Let's Celebrate the 1,111th Post!

In late January, I published the 1,000 blog post, one that ended up being rather special to me about my own wedding anniversary and the fairy tale card I gave to my husband. I had considered starting some SurLaLune Giveaways then, but decided to wait due to several extenuating circumstances away from the blog.

So this is the SurLaLune blog's 1,111 post and the time has come to celebrate. I rarely see this number celebrated and I think it is rather magical in itself although I am in no way a true numerologist. That said, I love looking at a digital clock at 11:11 (AM or PM). It's also fitting that the post was achieved in 2011. Granted not on 11/11/11 but that would have made for a very slow and uneventful blog while we were all waiting for November to arrive.

The plan is to give away items for the next 12 weeks. You only have to enter once however for all 12 weeks. Once you win something, you won't qualify for later weeks, but I have many goodies.

The first prize will be given away on Friday, March 25. It will be a copy of Mermaid by Carolyn Turgeon.

Beautiful Cameron Diaz

Cameron Diaz 08 more images after the break...

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Rite Picdump — 45 Pics

Rite Picdump, 43 more images after the break...

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Guess the footprints

Who or what has been walking here? Guess the track of this footprints.

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Megatron - Tank

Chinese fans of Transformers has decided to contribute to growing with each passing day the number of replicas of Megatron. True, he did it in its original form - now Megatron appeared before us in the form of a tank. At length, this model reaches 4,5 meters and a maximum width - 3,2 meters, the total weight of the replica is about 5 tons. 07 More images after the break...

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Red Riding Hood for All Ages by Sandra L. Beckett

This is an edited repost of my original post about this book from last November. It seemed a shame to leave it out of this week's nonfiction about LRRH collection of posts.

Red Riding Hood for All Ages by Sandra L. Beckett is today's highlighted book from Wayne State University Press's Fairy Tale Series.  I mentioned this book earlier this year, but didn't have it in hand to say much about it.  Now I do, thanks to a review copy. 

First, here's the official publisher description:

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.

And then let me say quite simply that if you are interested in Little Red Riding Hood, this is a must.  Beckett discusses more variants than I quite frankly realized existed.  Most of them are modern interpretations--the majority produced since 1970--so some of the same territory as appears in previous articles and books about LRRH materials appears here, but Beckett references it--her bibliography is quite extensive and helpful--and puts an academic and highly readable text in your hands.  This would be a dream for anyone writing a paper on LRRH, too. I picked it up to browse but the text kept grabbing me as I read more and more.

Here's the table of contents although this one isn't as informative as most, it quickly gives a summary of the different approaches one can take to such a popular and complex tale:

Introduction
Chapter 1: Cautionary Tales for Modern Riding Hoods
Chapter 2: Comtemporary Riding Hoods Come of Age
Chapter 3: The Wolf's Story
Chapter 4: The Wolf Within
Chapter 5: Running With the Wolves
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index

There are also several pages of color plates, many of images I have never seen before and may I say that is unusual and be believed?  I've been collecting fairy tale images for over twelve years now.  It's always rewarding to find so many I was unaware of. 

The usual suspects such as The Company of Wolves and Disney are represented here but so are many relatively unknown versions, over 130 according to another reviewer and my perusal of the index.  I have to sit down with this book and glean interpretations for the SurLaLune site lists someday soon.  I hope.  When I'm not busy editing books.  (Anyone have a cloning device?  I need three or four of me...) 

Overall, what I appreciated the most was the offering of extensive multiple interpretations of the this iconic fairy tale.  It resonates with so many--it's a top tale on SurLaLune, #3 in traffic--and has so many applications and scope for imagination. I am happy to read a book that explores those intricacies with deft prose and examples.

The Book of Fairytale Pop-up Board Games

The Book of Fairytale Pop-up Board Games by Sadie Fields and illustrated by Gini Wade is out of print but was a rather unusual concept for recent fairy tale pop up books. It's a collection of board games in a book. It was never officially released in the U.S. from what I can see. It is still available for ordering at Amazon.co.uk but I wonder if it is truly available since it is listed as not available with the publisher, Tango Books.

From the publisher: "Four fairytales to read in the attached 14-page book:  Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid, The Three Pigs and Cinderella.  Then four pop-up games to play--perfect for travelling!"

Now here are some images including a better cover:

Off Topic: Temple Grandin

This past Sunday, I sat down with my parents and John to watch Temple Grandin. I had bought the movie a few months ago after reading the great reviews but kept putting off watching it for various reasons, including thinking it would be too heavy for a depressing winter day. My curiosity finally peaked and despite the family's slight reluctance, we started it relatively late in the evening. I fully expected John and my mother to fall asleep by the halfway point as they are both notorious for letting movies lull them asleep on a quiet evening.

