On the Slant: International Kindle

Since I ended up reading about academic fairy tale studies on the Wall Street Journal this morning, I also came across this lucid article about the International Kindle:

The Book That Contains All Books: The globally available Kindle could mark as big a shift for reading as the printing press and the codex

I've been an enthusiastic Kindle user since last year when I bought it as merely a convenience for traveling. To not have a supply of books to read at hand is the height of misery for me. I have well over a 1,000 titles on my Kindle now and find I prefer reading with it. And I was a diehard book person previously, a librarian, a woman who has hauled thousands of books back and forth across the country in moves. Books define much of my existence.

Now I find most of my book purchases are for the Kindle, at least my entertainment reading. I prefer reading on my Kindle since I can do it one handed at various print sizes. I read while exercising on my elliptical now. I've even formatted my first three SurLaLune anthologies for the Kindle before anything else since that is how I wanted to read them myself.

Of course, book readers are horrible for illustrated books. The technology is working on that. They are not replacements for books. But they are complements, improving portability, access and ease of use in many ways.

I'm not here to debate Digital Rights Management. All e-readers, including the Kindle, can support books not sold by their distributors. Most of the books on mine were accessed for free and added at no cost to me by me. They are out-of-copyright titles, of course, but I read and study classics. Those can also be shared with other device owners. I've also bought many current titles and spared my groaning shelves over the past year.

And I wish this technology had been available when I was a student, lugging books around that I may or may not need around campus! I am curious to see where the trend goes. I rolled my eyes at the technology a few years ago and now I'm converted. No, it's not the same sensual experience as holding a book. I've heard that complaint over and over again. But when I'm reading novels and unillustrated books, that doesn't matter.

With my reader, I get a book that is lightweight no matter the page length, one that isn't yellowing or giving me allergy issues, one that has the exact same text as the printed version. Reading for me is strictly about the words in about 90% of the materials I read. I find myself picking books to read on the Kindle before the ones laying on the TBR stack next to my bed. Overall, I prefer the reading experience. And I'm not even into reading glasses yet, but choosing a slightly larger text size is wonderful, too. My grandmother suffered from macular degeneration. Her family was always seeking large print books for her, limited to heavy, often irrelevant titles for her. If I am someday afflicted with the same condition, I am thrilled to think virtually no book will be unavailable to me.

In WSJ: Academic Studies of Fairy Tales

Today, the Wall Street Journal offers us:

Academic Studies of Fairy Tales: Holly Tucker selects revelatory studies of fairy tales

I've only seen the online version of the article and it appears rather arbitrary without any explanation beyond the title. Why was this included in today's issue?

Anyway, the article consists of five books which each receive a paragraph length's explanation of their content. A fine list offered by Holly Tucker, herself the author of Pregnant Fictions: Childbirth and the Fairy Tale in Early Modern France (pictured above) and the head editor/inspiration for Wonders and Marvels website which I have been saving for an "on the slant" post. She also teaches a class on fairy tales at Vanderbilt in my hometown.

If you want to read Tucker's recommendations, please click through to the article. I'm posting the titles here with Amazon links since I believe WSJ articles tend to not be free after a period of time and I want to at least let the titles remain public. It's a mix of titles by some of the field's heaviest hitters (Zipes, Tatar and Bottigheimer) as well as the ubiquitious Bettelheim.


1. The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim (Can you believe this is out of print? I guess there are enough used copies floating around to fufill the curiosty for this somewhat debunked but influential book.)


2. Off With Their Heads! by Maria Tatar

3. Grimms' Bad Girls and Bold Boys by Ruth B. Bottigheimer

4. Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion by Jack Zipes

5. Red Riding Hood for All Ages by Sandra L. Beckett

This Beckett title is confusing and has been on my list to investigate further. Published last year, I believe it is an updated version of Beckett's earlier Recycling Red Riding Hood, but Amazon has a new version of that title listed for this year, too. So perhaps not. The Wonders and Marvels site actually calls the book Recycling Red Riding Hood to confuse the issue more although the cover image doesn't correlate. I'll clear up the confusion when I learn more.

Either way, here's Wayne State Press's description for Red Riding for All Ages:

Red Riding Hood for All Ages investigates the modern recasting of one of the world’s most beloved and frequently told tales. Author Sandra L. Beckett examines an international selection of contemporary fiction for children, adolescents, and adults to find a wide range of narrative and interpretive perspectives in the tale and its revisions. Beckett shows how authors and illustrators from around the globe have renewed the age-old tale in a range of multilayered, sophisticated, and complex textual and visual Red Riding Hood narratives.

