A Fantastic Story Offers Hope
In the British Isles, over the centuries, through war, famine, and struggle, storytellers retold and enriched a fantastic story of a poor boy whose amazing adventures sometimes brought laughter and ended with hope: Jack and the Beanstalk.
Jack prevailed over poverty and hunger, the wrath of a giant, and the danger of climbing into the clouds. Despite his fears, he never gave up, and his efforts were full of inventive surprises.
The story was told by adults to other adults -- a metaphor of possibilities. After the influence of the Grimm's fairytales ignited British publishers and readers, It became extremely popular with children in England. During this time. many traditional oral tales were softened and changed to make them more acceptable for the expanding marketplace.
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An Excerpt from a Vintage Version (1810) of Jack and the Beanstalk
This version was originally printed in a British inexpensive chapbook in 1810 by Caldwell. Chapbooks were cheap and at that time were commonplace. I found it in a book printed in1890, English Folklore and Legends. This older version is much longer and more complex than those later printed for children. In this excerpt, Jack climbs the beanstalk and meets a powerful fairy who tells him about his dark family history, her own past history, and the vicious giant. This early version offers courage in the face of power, and hope in dark times. The original story has been traced back 5,000 years.
The Fairy speaks to Jack: “The day on which you met the butcher, as you went to sell your mother’s cow, my power was restored. It was I who secretly prompted you to take the beans in exchange for the cow.
“By my power the beanstalk grew to so great a height and formed a ladder. I need not add I inspired you with a strong desire to ascend the ladder.
“The giant lives in this country, and you are the person appointed to punish him for all his wickedness. You will have dangers and difficulties to encounter, but you must persevere in avenging the death of your father, or you will not prosper in any of your undertakings,
After the Fairy leaves, Jack keeps walking until, exhausted and very hungry, he arrives at the Giant's manor. . . A plain-looking woman was at the door, and Jack accosted her, begging she would give him a morsel of bread and a night’s lodging.
She expressed the greatest surprise at seeing him, and said it was quite uncommon to see a human being near their house, for it was well known her husband was a large and very powerful giant, and that he would never eat anything but human flesh, if he could possibly get it; that he did not think anything of walking fifty miles to procure it, usually being out the whole day for that purpose.
This account greatly terrified Jack, but still he hoped to elude the giant, and therefore he again entreated the woman to take him in for one night only, and hide him where she thought proper. . ." The rest is oral history.
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"Both the oral and literary forms of the fairy tale are grounded in history: They emanate from specific struggles to humanize bestial and barbaric forces, which have terrorized our minds and communities in concrete ways."
Jack Zipes
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Imagine
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join me
And the world will be as one.
Excerpted from the lyrics by John Lennon and Yoko Ono
The illustration is by Kevin Peterson.
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Late News from Wonderland from the Lewis Carrol society of North America
The legendary Salzburg Marionette Theatre was established in 1913 and is one of the oldest continuing marionette theatres in the world. Recently, the theatre revived its magical production of Alice in Wonderland! We are delighted to welcome Artistic Director Philippe Brunner to give us a behind-the-scenes virtual tour of the theatre. We’ll experience the wonderful Wonderland sets, learn what goes into this intricate artform and meet some very special guests, wooden and otherwise. Please join the LCSNA for a truly enchanted afternoon!
The illustration is by Arthur Rackham
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Putin, Peter the Great, and the Great Wrath
As I write, I think of the effect of the brutal Russian invasion in Ukraine on families: children, mothers and fathers alike. Putin has recently compared himself to a mythical, romantic version of his hero, the brutal Russian ruler referred to as Peter the Great. I am writing this in Finland where Finns in past centuries have had heavy suffering, death, and large territorial losses at the hands of the Russians. In 1939, Stalin invaded Finland in what is known as the Winter War. Peter the Great invaded in 1710.
The brutal era of Peter the Great and the carnage of his Russian armies in known in Finnish History as The Great Wrath.
"The Great Wrath was a period of Finnish history dominated by the Russian invasion and subsequent military occupation of Finland, then part of the Swedish Empire, from 1714 until the treaty of Nystas (1721), which ended the Great Northern War. . .
