Friday Nail Polish Giveaway Winner Week 3

We have our third week's winner of the Fairy Tale Nail Polish Giveaway (read more here). Using a random number selector, Heater became our second winner. She won a bottle of BB Couture Kiss of True Love.

We have only one more Friday left in August and one more bottle of polish to giveaway this month. Next week will be a bottle of Enchanted Forest by Orly. All who have already entered and not won are still entered for the rest of the month. The contest machine will continue to accept new entries until the end of the contest, too.

Congratulations to Olivia (this week's winner), Sprite (1st week's winner), Heather (2nd week's winner) and bonne chance to everyone else!

And thanks again to Kim at Overall Beauty for her donation to SurLaLune!

And, yes, I have something completely different as a giveaway next month, just in time for many of you to get back into the swing of the academic season. I'll make the announcement next week so stay tuned.

Ponyo [Gake no ue no Ponyo] by Miyazaki

Thanks to several readers' comments and emails, I am now aware that Ponyo, released in the U.S. this past weekend by Disney (official release site here), is based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid.

Here's the description from Amazon which I found to be the best after reading several articles.

Ponyo confirms Academy Award®-winning director Hayao Miyazaki's reputation as one of the most imaginative filmmakers working today. Loosely based on Hans Christian Anderson's "The Little Mermaid," Ponyo is a magical celebration of innocent love and the fragile beauty of the natural world. The daughter of the sea goddess Gran Mamare (voiced by Cate Blanchett) and the alchemist Fujimoto (Liam Neeson), Ponyo (Noah Cyrus) begins life as an adventurous little goldfish. Chafing at her father's restrictions, she goes in search of adventure and meets Sosuke (Frankie Jonas), a good-natured 5-year-old who lives by the sea. Sosuke adopts Ponyo and quickly wins her heart. Fujimoto uses magic to bring her back, but Ponyo's love for Sosuke proves stronger than his elixirs. She transforms herself into a human girl and returns to him during a spectacular storm at sea, but her metamorphosis upsets the balance of nature, precipitating a crisis only Gran Mamare can resolve. Ponyo contains fantastic moments that suggest dreams-- and reassert the power of hand-drawn animation to create memorable fantasies: No effects-laden Hollywood feature can match the wonder of Ponyo running along the tops of crashing waves on her way back to Sosuke. Ponyo is closer in tone to My Neighbor Totoro than Spirited Away or Howl's Moving Castle, and will appeal to audiences of all ages, including small children. The #1 film in Japan in 2008, Ponyo earned more than ¥14.9 billion (over US$155 million) to become the 8th highest grossing film in Japanese history.

I also enjoyed these articles: The appeal of Ponyo, Ponyo: A Role Model For Kids With Autism? and Michiyo Yasuda makes the story colorful.

Overall, the reviews--to which I decided not to link--are positive, even glowing. However, the movie barely made the top ten in sales last weekend. I know this was the weekend for final back to school shopping for some--school resumed in my area last week--but other parts of the world are still enjoying summer break. Sounds like this movie would be a great last fling in a dark, cool theatre away from the summer heat. I know I'm curious to see the movie and compare it with the original and Disney's The Little Mermaid, too.

Red hair, it appears, has become ubiquitous to the mermaid character. It has not always been so. Look at the Little Mermaid Illustration Gallery to see for yourself.

Let's Have a Parade

There are countless small community events around the world with fairy tale themes and I have posted on a few in the past. This one charmed me so I thought I'd share it as an extra today. Here's the article link: Gurnee Days parade has 'cool theme': Fairy tales, folklore paint hometown cavalcade. Gurnee is a suburb of Chicago in case you didn't know.

Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White, Peter Pan and sugar plum fairies were sighted Sunday afternoon. It wasn't a fairy tale convention; it was community members making the most of the "fairy tales and folklore" theme in the Gurnee Days parade.

Now that's a fun theme for a parade, if I say so myself. I'm biased, of course, but it sounds like fun was had by all involved.

Alexander Rybak and His Fairytale

I'm busy finishing the next SurLaLune Fairy Tales ebook release, so time is short and this will be quick. Besides, this month fairy tale news is rather slow and while I have plenty in my files to share, I decided to post this quick and easy entry. And also, perhaps, torture you with an earworm. The very earworm that has been haunting me for a few days.