With a child protagonist who confronts grown-up issues of sexuality, violence, and death, the Red Riding Hood story appeals to readers of all age groups and is often presented in crossover texts that can be enjoyed by both children and adults. Beckett presents a wide selection of retellings, many of which have been never translated into English. Texts come from a variety of countries in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and Asia and date from the early twentieth to the twenty-first century. This wealth of stories and illustrations is organized thematically into sections that consider Little Red Riding Hood alternately as a cautionary tale, an initiation story, a story focused on the wolf, a tale inspired by the wolf within, and a story of an unconventional girl who runs with wolves.

This volume provides a global survey of Red Riding Hood’s story in contemporary culture, proving that the character is omnipresent in modern literature and that the universal appeal of her story knows no age boundaries. Red Riding Hood for All Ages will be of interest to scholars of folklore, gender studies, and literature, as well as librarians, educators, parents, and all those interested in the many interpretations of the Red Riding Hood tale.

Sounds like a great book (or both are), especially for Red Riding Hood studies.

In contrast, here's a review for Recycling Red Riding Hood originally published in Marvels and Tales.

The Guardian: 'Animals'

Today's fairy tale booklet (Day 7 and the last one!) at The Guardian is themed 'Animals'. You can read more about the seven part series at my previous post.

Animals in fairytales: Marina Warner looks at the role animals play in fairytales. Warner is the author of From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers, an excellent book I can't recommend highly enough.

Here's an excerpt:

The anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss commented that animals were "bons à penser" (good to think with), and fairytales speak through beasts to explore common experiences – fear of sexual intimacy, terror and violence and injustice, struggles for survival. A tradition of articulate, anthropomorphised creatures of every kind is as old as literature itself: animal fables and beast fairytales are found in ancient Egypt and Greece and India, and the legendary Aesop of the classics has his storytelling counterparts all over the world, who use crows and ants, lions and monkeys, ravens and donkeys to satirise the follies and vices of human beings and display along the way the effervescent cunning and high spirits of the fairytale genre.

Today's theme also gives us another three fairy tales to read:

The fairytale of Beauty and the Beast by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont

The fairytale of the Heart of a Monkey retold by Andrew Lang

The fairytale of Hans My Hedgehog by the Brothers Grimm, translated by Jack Zipes

The illustrations for this set are by Eleanor Davis.

There is also an extra article on the site today:

Get off of my tuffet, Muffet by John Harris: I can't lament the demise of nursery rhymes when my three-year-old sings rock'n'roll classics instead

Last week, a survey by the reading charity Booktrust decisively revealed the tragic fate of our old friend the nursery rhyme. Of 2,500 parents, only 36% regularly used such folk poetry with their kids, and over 20% said they never bothered at all. Among younger parents, things were even worse: 33% of mums and dads aged between 16 and 24 reckoned nursery rhymes were "too old-fashioned" to interest their offspring,and 20% of the same cohort questioned their educational value. Somewhat predictably, there was also a gender fault-line within the research: whereas, for example, 78% of women knew all the words to Incy Wincy Spider, the figure among men was a miserable 45%.

And don't miss the reader comments on the last one! Many opinions there...

Andersen's Fairy Park

People's Daily Online posted this shortly before I retired for the evening:

World's first Andersen's fairy park will be built in Shanghai

"Andersen's Fairy Park", the world's first large-scale children's outdoor theme park, will be built in Shanghai before the opening of the Expo 2010 Shanghai.

According to investors, covering an area of more than 80,000 square meters, the park is expected to open in May, 2010.

"Andersen's Fairy Park" will lead the children into the world of fairy tale. A science museum, with theme of Andersen's fairy tales, is planned to be built to popularize humanity and natural science knowledge.

That is all the information I could find so far. It's on several sites so this must be directly from the press release. Thus my quoting of the entire article....

This is also where the Little Mermaid statue from Copenhagen is going to be loaned, at least to the expo.

