The photo is by Elena Shumilova.
Young Readers
"Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth. They accept, almost without question, anything you present them with, as long as it is presented honestly, fearlessly, and clearly. I handed them, against the advice of experts, a mouse-boy, and they accepted it without a quiver. In Charlotte’s Web, I gave them a literate spider, and they took that."
E.B. White -- From a 1969 Paris Review Interview excerpted by Maria Popova on her Brain Pickings website.
The book cover illustration for Charlotte's Web is by Garth Williams.
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Precious Days
“These autumn days will shorten and grow cold. The leaves will shake loose from the trees and fall. Christmas will come, then the snows of winter. You will live to enjoy the beauty of the frozen world, for you mean a great deal to Zuckerman and he will not harm you, ever. Winter will pass, the days will lengthen, the ice will melt in the pasture pond. The song sparrow will return and sing, the frogs will awake, the warm wind will blow again. All these sights and sounds and smells will be yours to enjoy, Wilbur — this lovely world, these precious days…” -- E.B. White, Charlotte's Web
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Wonder Tales
Fantasy lives in the imagination. Fantasy is not limited by time or place. It is limited only by the mind of the individual, young or old.. Fantasy opens the mind to possibilities, to discovery, to hope.
Wonder tales are a home for fantasy. Tales have been told by adults for many centuries. Now we have tales in writing. Told, retold, and reimagined; many tales have endured. Like every day life, wonder tales have turning points, transit points. Once through the transit point, there is the challenge.
Both the transit point -- a door, a rabbit hole, a forest -- and the challenges that follow have many forms. Whatever the form of the challenge, difficulties and dangers must be overcome. The rewards of surviving the challenge range from survival to status and riches. Wonder tales usually provide hope, like light in the darkness,
The illustration from Andersen's Snow Queen is by Ukranian artist Vladislav Erko.
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Hans Christian Andersen -- The Outsider As Pioneer
Despite his talent and success, Hans Christian Andersen was always something of an outsider in the hierarchial Danish culture. He lived in a turbulent era of Danish and European history. His childhood was difficult and painful. His extraordinary imagination created a wide range of stories, many with mixed messages about hope, and often flavored with melancholy.
The Ugly Duckling is a tale of hope; The Little Mermaid is a sad tale; and The Little Match Girl is a very sad tale. He was an original, and, as Maria Tatar notes below, Andersen was also a children's literature pioneer.
Andersen's birthday is April 2; this is also International Children's Book Day.
The illustration of The Little Mermaid is by Edmund Dulac
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Speaking Truth
“More effectively than any of the other tales, 'The Emperor's New Clothes' established Andersen's reputation as a man who created stories for children — not just in the sense of target audience, but also as beneficiaries of something extraordinary. The lesson embedded in it is so transparent that its title circulates in the form of proverbial wisdom about social hypocrisy. But more importantly, 'The Emperor's New Clothes' romanticizes children by investing them with the courage to challenge authority and to speak truth to power.”
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"So off went the Emperor in procession under his splendid canopy. Everyone in the streets and the windows said, "Oh, how fine are the Emperor's new clothes! Don't they fit him to perfection? And see his long train!" Nobody would confess that he couldn't see anything, for that would prove him either unfit for his position, or a fool. No costume the Emperor had worn before was ever such a complete success.
"But he hasn't got anything on," a little child said.
"Did you ever hear such innocent prattle?" said its father. And one person whispered to another what the child had said, "He hasn't anything on. A child says he hasn't anything on."
"But he hasn't got anything on!" the whole town cried out at last.
The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he thought, "This procession has got to go on." So he walked more proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that wasn't there at all."
Here is a link to read the complete Emporer's New Clothes
The illustration is by Edmund Dulac.
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"There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children’s book.” -- Phillip Pullman
The illustration is from the 2007 film, The Golden Compass.
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"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."
Einstein quote. Image courtesy of BBC.
