The illustration from Snow White is by Catherine Cameron.
“The great archetypal stories provide a framework or model for an individual's belief system. They are, in Isak Dinesen's marvelous expression, 'a serious statement of our existence.' The stories and tales handed down to us from the cultures that preceded us were the most serious, succinct expressions of the accumulated wisdom of those cultures. They were created in a symbolic, metaphoric story language and then honed by centuries of tongue-polishing to a crystalline perfection....
"And if we deny our children their cultural, historic heritage, their birthright to these stories, what then? Instead of creating men and women who have a grasp of literary allusion and symbolic language, and a metaphorical tool for dealing with the problems of life, we will be forming stunted boys and girls who speak only a barren language, a language that accurately reflects their equally barren minds. Language helps develop life as surely as it reflects life. It is the most important part of the human condition.”
― Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood
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Evil, Innocence, and Snow White
This dark tale of a powerful ruling family begins with three drops of blood in the snow and ends with a tortuous dance of death. The origins of this story are lost in time. It has traveled through cultures with many variations, many forms, but the core remains intact: an evil queen, consumed with fear and jealousy, is relentless in her efforts to destroy innocence and beauty, embodied in the form of her step daughter, Snow White.
Illustration by Franz Jutner Schneewitchen
Beyond the Walls of the Castle
I could imagine this tale being popular for centuries as it was told and retold throughout Europe where ruthless rulers were commonplace, and many tales evolved of cruel behavior within castle walls. I was surprised to learn that Snow White is an international phenomenon, having circulated from Africa to Asia Minor and from Europe to the Americas.
I learned of this in a fascinating article by Harriet Goldberg in The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales that also delineates a multitude of variations that have appeared. For example: "In the Grimms' version, the Queen stepmother has a magic mirror that she consults to verify who is fairest in the land. . . Elsewhere the stepmother consults an omniscient trout in a well, the sun or the moon: she overhears by remarking on the stepdaughter's beauty. a visiting nobleman prefers her daughter; guests declare the girl more beautiful than she. . ."
Illustration by Arthur Rackham
Mirror, Mirror
"Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who's the fairest of them all?"
The mirror replied.
"My Queen, you may be the fairest here,
But Snow White is a thousand times more fair."
"'Snow White' may vary tremendously from culture to culture in its detail, but it has an easily identifiable, stable core in the conflict between mother and daughter." Maria Tatar, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales.
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The celebrated Disney film of Snow White (1937) is quite wonderful. Here is a link to the exceptional scene wherein the Evil Queen transforms her self into a witch.
The 2012 version, Snow White and the Huntsman, was considered a mishmash except for visuals and computer graphics. Here is a cheeky review by Emily Asher-Perrin: TOR Snow White and the Huntsman; Here is a link to the trailer: Snow White and the Huntsman
Illustration by Disney Studios
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"How very many people struggle, how very difficult some of their struggles are, how little control we ultimately have, how much uncertainty and apprehension we live with, even if we bury them deep." -- Frank Bruni NYTimes
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Edith Nesbit -- "Riding the Wave of The Future"
Edith Nesbit (1858-1924) was a gifted writer, who lived a stormy, complex life. A political activist, she lived in England during turbulent times. Traditional life was in an ongoing state of change. The industrial revolution was widespread and led to large population shifts, great wealth and great poverty. The Empire was widespread, always in flux, and employed a vast network of people (including the army and navy). Class consciousness prevailed and World War I was devastating.
Nesbitt wrote more than 60 children's books. Among them: The Railway Children, The Revolt of the Toys, and The Story of the Treasure Seekers.
The painting of Princess Dock, Hull is by John Atkinson Grimshaw.
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Edith Nesbit's Turning Point Books for Children
"Victorian literary fairy tales tend to have a conservative moral and political bias. Under their charm and invention is usually an improving lesson: adults know best; good, obedient, patient, and self-effacing little boys and girls are rewarded by the fairies, and naughty assertive ones are punished. In the most widely read authors of the period. . . the usual tone is that of a kind lady or gentleman delivering a delightfully disguised sermon.
In the final years of Victoria’s reign, however, a writer appeared who was to challenge this pattern so energetically and with such success that it makes sense now to speak of juvenile literature as before and after E. Nesbit. Though there are foreshadowings of her characteristic manner in Charles Dickens’s Holiday Romance and Kenneth Grahame’s The Golden Age, Nesbit was the first to write at length for children as intellectual equals and in their own language. Her books were startlingly innovative in other ways: they took place in contemporary England, and recommended socialist solutions to its problems; they presented a modern view of childhood; and they used magic both as a comic device and as a serious metaphor for the power of the imagination. Every writer of children’s fantasy since Nesbit’s time is indebted to her—and so are some authors of adult fiction. . ."
Alison Lurie
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An Excerpt from The Story of the Treasure Seekers
"We stayed about half an hour, and when we were going away he said again—
‘I shall print all your poems, my poet; and now what do you think they’re worth?’
‘I don’t know,’ Noel said. ‘You see I didn’t write them to sell.’
‘Why did you write them then?’ he asked.
Noel said he didn’t know; he supposed because he wanted to.
‘Art for Art’s sake, eh?’ said the Editor, and he seemed quite delighted, as though Noel had said something clever.
‘Well, would a guinea meet your views?’ he asked.
I have read of people being at a loss for words, and dumb with emotion, and I’ve read of people being turned to stone with astonishment, or joy, or something, but I never knew how silly it looked till I saw Noel standing staring at the Editor with his mouth open. He went red and he went white, and then he got crimson, as if you were rubbing more and more crimson lake on a palette. But he didn’t say a word, so Oswald had to say—
‘I should jolly well think so.’"
The photo is of Edith Nesbit.