October 2009: Fairy Tales on Stage

Time for some more recent and/or upcoming theatrical interpretations of fairy tales:

The Nightingale And Other Short Fables: Robert Lepage makes water music

How about this for starters: the action of the second act (The Nightingale) takes place in the orchestra pit, which has been flooded with 67 tonnes of water. You won’t, though, see bass fiddles doubling as lifeboats or violins as paddles – the orchestra and chorus will be onstage.

In the pit’s waist-deep pool, singers will manipulate puppets to tell Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale about a nightingale that stops Death from claiming the Chinese emperor.

Cinderella in spikes NEYT throws a screwball at a familiar fairy tale

NEYT presents "Cinderella at the Ballgame," a wildly comic story featuring princesses, fairy godmothers and godfathers, as well as the Boys of Summer, Mel Allen, Bleacher Bums and even the Green Monster.

Driving Cinderella with artistic license: Director Todd Robinson puts '50s spin on classic tale in opera adaptation

What do early 19th-century Italian classical music, a childhood fairy tale, over-the-top humor and references to 1950s-era America have in common? In short, Gioacchino Rossini's classic opera, "La Cenerentola" (Cinderella), as revised and performed by Opera Coeur d'Alene.

MVC Theatre presents 'The Robber Bridegroom' October 7-10 in the Eckilson-Mabee Theatre

The Missouri Valley College Department Of Theatre, Music and Dance will present "The Robber Bridegroom," a musical by Robert Waldman and Alfred Uhry, at 7:30 p.m. nightly from Oct. 7-10 in the Eckilson-Mabee Theatre on the MVC campus. A rousing, bawdy Southern fairy tale based on a Eudora Welty story, set in eighteenth century Mississippi, "The Robber Bridegroom" is the story of the courting of Rosamund, the only daughter of the richest planter in the country, by Jamie Lockhart, a rascally robber of the woods.

The Three Pigs

The three pigs are trying to make it onto America’s Barnyard Idol, but that big, bad Elvis-loving wolf has stolen their ticket to the big audition! Can they get their ticket back in time? There's lots of music and laughter in this original take on The Three Pigs – tons of fun for everyone!

Piwacket Children's Theatre Opens Season with CINDERBOTTOM

Piwacket Children's Theatre begins their 2009-2010 season with a retelling of the familiar Cinderella story, here called CinderBottom. Like all of their productions, there's a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor that makes it palatable for both children and adults, and there are a number of cute little catchy singalong type tunes interspersed as well.

Snow White Beer Ad

'Ho White' Beer Ad Incurs Disney's Wrath

A beer advertisement featuring Snow White blowing smoke rings while lying in bed with seven semi-naked dwarves has reportedly left Disney fuming.

I'm not sharing imagery but pictures are available through the link. I swerve away from the tasteless and possible copyright infringements on the blog. This one definitely plays very closely with Disney's imagery for the characters. And you don't mess with Disney copyrights. That is a very dangerous proposition. Generic versions of fairy tales: safe. Disney's fairy tales: Not ever safe.

But this is news, so I share it with you...

The Guardian: 'Justice and Punishment'

Today's fairy tale booklet (Day 6) at The Guardian is themed 'Justice and Punishment'. You can read more about the seven part series at my previous post.

Justice and punishment in fairytales: Sarah Churchwell looks at the consequences of fairytale sins. Here's an excerpt:

What constitutes transgression changes as much as what constitutes morality. Little Red Riding Hood, in the earliest version, doesn't disobey, she errs, in the most literal sense, wandering away from the path. But in Perrault's tale she isn't warned not to, and so is not punished for heedlessness. She is simply too innocent to know better, and gobbled up by the wolf, without the last-minute rescue by a huntsman to soften the blow for the children listening. The cautionary tale is simple, its lesson clear. The Red Shoes punishes internal transgressions, otherwise known as sins – although Andersen can't tell the difference between venial and mortal sins. But Little Red Riding Hood cautions innocence from the perspective of experience, warning of external dangers. There be wolves. Duly noted.

Today's theme also gives us another four fairy tales to read:

The fairytale of the one-handed murderer by Italo Calvino

The fairytale of Red Riding Hood by Charles Perrault, translated by AE Johnson

The fairytale of the Fisherman and Ifrit from the Arabian Nights, translated by Malcom C Lyons

The fairytale of the Red Shoes by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by Naomi Lewis

The illustrations for this set are by Tyler Garrison.

Three Billy Goats Pub

Now this is fun! Kudos to Ron Smits for using a fairy tale in a clever way.