The Great Wrath: Plundering and raping was widespread, especially in Ostrobothnia and in communities near the major roads. Churches were looted and Isokyrö was burned to the ground. A scorched-earth zone several hundred kilometers wide was created by the Russians to hinder Swedish counteroffensives. At least 5,000 Finns were killed and some 10,000 taken away as slaves, of whom only a few thousand would ever return;[5] according to more recent research, the number of the casualties would have been closer to 20,000.[6] Recent research also estimates the number of enslaved children and women to have been closer to 30,000.[7] The worst of these massacres took place on September 29, 1714, when during one night, the Cossacks killed about 800 inhabitants of the Hailuoto Island with axes." -- Source: Wikipedia
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The Birch and the Star -- Here is an excerpt from a fairy tale inspired by the actual Great Wrath. written by Gudron Thorne-Thomsen, a Norwegian writer and editor of children's books, including East of the Sun and West of the Moon. After the opening paragraphs, the story becomes sugar coated.
"About two hundred years ago Finland had suffered greatly. There had been war; cities were burned, the harvest destroyed and thousands of people had died; some had perished by the sword, others from hunger, many from dreadful diseases. There was nothing left but tears and want, ashes and ruins.
Then it happened that many families became separated; some were captured and carried away by the enemy, others fled to the forests and desert places or far away to Sweden. A wife knew nothing about her husband, a brother nothing about his sister, and a father and mother did not know whether their children were living[10] or dead. Some fugitives came back and when they found their dear ones, there was such joy that it seemed as if there had been no war, no sorrow. Then the huts were raised from the ashes, the fields again turned yellow with golden harvest. A new life began for the country.
During the time of the war a brother and sister were carried far away to a foreign land. . ."
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St Petersburg -- The Imperial City Built by Peter the Great on Marshland and Suffering
"It is unsurprising that in order to build his showcase European-style city, Peter was happy to let tens of thousands of slave workers die of weakness, disease and cold when building St Petersburg. Many of the workers were conscripted peasants, and others were criminals serving out their sentences through hard labour. It’s hard to decide who was least fortunate: the criminals sent to mine gold and silver in deepest darkest Siberia, or those assigned to building a city in a marshy area which froze in winter and was mosquito-ridden and malarial in summer. Jonathan Miles, author of St Petersburg: Three Centuries of Murderous Desire, estimates that 30,000 people died in the city’s initial construction alone." Excerpted from an article by Caecilia Dance, A Historical Miscellany
I am struck by the supreme indifference to the suffering of others by both Putin and Peter the Great.
The bottom painting is by Ilja Repin. The photo of Ukrainians struggling up the hill is by Emilio Morenatti, AP.
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Original Independent Animation
The Body of Christ
Nolan Downs, creator of this unique and respectful video, explains below how it came into being.
"24 hour film made for DePaul University's May Day 2017. Students, alum, and faculty make films based on a predetermined theme. This years theme was "Weird Bodies".
Link: The Body of Christ Time: 50 seconds
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Man2020
Surprises, all out, whoa.
A sequel to the extraordinary animated video Man.
All by Steve Cuts. Music: Hall of the Mountain King by Grieg.
Link: Man2020 Time 1.01
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Accident
Outrageous, stylized, Bizarre.
Off the wall.
Created by Noah Malone
Link: Accident Time 1.40
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Layered and Complex -- Japanese Studio Animation -- Feminism
"At a time of widespread debate over the depiction of women in film, the top Japanese animators have long been creating heroines who are more layered and complex than many of their American counterparts. They have faults and weaknesses and tempers as well as strengths and talents. They’re not properties or franchises; they’re characters the filmmakers believe in." -- Charles Solomon in the NY Times
Directed by Mamaro Hosada, Studio Chizo/G Kids
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Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
Over 16 million copies of Goodnight Moon have been published.
" " 'Goodnight noises everywhere' is the last sentence of a book that has lulled millions of children to sleep since it was published in 1947. . . . Margaret Wise Brown's text, illustrated by Clement Hurd, moves us from a brightly lit room to a darkened room lit by the moon, the stars, and a fire on the hearth. As sunlight fades from the room, the objects remain anchored in place, coaxed into solidity by the process of naming and repetition that is the hallmark of the book. . . With near perfect pitch, the words and images send reassuring messages to the child reader." -- Maria Tatar, Enchanted Hunters, the power of stories in childhood.