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Breaking the Barriers
. . ."One especially radical feature of Nesbit’s tales is her implicit feminism. Her full-length books are full of girls who are as brave and adventurous as their brothers; and even in her more conventional short fairy tales, the heroines never sit around waiting to be rescued. . .In the Victorian fairy tale, class lines tend to be sharply drawn, and the superiority of the upper-class child taken for granted. Carroll’s Alice is glad that she doesn’t have to live in a poky little house like Mabel. . . Though the main characters in Nesbit’s books are usually middle-class, some of her most sympathetic heroes and heroines, such as Mabel in The Enchanted Castle and Dick in Harding’s Luck, come from a lower stratum of society (Dick from the worst slums of East London). Yet they are often more intelligent, imaginative, and courageous than anyone else in the story. This is also true of her short fairy tales. . ."
The illustration from the Story of The Treasure Seekers is by Gordon Browne.
Alison Lurie
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The information above is edited from an excellent article, Riding The Wave of the Future, by Alison Lurie in the New York Review of Books.
Alison Lurie is a highly regarded and pioneering scholar of children's literature, prize winning author, and professor emeritus at Cornell University.
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J.K. Rowling Recalls Edith Nesbit as a Favorite Author
" 'She's the children's writer with whom I most identify. She said, By some lucky chance, I remember exactly how I felt and thought at 11. That struck a chord with me. The Story of the Treasure Seekers was a breakthrough children's book. Oswald (a boy character in the story from the Bastable family) is such a very real narrator, at a time when most people were writing morality plays for children."
The illustration by H.R. Millar is from Nesbit's The Magic City.
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The Wouldbegoods
"Now my favorite Bastables book is The Wouldbegoods, which is the name of a good-deeds society that the Bastable children create. I love how E. Nesbit turns the moralizing children's novel inside out. In most moral children's stories from the Victorian and Edwardian periods, the children learn to be good. Or, they learn to be good and then they die. But I love the way the Bastables, while trying to copy these fictional children, end up destroying property, setting farm animals loose, draining a canal, and burning down a bridge. And they never learn their lesson."
Excerpted from the Bamboo Bookcase
The book cover illustration for The Wouldbegoods is by Cecil Leslie.
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Movies
Briefs on 3 current films for young audiences . . .
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Toy Story 4
Excerpt from a review by Manohla Dargis.in the NY Times
"Much of “Toy Story 4” is great-ish. The animation is striking, the jokes amusing and the story sweet, though this being Pixar, the tale is also melancholic enough that the whole thing feels deeper than it is. In other words, the movie is exactly what you expect — not more, not less — from an estimably well-oiled machine like Pixar."
Preview: Toy Story Trailer
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The Secret Life of Pets 2
Here is an excerpt from the review of The Secret Life of Pets 2 by Bilge Ebiri in the NYTimes.
- Too scattered narratively to cohere, and yet somehow still funny enough to justify its existence. . . any cat owner who’s had their pet walk all over their laptop keyboard before knocking over a coffee mug will chuckle in recognition. The movie is a time-waster, but (mostly) in a good way.
Here is a link to the trailer: Secret Life Of Pets 2
Wigger
An unfortunate characteristic of the book business is that wonderful books are often overlooked or lost in the great whirl of competition and marketing. This includes children's books. Rikva Gaichen is an esteemed journalist, prize winning novelist, and mother of a five year old little girl. She discovered a forgotten treasure of a children's book and she wrote a fascinating article about it for the New Yorker: William Goldman’s Strange, Sad, Captivating Children’s Book About a Girl and Her Blanket. Here is an excerpt that occurs after the central character, a little girl named Susanna, has lost her family:
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Raffy Calfy's Story
Who Chains You Books is releasing the third book in their Animal Protector series on July 15.
Raffy Calfy's Rescue is a story about rodeo animals, authored by Tamira Ci Thayne and illustrated by C.A. Wulff.
Each Animal Protector book teaches children about an animal welfare issue.
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Every Politician and NRA Member Should Watch This Chilling Documentary
This memorable video of 4:42 features a first responder, a doctor.
The NRA successfully fights changes in gun laws.
Here is the link:Columbine
Photo credit NY Daily News
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Planet Of The Dogs
This excerpt takes place just as the Stone City Warriors, under the leadership of Bik, are about to emerge from the Dark Woods and invade Green Valley. . .
“What’s going on here?” demanded Bik. At that moment huge, ancient tall trees crashed to the ground with a thunderous noise, blocking the road just ahead.
Howling, barking, and growling sounds filled the air as dogs rushed from hiding places and ran toward the warriors and their horses. More huge trees crashed down, warriors were thrown to the ground, and dogs were running and jumping everywhere. Riders were crashing into each other as they tried to control their frightened horses and retreat to a safe area.
Bik shouted to Ivan, “Take charge here. I must see to the safety of my children.” With great skill, he turned his horse to search for Nik and Nikki, who were further back, riding in a horse drawn cart. As he struggled to go back up the road through the confusion of riders, supply wagons, and barking, growling, running dogs, Bik’s anger turned to fear. Not for himself, but for his children.
We have free reader copies of all the books in the Planet Of The Dogs series for therapy dog organizations, individual therapy dog owners, librarians, teachers and independent bookstores. . . email us with a postal address at [email protected] and we will send you the books.
To read sample chapters or to read reviews of any book in the series, visit PlanetOfTheDogs
The Planet Of The Dogs series (including Castle In The Mist and Snow Valley Heroes, A Christmas Tale) is available from many Internet sources and through independent bookstores of all sizes.
The illustration from Planet of the Dogs is by Stella Mustanoja McCarty.
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"To his dog, every man is Napoleon, hence the constant popularity of dogs."
Aldous Huxley
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