Three Billy Goats Pub finds home below Mason Street bridge

Smits said he chose the name because the pub is under the bridge, referring to the "Three Billy Goats Gruff" fairy tale. It also fits nicely with one of the bar's main beer suppliers: Horny Goat Brewing Co. of Milwaukee.

Not the way I usually think of The Three Billy Goats Gruff but it really works well in this scenario. I wonder how many patrons will realize the name is based on a fairy tale?

The Guardian: 'Wisdom and Folly'

Today's fairy tale booklet (Day 5) at The Guardian is themed 'Wisdom and Folly'. You can read more about the seven part series at my previous post.

Wisdom and Folly in Fairytales: Alison Lurie looks at wisdom and folly. Here's an excerpt:

Once upon a time most people in Europe could not read or write. They got their stories, and their rules for living, from two main sources: Sunday sermons given by men, and tales told round the kitchen fire by women. The storytellers that the Brothers Grimm and other folklorists collected their material from were almost always women. For hundreds of years, while men were writing books and preaching sermons, women were creating a parallel oral tradition.

One lesson that these old stories taught was what it means to be intelligent, and what it means to be stupid. Both men and women in folktales may be wise, or they may be foolish. They may also start out clueless and gradually gain wisdom.

Today's theme also gives us another four fairy tales to read:

The fairytale of the Mixed-Up Feet and the Silly Bridgegroom, by Isaac Bashevis Singer, retold by Elizabeth Shub

The fairytale of clever Gretchen retold by Alison Lurie

The fairytale of the Black Geese retold by Alison Lurie

The fairytale of Jack and the Beanstalk by Joseph Jacobs

The illustrations for this set are by Pietari Posti.

Inspired by Fairy Tales: Mary Ann Hoberman

In the news last week: National children's poet laureate shares pizza, advice with students from her hometown by Lauren Mylo. The article is about Mary Ann Hoberman. I'm a fan of her picture books of children's songs illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott. I've used them over and over in storytimes and had page turns memorized with Skip to My Lou from constant rereads to my niece. The Lady With the Alligator Purse is my personal favorite although Michael Finnegan is a close second.

The article had this fun bit about fairy tales:

Lauren Cunningham, 13, asked what inspired Hoberman to begin writing. The children's poet laureate said she grew up during the depression and her family didn't have many books, but three that remained with her were "Told Again" by Walter De La Mare and fairy tale collections from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen.

"A lot of fairy tales, they've sort of come down to us and we don't know who wrote them," said Hoberman. "But Hans Christian Andersen wrote his own, and I loved them. So when I realized -- and I was tiny, probably four years old -- but when I realized someone had written them, that's when I realized I wanted to be a writer."

So add another author to the list of those inspired by fairy tales. Not a surprise with Hoberman--she's also responsible for You Read to Me, I'll Read to You: Very Short Fairy Tales to Read Together--but I like reading the proof.

The Guardian: Beware Fairy Stories

There is an additional article posted on The Guardian today, as a supplement to the fairy tale brochures I'm posting about all week. I decided to give it its own post since it is not from a brochure. It is also longer and discusses one of the most popular topics about fairy tales.

Adult content warning: Beware fairy stories by David Barnett: These tales of extreme violence and horror aren't really just 'kids' stuff', nor were they meant to be

But the deeper you venture into the dark woods of these fairytales, the more you have to wonder – are these stories really for kids?

The Disneyfication of fairy stories over the past 70-odd years since Uncle Walt released his animated take on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has put into most people's minds a primary-coloured world of beautiful people facing dastardly villains and apparently insurmountable obstacles on their path to a life of happiness alongside Mr or Ms (or, more likely, HRH) Right; a world where good always triumphs and there's no better relationship than one built upon the size of a kingdom. A world, largely, for children. But the picture painted by the Grimms was of a vast, dark, world-encompassing forest in which still darker deeds were committed – and went unpunished.

He also quotes from JRR Tolkien's On Fairy Stories:

"The association of children and fairy stories is an accident of our domestic history. Fairy stories have in the modern lettered world been relegated to the 'nursery', as shabby or old-fashioned furniture is relegated to the playroom, primarily because the adults do not want it, and do not mind if it is misused."