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Raising Silenced Christian Bärmann from the Dead
"Virtually, no one in Germany or the world knows anything about Christian Bärmann (1881-1924), who died at the young age of forty-three. His work and life have been kept silent. A short synopsis of his life reads like a fairy tale with an open ending. . . Bärmann’s work appears to have escaped the eyes of the scholars of children’s literature and fairy tales throughout the world. In other words, his tales have become silent, and he is not the only writer/illustrator for children who has been “silenced.” Recently, I have been translating and publishing books by other writers for children such as Édouard Laboylaye, Hermynia zur Mühlen, and Pytor Yershov, whose works have been buried. I am now working under the motto: unbury forgotten unique authors and illustrators of fairy tales before it is too late." Jack Zipes
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A Different Kind of Giant
The Giant Ohl and Tiny Tim by Christian Bärmann, newly translated by Jack Zipes, is a delightful tale. The giant wants to be among people, and help them, but fear of this huge man drives people away. Utimately, things begin to turn after he perfoms multiple tasks for the fearless young farmer, Tiny Tim. Here is an excerpt:
"After doing all this, he (the giant) sat down leisurely on a comfortable rooftop. As the roof cracked and crackled, he lit his pipe and pondered calmly how to explain his gift and why he had come to the town as a friend – to request work and a place to stay. Yet, he couldn’t do this just then because the entire town had become chaotic. Everyone howled and screamed. . . The husbands screamed. The children screamed. The entire city screamed. People and animals howled and bellowed. Ohl tolerated all this for a while, and he puffed such heavy clouds that the moon became dark. Finally, he himself could no longer stand the commotion and ran off, abandoning everything. Indeed, he left the town as fast as he could."
Amazon: The Giant Ohl and Tiny Tim
The Illustration of the Giant Ohl is by Christian Bärmann.
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the heart and mind of author C.A. (Ariel) Wulff, a dedicated pet loving woman who shares her experiences, concerns and deep emotions with the reader.
The setting is a cabin-home in a national park forest. The primary characters are several adopted dogs, and cats, and two compassionate women living in a world founded on the love of dogs. Living in this unique word ultimately gives Ms Wulff a new awareness and understanding of the experience of living.
The photo is of the author and Waldo, a key player in the book. Circling the Waggins is available from Amazon and Barnes&Noble.
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A father reading to his young daughter was motivated to rewrite Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, with new illustrations. Here is an excerpt from the Introduction:
"The princess in all these tales needed to be saved, and their most important characteristic was their beauty. . . He didn't want his daughter to grow up in this kind of world, so, while reading, he started changing little words here and there. All of a sudden, a beautiful princess became a brave one, and he saw the sparkle in his daughter's eyes!"
In this delightful modern retelling, the reader will find, among other changes that the dwarfs are both male and female, and come from around the world; the Queen's magic mirror shatters when the spell is broken; and, in the end, the Princess rides off, with the prince, to see the world. The text is by Stephan Kalinski and Iain Botterill, and the charming illustrations are by Claudia Piras.
The book can be puchased on the website: SnowWhiteRetold
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Movies
The Guardian Picks Family Movies for 2020
The Guardian has forecast family movies that have promise based on pre-release information. The list includes a brief write up for each film. Here are some of the films from their list: The Secret Garden, Dolittle, Soul (Pixar), Artemis Foul, and Sponge Bob On the Run. Also mentioned is Pixar's Onward -- see below. Here is a link to the article: FamilyMovies Credit for photo: lovemoney.com
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Animation -- Human Impact
Seoro Oh is a brilliant Korean animator with an open imagination. He created Human Impact for the 2019 Viborg Animation Festival. The Festival draws an international gathering of animators, including those working in science and games as well as entertainment. Denmark appears to be a leader in animation.
I find Human Impact to also be a delightful video for children. Here is a link to Human Impact (1:26)
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Onward
Here is an engaging 2019 trailer for Onward, an animated film from Pixar, opening in 2020.
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The Little Women Movie
"The rave reviews are pouring in, and to the universal acclaim I can add my own: this clever, spirited, witty adaptation is pure pleasure from start to finish. Furthermore, it serves as a timely reminder of just how feminist the original novel, published in two parts in 1868 and 1869, was. . . 'Women have minds and souls as well as hearts, ambition and talent as well as just beauty, and I’m sick of being told that love is all a woman is fit for,' Jo says in the film."
Excerpted fron an article/review by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett in the Guardian
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LitWorld founded World Read Aloud Day in 2010 as an opportunity for people all around the globe to celebrate the joy of reading aloud, and advocate for literacy as a fundamental human right that belongs to everyone. Over the last ten years, World Read Aloud Day has evolved into a global movement of millions of readers, writers, and listeners from communities all across the world coming together to honor the joy and power of reading and sharing stories, and continue expanding the definition and scope of global literacy. Link: LitWorld.
