Notions of play challenged

Playtime has always been fun, but it’s upgraded to being productive when UTD alumna Shelby Cunningham took on a project with her 4 year old sister, Irene Sheerin.

The sisters combined their different ways of thinking to create a children’s book, “Rooster, Rabbit and Bunny” for the project room in the gallery Cunningham is a member of, 500 x.

“To use the project room you have to have collaboration, “Cunningham said. “I didn’t want to collaborate with anyone I knew at the moment, so I picked my four year old sister.”

The age difference between Cunningham and Sheerin is a big one, 24 years, but that doesn’t stop them from being close, Cunningham said.

Work on the book began in October 2009. Cunningham said they started the process with story ideas originating from puppet shows the sisters would put on, and each puppet show turned into a different idea for the book.

“It was so random,” Cunningham said.

Cunningham recorded the puppet shows and pulled from the videos characters and ideas that would be used in the book. After they were done with puppet shows, the sisters spent time drawing characters.

In December 2009 Cunningham began to put all the pieces of the book together, which turned out to be different than the average children’s book.

Characters in the book, Bunny, Rooster and Rabbit kick off the story traditionally, having adventures and playing. The story continued in the same fashion with the addition of the character, Horse.

The animals continued to play and have fun until one day, Shark decides to join in with more than playing on his mind. The other animals try to run away, but Shark moves a little faster, allowing him to eat Bunny and Rabbit.

This is when things start to get interesting. Rooster gets so mad at Shark that he grows ten times his normal size and then eats Shark. Afterward he simply returns home to see his mom.

“She doesn’t necessarily mean it in a dark way, that’s just what she came up with,” Cunningham said.

Some people who have seen the book have asked if there could be a sequel in which Bunny and Rabbit come back from the dead, or are still alive in Rooster’s stomach, Cunningham recalled.

Once the book was complete Cunningham used lulu.com to publish the book, and had it displayed the finished product at 500x.

Cunningham said working with her sister was nice, because it was a lot like playtime.

“Sometimes you get really serious, it forced me to slow down and play with stuff,” Cunningham said.

Sheerin said her favorite character was Horse and wants to continue working with her big sister. Another book might be in the works by the duo in a couple of months, Cunningham said.