Barnett offers this conclusion with which I agree:

It would be a shame, though, if fairy stories – notwithstanding their origins as tales for grown-ups – were completely removed, in Tolkien's words, from the playroom. Sanitised and Disneyfied many modern versions may be, and the expectations of how life pans out they engender, especially among young girls, might not be completely desirable, but they do help to instil in children a sense of wonder that is vital for navigating the often dark and dense forest of adult life.

Be sure to read the entire article and then page down to the reader comments because the discussion is already going strong with the article freshly posted. There is the requisite Disney-bashing, too, which I usually find oversimplified. Not a criticism of Barnett, mind you, he doesn't really bash either.

I'm not a diehard fan, as we know, but I don't blame Disney for all of fairy tales' modern misconceptions either. There were sanitized versions of tales before Disney. "Fairy tale" as a term was also derogatory, implying "light fantasy" in culture at large before Disney, too. Researching fairy tales in the 19th century shows that. Their long history as women's and children's literature have brought about much of the misconceptions. Disney has not helped, has perpetuated the stigma on a greater scale, but is not the sole perpetrator.

Last week, when asked by a friend, I explained that I had just finished an article on the history of Snow White. "Oh, how cute!" she replied. There wasn't time to explain further, so I just smiled and wondered at myself for setting myself up again for such a response that is, well, condescending. If only she knew! As always, I had worked hard to balance the article to keep it from being maudlin and depressing. The tale's history includes child murder and cannibalism, still includes both most of the time. Some rarer variants even offer up polygamy. Now that's a popular topic, full of warm and fuzzy thoughts.

In the United States, we have virtually wiped out Donkeyskin and Bluebeard in popular culture although they were once much more recognized and remain better known in France. Catherine Deneuve's Peau d'ane has helped Donkeyskin stay in the French public conscious, for one.

Anyway, this is a topic that will always be with us. Here's another opportunity to discuss or a resource for the students wanting to write about it. SurLaLune welcomes countless numbers of those each year!

The Guardian: 'Quests'

Today's fairy tale booklet (Day 4) at The Guardian is themed Quests. You can read more about the seven part series at my previous post.

Quests in fairytales: Adam Phillips looks at the concept of quests in fairytales. Here's an excerpt:

If genius, as Sartre said, is the word we use for people who get themselves out of impossible situations, what is the word for people who find themselves in impossible situations, or even seek them out? And why are fairytales so compelling that we don't think of them as stories from a particular place and time? The answer to the first question is "everybody", but the answer to the second question is that these stories are sufficiently hospitable – suggestive enough, puzzling enough – so that virtually everybody who can read can make something of them. We can identify with the quests and riddles they present because the stories are about getting the most basic needs met; that is, learning how to protect yourself (keeping your wits about you) and getting married (literally or metaphorically getting together with someone or something that makes you feel better).

Today's theme also gives us four, instead of the usual three, fairy tales to read:

The fairytale of the Lion and the Hare retold from Sanskrit by Ramsay Wood

The fairytale of the Sleeping Prince retold by Alison Lurie

The fairytale of Rumpelstiltskin by the Brothers Grimm

The fairytale of the boy who set out to learn fear by the Brothers Grimm, translated by Joyce Crick



The illustrations for this set are by Rui Tenreio.

Peter & Max by Bill Willingham

Peter & Max: A Fables Novel by Bill Willingham with illustrations by Steve Leialoha is released today. This is the first novel inspired by the popular Fables graphic novels. This franchise only appears to be growing, so congrats and kudos to the writers and artists. I can't believe it has been seven years now.

Since I haven't had the pleasure of reading the novel myself yet, I thought I would share some reviews from elsewhere.

First an article with interview though: PETER & MAX - Bill Willingham Takes FABLES to Prose.

Over the last seven years since the award-winning, best-selling series began, Fables has broken a lot of the unwritten rules of ongoing comic book series. Readers have seen characters evolve and change, the series premise completely turned upside-down, its main setting destroyed and some of the most beloved characters die.

Now the rulebook gets tossed out altogether as series writer Bill Willingham has written his newest Fables story in a novel published by DC's Vertigo imprint. Peter & Max, a 389-page hardcover book, is being released this week with the subtitle: "A Fables Novel." Although there are a smattering of illustrations by Steve Leialoha running through the book and an eight-page mini-comic in the back, the main story itself is written entirely in prose.

