s, Block and her friends often went to Hollywood after school, where they hung out at Schwab's soda fountain, drove up and down Sunset Strip, or went to the Farmer's Market, another popular teen hangout. "My father used to tell me bits of the Odyssey for my nighttime story," she recalled. Rabbit and the Lovely Present, Randall Jarrell's Animal Family, and Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, Block was also greatly influenced by Greek mythology and legend. It feels like I was always able to read." In addition to traditional childhood favorites such as Charlotte Zolotow's Mr. As Block recalled, "There were trips to the library for books and there were books all around our home. Born in Hollywood, California, Block was raised by parents who were both artists: her father was a painter and teacher and one-time special-effects technician and screenwriter for Hollywood and her mother is a writer.
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