Kung Fu High School

I'm a little more than halfway through a great book called Kung Fu High School. Yes, that's the actual title. I tell you, if the rights to this book are or ever become available I would love to own them. The title alone would be all the pitch I need to sell it. The author's name is Ryan Gattis and, according to his acknowledgements, owes much of his inspiration to another of my favorite young adult authors of all time. Robert Cormier, who wrote, among many other books, The Chocolate War and it's sequel, Beyond The Chocolate War. If you've never heard of him or his books I highly recommend checking him out. It may sound silly but it's not. It's a great story about heirarchies in high school and those that fall savagely victim, (much like Kung Fu High School).

I don't know, with the passing of John Hughes I've been feeling the need to explore a lot of these kinds of stories. They're good for people of all ages because even if you're not in high school, you probably were at one time, or will be. I wrote a screenplay called Those Years that touches a lot on the theme of getting out from under the shadow of high school. It's the second script I ever wrote and it really helped me a lot to write it. It did okay in a couple of competitions but I always felt it could be truly great. I plan to get back to it soon, as a matter of fact. You can check out the logline and brief synopsis over at my site: http://www.squidoo.com/peripheral, and while you're at it, feel free to let me know what kinds of stories you like to wallow in.

D.A.