Stellaluna



Stellaluna is a female fruit bat who separated from her mother as an infant by an owl attack. After a long fall, she lands in a bird's nest. The mother bird reluctantly takes Stellaluna under her wing on the condition that Stellaluna eats bugs and acts like a proper bird. This is in order to keep her from being a bad influence on the mother bird's actual offspring. When Stellaluna grows up, she begins to notice the differences between herself and her adoptive siblings and realises that she is a fruit bat. The book ends on the note that even though their adoptive family may be outwardly different, they're family, regardless, and still very much the same at heart.

Stellaluna is a short children's book published by author/illustrator Janell Cannon in 1993. It was made into an animated straight-to-DVD adaptation with a mixed critical response, as well as a Living Books interactive CD-ROM and a puppet show in Oregon.


 * An Aesop: The message of the book can be boiled down to: you should be true to yourself and your family will love you anyway. Or alternatively: Adoptive families can be just as loving as biological ones because deep down, people have more in common than they think.
 * Animal Talk
 * Bat Out of Hell: Thoroughly averted. The protagonist is a cute fruit bat struggling to fit in.
 * Black Sheep: Considering the fact that Stellaluna is a fruitbat in a family of songbirds, it would be nearly impossible for her to not be a Black Sheep.
 * Cool Big Sis: Stellaluna's siblings treat her as a cool big sister that they'd like to emulate. When Mama Bird catches them all dangling from the nest by their feet she is not happy.
 * Cute Clumsy Girl: Stellaluna's inability to land on branches like her siblings makes her come off as one of these.
 * Foreign Queasine: Naturally, the prospect of eating bugs doesn't appeal to a frugivore.
 * Good Parents: When Stellaluna is reunited with her biological mother she's happy to finally have someone who understands and knows how to care for fruit bats.
 * Happily Adopted: Stellaluna may not have the best relationship with her adoptive mother, but she truly does love and care for her siblings, and they for her.
 * Not So Different
 * Owl Be Damned: An owl attack was the reason why Stellaluna was separated from her birth mother in the first place.
 * I Just Want to Be Normal: Initially Stellaluna wishes that she could be more like her other siblings. She can't land or perch on branches like they can, and she doesn't like the same food or want to sleep the same hours or even in the proper position.
 * Meaningful Name: Stellaluna - Star Moon.
 * Meddling Parents: A lot of the tension between Stellaluna and her adoptive mother stem from the fact that Mother Bird wants Stellaluna to be more like a bird.
 * Oblivious Adoption: After a while Stellaluna seems to forget that she's a fruit bat and appears to be genuinely surprised that fruits are delicious and that she can see in the dark.
 * Shown Their Work: While admittedly it was a rather short book, Janell Cannon managed to portray fruit bats rather accurately and never once fell victim to common stereotypes and misconceptions about bats.
 * Super Senses: Stellaluna's siblings can hardly see anything at night and they don't have much of a sense of smell. Compared to them, Stellaluna practically has Super Senses.
 * The Unfavourite: Stellaluna.

The DVD adaptation provides examples of:

 * Animated Adaptation
 * Direct to Video
 * Disneyfication
 * Hakuna Matata: "Make It Over".
 * "I Want" Song: "(My Whole World's Turned) Upside Down".