And some reviews:

Review: Grimm and bear it, 'Peter & Max' is an adult fairy tale worth reading by Randy Myers

More Brothers Grimm than Mother Goose, "Peter & Max" creates a captivating mythology that can be easily followed even by those unacquainted with the comics. Surely, if you are a "Fables" follower, you'll get more out of it, but great pains have been taken to entice the uninitiated to the series. As a bonus, a few of Steve Leialoha's illustrations set the whimsical mood.

"Peter & Max" Modern Day Fable Brings Back Happily Ever Afters by Graeme McMillan

As it turns out, I needn't have worried: Despite a somewhat awkward start (Where, yes, Willingham veers close to killing momentum and interest through world-building for people who've just come in) and seemingly rushed climax, Peter & Max distills all of the charm and sly, subtle invention that Willingham has brought to the familiar characters in the series so far into an all-new story that sidesteps the comic's continuity for the most part, offering something that's familiar enough to reassure old faithfuls, but also unencumbered by a past that would scare off newcomers.

Peter & Max: A Fables Story Review by Richard George

To the extent that Willingham creates a stirring, memorable rivalry, there is little to critique. By the end of the book, it will be hard not to be mesmerized by these two individuals and their ultimate fates. Some sequences, both in the past and present, are downright brilliant, and the advantages of a prose medium are clearly demonstrated. Scenes are able to play out at a more leisurely pace, and chapters can cut away to a different moment in time to leave the reader in suspense. And the payoff to some of these cliffhanger chapters is superb. What wasn't as effective was the development of one of the main characters.

So overall a strong response and recommendations for both fans and those who are unfamiliar with Fables. If you are wary of graphic novels--they require a different setting of the brain for me, I admit--this may be the way to be introduced to the mad, crazy world of fairy tales as envisioned by Bill Willingham and Company.

The Nightingale in Dutch

Just to show that fairy tale books still win awards in other countries, too, here's an article: Flemish writer wins children's book award

Flemish writer Peter Verhelst has won this year's Gouden Griffel (golden slate pencil) award for the best Dutch language children's book for Het geheim van de keel van de nachtegaal (the secret of the nightingale's throat).

The book, a reworking of the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale, is Verhelst's first children's book. He has already published eight volumes of poetry and five novels.

Of course, I tried to find more and discovered this description in English since my Dutch, well, I don't have any Dutch....

Bozar Book Shop description:

In fairy tales, the dreams and wishes of emperors can be become reality with a snap of a finger. In 'The secret of the nightingale's throat' a Chinese emperor dreams of a new Imperial Garden of Gardens. A simple gardener does his very best to make this dream come true. Whenever the emperor hears a nightingale, he knows that its music must also be a part of his garden. The nightingale is willing, but has a will of its own. His music is unique, but cannot be caught. Can the almighty emperor live with the idea that that there is something that excapes his will?

Peter Verhelst has adapted H.C.Andersen's well-known fairy tale into a musical and poetic text. Carll Cneut lets the reader meander through a magical beautiful world.

You can also read more about Peter Verhelst on Wikipedia. (It doesn't mention this book or his award, but someone will probably fix that someday.)

And I believe this is another illustration from the book:

The Guardian Fairy Tales: 'Rags to Riches' and 'Love'

Today's fairy tale booklet (Day 3) at The Guardian is themed Love. You can read more about the seven part series at my previous post.

Love in fairytales: AS Byatt looks at the abstract world in Fairytales

Here's a lovely excerpt:

One of the pleasures of the tales is the brilliant mosaic they offer of isolated things and materials. Loaves of bread, magic swords, frying pans, spindles, necklaces, shoes. And these things have brilliant colours – the Swiss scholar Max Lüthi has remarked that they also have a restricted range – red, black, white, gold and silver. Materials shine – a glass mountain, golden coins spouting from the good daughter's lips. Materials contaminate – a bad daughter has slimy toads springing from her lips. Pitch defiles. Blood wells up and betrays crimes. Birds glitter and shimmer and sing significant songs. The animal world is a close extension of the human world – bears help (or devour), foxes and deer are helpers or punishers, fish speak from lakes and birds help in the sorting of seeds or peck out the eyes of the wicked. It is a mosaic world capable of endless retelling in varied ways.