Now to much of Europe this is very old news now, but in the U.S. not many people are aware of Eurovision and its over 40 year tradition of a competition that is rather like mashing up American Idol and the Olympics into a song contest between various countries.

This year's winner of Eurovision Song Contest 2009, by a large margin, was Norway's Alexander Rybak with the song he wrote and performed, Fairytale. The lyrics are in English and not complicated, but they lightly reference fairy tale themes, such as love and curses. These are not deep, life-pondering lyrics. However, they are catchy and helped along by a tune inspired by traditional Norwegian folk music. (I'm a quarter Norwegian, so that's something to be fond of for me personally.)

Anyway, the song has been popular all summer in many places outside the U.S. It has been a top result on Google for general "fairy tale" searches, so you may have seen it already. I did and kept going back and investigating a little more each time. Now it's stuck in my head.

And once again, fairy tales, specific or generic, are part of the world's experience and part of pop culture.

Fairy Tales Reimagined: Essays on New Retellings

I recently received a review copy of a new release from McFarland, their third fairy tale related release in recent years after Folktales Retold: A Critical Overview of Stories Updated for Children and Grimm Pictures: Fairy Tale Archetypes in Eight Horror and Suspense Films.

The new book is Fairy Tales Reimagined: Essays on New Retellings edited by Susan Redington Bobby. To put it simply, this is the type of book students are always seeking when they are researching their own papers. I receive many emails and read many posts from students needing more articles about modern retellings of fairy tales, some very desperate for anything to help them write about the topics they are choosing. This book helps to fill the large gap--at least a little--with analysis of works by Neil Gaiman, Emma Donoghue, Jane Yolen, Pegg Kerr, Gregory Maguire, and Shannon Hale among others. Since the table of contents for the book is virtually impossible to find--and once again I find reading a table of contents more helpful with these collections than critical reviews--I am including one below.

While I found all the essays compelling, I was most impressed with the wide range of topics provided. There is also an extensive--and thus very helpful--index and complete bibliography. Not only does this book provide strong scholarship and topics, it provides an easy jumping point to other sources. It should be included in any university library where classes in folklore, fairy tales and modern literature are offered. Articles like these are usually only available in journals, some often hard to find for the average student.

Table of Contents

Foreword: The Affect of Fairy Tales
KATE BERNHEIMER

Introduction: Authentic Voices in Contemporary Fairy Tales
SUSAN REDINGTON BOBBY

Redefining Gender and Sexuality

Queering the Fairy Tale Canon: Emma Donoghue’s Kissing the Witch
MARTINE HENNARD DE LA ROCHERE

Contemporary Women Poets and the Fairy Tale
CHRISTA MASTRANGELO JOYCE

Struggling Sisters and Failing Spells: Re-engendering Fairy Tale Heroism in Peg Kerr’s The Wild Swans
BETHANY JOY BEAR

Found Girls: J.M. Barrie’s Peter & Wendy and Jane Yolen’s “Lost Girls”
JOANNE CAMPBELL TIDWELL

Inventions and Transformations: Imagining New Worlds in the Stories of Neil Gaiman
MATHILDA SLABBERT

Rewriting Narrative Forms

“And the Princess, Telling the Story”: A.S. Byatt’s Sell-Reflexive Fairy Stories
JEFFREY K. GIBSON

Between Wake and Sleep: Robert Coover’s Briar Rose, A Playful Reawakening of The Sleeping Beauty
MARIE C. BOUCHET

Winterson’s Wonderland: The PowerBook as a Postmodern Re-Vision of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Books
MAUREEN TORPEY

“I Think You Are Not Telling Me All of This Story”: Storytelling, Fate, and Self-Determination in Robin McKinley’s Folktale Revisions
AMIE A. DOUGHTY

Remembering Trauma and Dystopia

The Complete Tales of Kate Bernheimer: Postmodern Fairytales in a Dystopian World
HELEN PILINOVSKY

The Fairy Tale as Allegory for the Holocaust: Representing the Unrepresentable in Yolen’s Briar Rose and Murphy’s Hansel and Gretel
MARGARETE J. LANDWEHR

“This Gospel of My Hell”: The Narration of Violence in Gaétan Soucy’s The Little Girl Who Was Too Pond of Matches
LAUREN CHOPLIN