Anna Holmes wrote a fascinating, insightful article in the New Yorker, about Margaret Wise Brown entitled, "The Radical Woman Behind 'Goodnignt Moon, a woman who constantly pushed boundaries in her life and in her art. "Here are telling excerpts:
" In fact, Brown was a seductive iconoclast with a Katharine Hepburn mane and a compulsion for ignoring th e rules. Anointed by Life in 1946 as the “World’s Most Prolific Picture-Book Writer,” she burned through her money as quickly as she earned it, travelling to Europe on ocean liners and spending entire advances on Chrysler convertibles. Her friends called her “mercurial” and “mystical.”
Her romances were volatile: she was engaged to two men but never married, and she had a decade-long affair with a woman. At the age of forty-two, she died suddenly, in the South of France, after a clot cut off the blood supply to her brain. . .
She and her sister, Roberta, engaged in a bedtime ritual of greeting the objects and the sounds around them and then bidding them good night. Brown had few friends her age, counting among her closest companions a cat, a collie, two squirrels, and dozens of rabbits. . . "
Brown’s career began in New York in 1935, when she entered a teacher-training program at Bank Street, an experimental school of education then situated in Greenwich Village. She had been casting about since graduating from Hollins. Bank Street was run by the formidable scholar Lucy Sprague Mitchell, who hoped to redefine early education by incorporating insights from the social sciences and from research into the lives of children.
Brown was most taken by the idea of writing for five-year-olds. “At five we reach a point not to be achieved again,” she once wrote in a notebook. In a paper on the topic, she argued that a child of that age enjoys a “keenness and awareness” that will likely be subdued out of him later in life. She went on, “Here, perhaps, is the stage of rhyme and reason. . . . ‘Big as the whole world. . . .
In 1947, Brown published what is now her most famous book, “Goodnight Moon.” The action in this spare, poetic story about a bunny at bedtime is slow-moving, and the scene never really changes. As the young rabbit tosses and turns in a green-walled bedroom, saying good night to various things in the room—a mouse, a comb, a red balloon—Clement Hurd’s illustrations, in deep jewel tones, slowly dim, panel by panel, and a soft scrim of stars outside the window begins to brighten.
The photo is by Consuelo Kanaga. The illustrations are by Clement Hurd from the original book.
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Julius Lester .. "You can't let somebody own your soul."
Reviewers often praised his work for its vibrant immediacy, political urgency and deep rootedness in both black oral tradition and historical documents, including the narratives of former slaves.
Mr. Lester’s best-known writing for adults includes the book “Look Out, Whitey! Black Power’s Gon’ Get Your Mama” (1968) and two volumes of memoir, “All Is Well” (1976) and “Lovesong: Becoming a Jew” (1988), about his conversion in 1982.
His children’s books include “To Be a Slave” (1968), a nonfiction chronicle that was a Newbery Honor Book, as the finalists for the Newbery Medal, considered the Pulitzer Prize of children’s literature, are known.
Mr. Lester also collaborated on a series of children’s picture books with the distinguished African-American illustrator Jerry Pinkney. Among the most highly praised is “Sam and the Tigers” (1996), a retelling of the Victorian children’s book “The Story of Little Black Sambo” purged of its myriad racist elements. School Library Journal wrote "Lester and Pinkney reclaim "Little Black Sambo," the tale of a black child who outwits a pack of bullying tigers, from its negative, racist connotations."FIXX
Here is a link to an excellent video excerpt of Julius Lester talking about his life and singing. It was produced by the PBS series, The American experience: PBS
Violence at Home
Access to guns and the abuse of firearms go hand in hand inthe USA.
Retired General Stanley McCrystal wrote a terrific Opinion Piece for the NY Times. Here is an excerpt from Home Should Not Be a War Zone.
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Castle In The Mist
"" Do you think that it is possible for dogs to stop a war?
Author Robert J. McCarty has created a charming fantasy-allegory that can be read and understood on at least two different levels. Children will enjoy the story about dogs who come from another planet to help people on earth. But under the surface are the important messages of friendship, love, loyalty, and how to overcome evil with good.The same things are true as the story continues in Castle in the Mist.The book is well written and easy to read. It will keep you turning the pages to find out what happens next..."
From a review by Wayne Walker -- Stories for Children Magazine, Home School Book Review, and Home School Buzz
The illustration from Castle In The Mist is by Stella Mustanoja McCarty
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" You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us." -- Robert Louis Stevenson
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