The issue also includes three fairy tales to fit the theme:

The fairytale of Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm

The fairytale of the Steadfast Tin Soldier by Hans Christian Andersen

The fairytale of the Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen


The illustrations for this set are by Emily Forgot. They are once again lovely, but I am amused that so far the least "romantic" style of illustrations was used for the "Love" themed collection. Interesting juxtaposition...

Yesterday's issue, Day 2, was themed Rags to Riches.


Rags to Riches in fairytales: Philip Pullman looks at the power of symbolism in fairytales The fairytale of Mossycoat

Here's an excerpt from Pullman's essay:

Bettelheim's point is that fairytales such as this symbolise genuine aspects of our psychological life – moments of transition from innocence to knowledge, and so on – and that they are invaluable aids to a contented and healthy growth. Children need such tales as much as they need food, warmth, shelter and love. I think I agree with that. But whether or not they're psychologically necessary, the greatest tales (and Cinderella is one of the greatest of all) derive their lasting power not only from the multitude of fascinating and unforgettable details that abound in them but from the emotionally satisfying shape they take up. In the Grimms' collection, for example, tale after tale begins enthrallingly and then collapses half way through: rather like most films, most novels, most plays, in fact. The hardest thing with a story of any kind is to bring it to a conclusion that works every time you read it. The best of the Grimm tales do that, and the ones that work best of all are clearly the work of some ancient and anonymous teller of genius, whose power of shape-creation has resisted generations of hamfisted clumsiness and mishandling.

Once again, the issue includes three fairy tales to fit the theme:

The fairytale of Mossycoat, an English folk tale, retold by Philip Pullman

The fairytale of the Tinderbox by Hans Christian Andersen

The fairytale of Cinderella by Charles Perrault

The illustrations for this set are by Heisuke Kitazawa.



This is really quite exciting. It's especially nice to have a new Mossycoat on the internet....

On the Slant: Robert Southey

The letters of Robert Southey to go online

In his own lifetime Southey was a highly contentious figure: a polemical poet, essayist, biographer and historian, whose youthful support for the French Revolution mutated into reactionary Toryism. An enthusiastic supporter of the radical feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, he once urged Charlotte Brontë against embarking on a literary career. Southey was an antagonist of Lord Byron and Percy Shelley; a direct contemporary and rival of his fellow 'Lake Poets' Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth; and the correspondent of campaigners such as William Wilberforce. A prolific author, his works included a best-selling biography of Nelson and the fairy tale 'The Three Bears'. Yet although Southey was someone contemporaries found it absolutely impossible to ignore, his reputation was eclipsed in the latter half of the nineteenth century and he has only very recently started to attract scholarly attention.

So he deserved to lose some friends, especially over the Charlotte Bronte snub, but he made important contributions that we must recognize.

The real reason I'm posting here is that I wonder if anymore folklore appears in his letters....or even discussion of his Three Bears. Or read SurLaLune's Annotated Goldilocks if you prefer, since she is NOT in Southey's version.

I love the way the internet makes so much information available to us that would be nearly impossible to access otherwise. That was why I started SurLaLune and while many other sources have arisen over the years and I've tried to adapt somewhat to the changes and expansion of sources, I'm proud to be part of the sharing.

Once on a Time by A. A. Milne

Found this short and unexpected review by Lee Randall a few weeks ago: Uncommon readings: Fairytale best read by adults.

It's a nice review for an old book, Once on a Time by A. A. Milne, the author more famously known for Winnie the Pooh. (As if you didn't know that!)

The review is informative enough that I had to find the book. It was harder than one would think because the TITLE is never mentioned in the review. (Although that's comforting when I consider all the mistakes I make as my own writer and editor...)

Here's a quote from the review:

If you too have a low threshold for Pooh, Piglet and the rest, you may have missed Milne's other work. I urge you, rethink this boycott. Instead, the next time you want to laugh out loud at satire both silly and sharp, pick up this novel, written in 1917 to amuse the author and his wife.

Milne calls it "a fairy story for grown-ups". It's his attempt to address the fact that the conventions of fairy stories don't allow for the shades of grey in real life.

The book is available on Gutenberg at Once on a Time by A. A. Milne.

During my search, I was reminded that Milne wrote a treatment of Cinderella which I have never found. The search continues. It has to be online somewhere. It was published in Punch and I want to add it to SurLaLune.

Here's a helpful paragraph from Answers.com about his fairy tale work.