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Neil Gaiman's Current Refugee Project -- What You Need To Be Warm
Coming up with his latest work was “ridiculously difficult”, Neil Gaiman admits. Last month, the Good Omens and American Gods author, who is also an ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), asked his Twitter followers to tell him what reminded them of warmth. After receiving almost 1,000 responses – with Ben Stiller and Monica Lewinsky among those to contribute – Gaiman found himself with a 25,000-word document, from which he has composed his newest written work: a freeform poem to launch UNHCR’s Winter Emergency Appeal for refugees across the Middle East. Excerpted from an article by Allison Flood in the Guardian: Refugees.
The photo of the Yazidi refugees fleeing Isis is from Reuters via Time.Inc.
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What You Need to be Warm by Neil Gaiman (excerpts)
"A baked potato of a winter’s night to wrap your hands around or burn your mouth.
A blanket knitted by your mother’s cunning fingers. Or your grandmother’s.
A smile, a touch, trust, as you walk in from the snow
or return to it, the tips of your ears pricked pink and frozen.
The tink tink tink of iron radiators waking in an old house.
To surface from dreams in a bed, burrowed beneath blankets and comforters, the change of state from cold to warm is all that matters, and you think just one more minute snuggled here before you face the chill. Just one."
The photo is of an Iraq refugee camp.
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"My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.”―
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Fantasy Unlimited in Graphics -- Our Fractal Brains
Here is a fantasy journey of the imagination from the Netherlands, created by fractal artist Julius Horsthuis. In watching Our Fractal Brains (3:40) this viewer saw images that suggested the unlimited possibilities of computer graphics.The images were accompanied by music, Touching Land, by Patrick O'Hearn. Here is a link to Our Fractal Brains.
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NRA Represents Gun Makers not Gun Owners
A gun is fired on a school campus in America nearly twice a week. Suicide, homicides, a police shooting, attacks on students by other students: more than once a month this past year, gunfire on American school and university campuses has turned deadly, according to a database of school gunfire incidents compiled by advocates.ore . . .
Schools are one of the safest places for kids in the United States, and shootings in and around schools represent only a tiny fraction of the violence that children face here on a daily basis. But even the small amount of gun violence that occurs at American schools adds up.
Since the Columbine shooting in 1999, at least 233,000 kids across 243 schools have been exposed to gun violence during school hours, a Washington Post investigation found. To Read More: Guardian Report
The photo from the Columbine shooting is from the Daily News.
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Educated Canines Assisting With Disabilities
Here is an excerpt from a NY Times article by Jasper Craven, about a medically retired Army Captain who had served two tours in Iraq. ECAD custom-trained a golden retriever named Tuesday especially for Luis Montalvan:
"Montalvan had returned home with a shattered leg, spinal damage, a brain injury and PTSD symptoms that included vivid nightmares, flashbacks, panic attacks and a fear of public spaces. The only therapy that eased Montalván’s symptoms was Tuesday, whom he received from a group called Educated Canines Assisting With Disabilities. Tuesday sensed if Montalván’s breathing sharpened or he began to perspire, and then intervened with a nuzzle. If Tuesday noticed Montalván thrashing while asleep in bed, he would wake the former soldier from his nightmare with a series of sloppy face-licks. Tuesday was even trained to direct the Army veteran from his bed to his pill bottles each morning."
The range of healing and assistance that ECAD has accomplished with its therapy dogs -- from cerebral palsey and spinal cord injuries to autism and PTSD -- is amazing. Here is a link to their website: ECAD
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The Planet Of The Dogs series
Long ago there were no dogs on planet earth. A time came when invaders were taking over farmlands, villages and towns.
Dogs, who were living in peace and happiness on their own planet, came to earth to help people find peace.
"There are so many stories about battles between good and evil, and at times it’s hard to know who’s on which side, when so many lives are lost. So it’s a breath of fresh air to see a book presenting a peaceful resolution. Planet Of The Dogs may be a fairy tale, but it gives us hope that peace may someday be restored on earth through kinder and gentler means. Dog lovers and those who love a nice story will really enjoy this book."
Reviewer: Alice Berger, Berger's Book Reviews
We have free reader copies of the Planet Of The Dogs series for therapy dog organizations, individual therapy dog owners, librarians and teachers...simply send us an email at planeto[email protected] and we will send you the books.
The illustration from Planet Of The Dogs is by Stella Mustanoja McCarty.
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"To err is human, to forgive, canine" .. Anonymous
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