By the end of the movie--everyone was fully awake--we were all invigorated and discussing what we had just watched, staying up past our usual departure times. Everyone in the room enjoyed it and all of us have been discussing it since. It is easily one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. Yes, it deals with serious matters but it doesn't weigh you down with them, infuses hope and understanding and even some tolerance that inspires. It is wonderfully visual and conveys autism, especially Grandin's, in a lucid manner. Clare Danes deserved her Emmy and Golden Globe despite the cliche of portraying someone with a disability which Hollywood always rewards. Julia Ormond (so good to see her again) and Catherine O'Hara were also excellent along with David Straithairn whose role wasn't a push for him but he does it so well that I always love him, too.

So I wanted to recommend the movie to you. See it if you haven't. It's gotten some press, but not nearly enough since it was made for TV. It isn't rated but would merit somewhere between a PG and PG-13 for subject matter. After all, this is about slaughterhouses, too. Grandin is in part responsible for the better treatment of animals that will eventually become a food source. Read more about her here if you are interested, but don't let that subject matter scare you away as I almost did. It is discreet in handling those matters and doesn't try to shock or repel while still telling the story of someone's struggles with being different, very different, but with a big contribution to make to our world.

Here are some books by Grandin who is a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University.

  

 

Red Riding Hood Bonus Chapter

 

Apparently it took a few extra days than originally announced, but the bonus chapter to the movie novelization of Red Riding Hood is now available online at Bonus Chapter. I previously wrote about the book's delayed final chapter, assumably delayed not to ruin the movie and/or to encourage readers to see the movie opening weekend.

Now what I am not understanding too clearly is that another edition was officially released yesterday, Red Riding Hood, and I wonder if that one with the movie poster cover has the bonus chapter when the original one released a few months ago didn't, Red Riding Hood. It's all a bit confusing for this blogger who is too busy/lazy to find out.

Anyway, if you were curious in spoiling the movie, or have read the novel and forgot to find the chapter this week, I've provided the link and you can read more for yourselves. I skimmed it and all is definitely revealed and partly mirrors the Wolf and LRRH at Grandmother's house from the tale, but of course the Wolf is someone close to LRRH.

Recycling Red Riding Hood by Sandra L. Beckett

Recycling Red Riding Hood (Children's Literature and Culture) by Sandra L. Beckett is one of two books by Beckett about the fairy tale. Of all of the books I've been featuring for LRRH week, this is one I do not own and really can't tell you more about it. However, here is the standard description and table of contents information.

From the publisher:

Sandra Beckett's book explores the contemporary retelling of the Red Riding Hood tale in Western children's literature.

"Beckett's book is a welcome addition not only to fairy-tale scholarship, but also to the study of intertextuality and postmodernist play, whether thay play is textual or pictorial." Cathy Preston, Marvels & Tales

Table of Contents:

Series Editor’s Foreword
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 Reminiscence and Allusion
Chapter 2 Retelling Images
Chapter 3 Fractured Fairy Tale Games
Chapter 4 Upside Down, Inside Out, and Backwards
Chapter 5 Continuations and Post-LRRH Stories
Chapter 6 Metafictive Play
Chapter 7 Falry-Tale Salads
Chapter 8 Expansion
Bibliography
Index

Beauty & the Beast: A Pop-up Book of the Classic Fairy Tale by Robert Sabuda

Beauty & the Beast: A Pop-up Book of the Classic Fairy Tale by Robert Sabuda is a book I gushed about when it was released last year, but I never came back and shared more interior images of the book. Picture book month/ pop-up week is a perfect time to finally do so, don't you think? I won't bother with the description this time. Let's just go right to the pictures, shall we?

Now which fairy tale do you wish Sabuda or Reinhart or both would create next for us in pop-up format? If they are media savvy, Snow White is probably the best bet with all the movies upcoming, but I'd be happy with just about any they imagined. I can imagine paper engineering fun with Frog Prince (ball in water, the transformation), Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel to name a few.

LRRH Week: Fine Art

by William Merritt Chase

As I have said a hundred times here already, I was raised visiting art museums with my art historian mother. The impressing worked and her oldest duckling--me--goes to museums all the time now as an adult. One of the minor trends that fascinates me is the plethora of paintings, especially from the 1800s, that are either family portraits or more overt references to Little Red Riding Hood with the little red hood, hat or cap. There is no doubt this tale was popular and either requested by the family or a source of inspiration for the artist or both.

So today I offer just a sampling of the ones I've seen--and remember--and could gather images of. There are more. Unfortunately, they are hard to find without outright Red Riding Hood titles (many of these have such) or if I was unable to snap a picture of them in the museums which is usually a 50/50 opportunity according to the museum rights.

And while you are looking, notice that almost all of them incorporate a basket, too.

by John Everett Millais

by Edward Frederick Brewtnall

by John Deffett Francis

by Richard Hermann Eschke

by Sir Thomas Lawrence

by Gari Melchers

by William Christian Symons

by George Frederic Watts

by Isabel Oakley Naftel

by James Sant

by Harriet Backer

by William M. Spittle