Revolutionizing Culture and Politics

Negotiating Wartime Masculinity in Bill Willingham’s Fables
MARK C. Hii

Philip Pullman’s I Was a Rat! and the Fairy-Tale Retelling as Instrument of Social Criticism
VANESSA JOOSEN

The Wicked Witch of the West: Terrorist? Rewriting Evil in Gregory Maguire’s Wicked
CHRISTOPHER ROMAN

Embracing Equality: Class Reversals and Social Reform in Shannon Hale’s The Goose Girl and Princess Academy
SUSAN REDINGTON BOBBY

Comprehensive Bibliography
About the Contributors
Index

Hans Christian Andersen Museum in Solvang, CA

About eight years ago, while living in California, John and I were encouraged by several friends to go visit Solvang, CA. We finally used a Memorial Day holiday weekend to take an overnight trip and ended up eating some great food (best grilled artichokes I've ever eaten) and enjoying a change of pace not too far from home at that time.

I also discovered a tiny Hans Christian Andersen Museum that added an extra level of fun for me as we spent an hour inside, exploring the displays. Most of the displays are of his books from around the world, with beautiful illustrations. There's also photos and other items that give a charming overview of Andersen's life and work.

This little museum was definitely a highlight of the trip for me and I'm not a big HCA fan in comparison to other fairy tale collectors and authors. However, this little museum and then Andersen's bicentennial birthday in 2005 inspired me to add more of his tales to the SurLaLune main site.

There is also a Hans Christian Andersen Park with a statue of the author in the town.

Now most people don't know about Solvang, so I'll add a little from one of the many websites here, this time the City of Solvang site here:

Solvang (Danish for 'sunny field') is a beautiful little city nestled in the Santa Ynez Valley of California. Founded in 1911 by a small group of Danish teachers, Solvang now is a diverse, modern city, with fine restaurants, lovely shops and outstanding activities to enchant young and old alike.

There are Danish festivals, quiet tree lined streets, horse drawn wagons, Hans Christian Andersen Park, windmills, Danish pastries and dozens of quaint shops to explore. Solvang was incorporated as a city on May 1, 1985 and now has a population of approximately 5,555.

The historical town is entertaining and yes, touristy, but not annoyingly so. We enjoyed exploring the shops and getting a little taste of Denmark--especially with the food--without wandering too far from home.

The Fairy Tale That Gripped Russia

Discovered this article--The fairy tale that gripped Russia by Susan Roberts--and almost didn't click on it since it was on The Financial Times website. How pertinent could that be, I thought?

More than I first imagined. The article discusses a somewhat new trend in Russia--the creation of eco-settlements and living 'green' in general--partly fueled by new books written like traditional fairy tales. Richards does a wonderful job of describing the books and the trend and even includes a short excerpt of one of the books.

I had just flown into Moscow from London. Over supper my friend Sasha told me about an “eco-settlement” near his dacha. “There are about 200 of them – all inspired by this sort of modern fairy tale,” he said, handing me a book. On the cover a voluptuous blonde was rearing her head against a wild sky. The books had become something of a sensation, Sasha said. They’d sold 11 million copies and been translated into 20 languages. Outside the open window of the tall block the swifts were screeching softly as they dived through the evening air. Back in London I’d have laughed and told Sasha to pull the other one – but this was Russia and you can never be quite sure about these things.

Sasha said he had a friend who would show me an eco-settlement. So, to find out more, I took the book to bed. Crudely written, in a Mills-&-Boon-meets-Carlos-Castaneda way, it was a fable about a man who, while trading along the rivers of northern Siberia, encounters Anastasia, a young beauty living in the forest. The survivor of an ancient culture, Anastasia is endowed with extraordinary powers, ranging from bionic vision to teleportation. She bears his child. (As an ex-film producer, I was highly amused as this modest romance lurched into blockbuster-movie mode.) For, of course, it turns out that Anastasia is engaged in an epic battle to rescue mankind from the domination of “the priests” who have been working covertly for centuries to sever the link between man and the divine intelligence governing the universe ... Well, to cut a long fairy tale short, the man becomes Anastasia’s knight, and carries her message out to the world: the key to liberation lies through each person, each family, rebuilding their lost connection to the natural world.

So be it the retooling of old folklore or the creation of something new to inspire current generations, this sensation is fascinating on many levels. Even the illustration is reminiscent of Ivan Biliban's work, in a way tying the glorious elements of Russian's past with the present. Very clever marketing if nothing else.