Like Thackeray's The Rose and the Ring and Dickens's The Magic Fishbone, the handful of fairy tales for adults Milne published in Punch before World War I and included in Those Were the Days (1929) satirized the conventions of the genre. In ‘The King's Sons’, a fairy tests the three sons by transforming herself into a dove pursued by a hawk. The youngest son, kind‐hearted Prince Goldilocks, is prompt with his bow; unfortunately, he is a poor shot, and hits the dove. ‘A Modern Cinderella’ transposes the story to present‐day London. A blasé debutante, Milne's Cinderella, is tired of balls; she kicks off her shoes at a dance—and loses one—simply because her feet are hurting. In ‘A Matter‐of‐Fact Fairy Tale’, Prince Charming sets out to kill the Giant Blunderbus and rescue Princess Beauty's brother Udo, transformed by the giant into a tortoise seven years before. Here, as in the other tales, Milne associates the fairy‐tale tradition with a sentimental and unrealistic view of life and human nature. Udo is unromantically preoccupied by his ignorance of what tortoises are supposed to eat. Prince Charming is disillusioned when the dying giant reveals that Udo is not Beauty's brother, while the lovers, reunited at last, discover that they are no longer attracted to each other.

So if you're looking for a free book to read by a beloved author that plays with fairy tale tropes, try this one.

The Guardian: Wicked Parents

In the UK, the Guardian is offering a series of seven fairy tale brochures in their physical papers with corresponding articles online. So, thank you, we don't have to be in the UK to enjoy the content!


The first day's offering is Wicked Parents feature and offers an article, Wicked parents in fairytales by Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel and three fairy tales to read, including The Juniper Tree, Hansel and Gretel and Snow White.

It's a fine short article on the topic and focuses on The Juniper Tree and Hansel and Gretel. Still it is timely for me since I just submitted my next Faerie Magazine article about Snow White, the other well-known horrible parenting tale. (More about that in upcoming weeks, of course.)


Here's one paragraph, but there's plenty more food for thought in the article, so click through to read it all:

When we read fairytales now, the tools of psychoanalysis jump to hand, like the animated dish and spoon in the nursery rhyme. But we mustn't forget the historical reality behind the stories. Step-parenting, with its grudges and feuds over right and inheritance, was a fact of life through the ages, and now, because of frequent divorce, has become a fact of life again. Modern families may not be quarrelling over inheritance, but they are still at loggerheads over who gets what share in the parent or child. We don't dismember the child for the cauldron, like the boy in the Juniper Tree, but we shred him by apportioning his time and love: weekdays with mum, weekend with dad. And in step-families, sexual tension is the great unspeakable. In the Brothers Grimm tale, Snow White is a child of seven. Her story makes more sense, of an unpalatable kind, in the versions where she is on the cusp of womanhood, a blossoming rival to her stepmother.

And I love the illustrations for all three tales provided by Laura Barrett. I love silhouette illustrations. They allow for so much detail but still leave plenty of scope for the imagination.

Great fairytales brings you the finest stories of morality, justice, triumph and enchantment from around the world, collected in seven themes: Wicked parents, Rags to riches, Love, Quests and riddles, Wisdom and folly, Justice and punishment and Beastly tales.

The stories are all nominated by a panel of critics, writers and experts on children's literature: Anthony Browne, AS Byatt, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Robert Irwin, Alison Lurie, Adam Phillips, Philip Pullman, Salman Rushdie and Marina Warner.

Each collection is beautifully illustrated and includes an afterword from a range of leading writers exploring each theme.

Edit: The Fairy Tale Cupboard wrote about this series yesterday, too. Great minds again...

Wolf Awareness Week is October 11th-17th

Wolf Awareness Week is October 11th-17th

From the press release, but the links are mine:

Want to know how you can take part in Wolf Awareness Week? Here are some suggestions:

Revisit traditional story tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, or Peter and the Wolf. Afterwards discuss with your children how these stories unrealistically depict wolves as dangerous and evil.

Click through to the press release to read serious items about wolf awareness week. It's serious even though I'm feeling lighthearted about it here.

And I support anything that encourages rereading fairy tales....and I do think the animals get a bum rap in fairy tales. So combine the traditional tales with The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs! by Jon Scieszka to be fair.

And the SurLaLune Cafe Press Shop has lots of wolf themed items, especially in the Little Red Riding Hood Shop. My husband drew the wolf and wolf shield.