Posting something here later.

Yet again, I must think of something to post. I definitely need some new ideas.

After completing Alice in Wonderland, I have realized that I really don't enjoy all fantasy books as much as I thought. While the book was a nice break from reality, I found it quite difficult to follow because it skipped around so much and really had no major goal. I could not really connect to the story because everything was so far out of the realm of reality, and Carroll did not spend much time in long descriptions to allow me to travel their with Alice. However, I did very much enjoy the chapter discussing the education under the sea. The parallels with the traditional school subjects were extremely fun to find and the entire chapter was a wonderful satire on the education system of today. It was difficult to understand the satire in many of the poems and songs because I had not grown up hearing these verses.

I recently re-read A Great Day for Up by Dr. Seuss. The basic plot talks about all of the various ways one can get "up." It is written as an extended rhyming poem with words that small children would have no problem understanding (except maybe Mt. Dill-ma-dilts). Dr. Seuss shows that there are many different types of up (i.e. the sun comes up, we get up in the morning, we can go up on stilts, and we can open up our eyes). Quentin Blake was the illustrator for this book and he used a wide range of bright colors which make the pictures almost more interesting than the actual words. I believe the novelty of this book lies in its varied uses of the word up, the simple words for the beginning reader, and the lovely pictures that bring the story alive.

I have noticed that I have been reading a lot of Dr. Seuss for outside readings. I have read more than I have posted about, but I have decided it best if I don't make all of my outside books about Dr. Seuss books. As a beginning reader, I loved the Dr. Seuss books because they allowed me to read actual books with my limited vocabulary. They were the first books I was able to read, and I thus read them over and over again. I will always appreciate them for helping me learn to read.
Because these books have such a special place in my heart, I decided to look up some more information about the Dr. Seuss franchise, and the first website I found was absolutely amazing. I found www.seussville.com. This appears to be the official Dr. Seuss website for children. It contains games for kids (of which I played several) that help build their memory, concentration, and hand eye coordination. The website also contains an extended biography of Dr. Seuss that is quite interesting.
I highly recommend this website to anyone interested in learning about Dr. Seuss or learning more about his books.

When am I going to think of new post ideas?

I very much enjoy the fantasy literature found in many children's books. I think one of the greatest aspects of this genre is the escape from the real world. This is especially useful for those children who are growing up in a troubled environment.

Children who have real world problems (i.e. low-income, racial inequality, physical, mental and sexual abuse, and other similar problems) can read a realistic fiction book and find many of the same problems in these books. This reading offers little escape from their real problems, and will often only elevate their awareness of their problems. However, when they enter into fantasy worlds, the problems become more about fighting dragons and evil spirits which are not real world problems, and thus allow the children the escape that they so desperately desire.

Also, fantasy books begin rotating the gears of a child's imagination. The more a child is allowed to delve into his/her imagination, the more likely the child will be to accept and understand intellectual concepts learned in school. Also, these children can often become great artists and writers.

I plan to encourage my children to read fantasy beginning at a very young age.

I have read Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. This was my all-time favorite children's picture book when I was a child. I made my parents read the story to me every night. I believe the most interesting part of the book was not the story itself, but it was the illustrations. The illustrator, Clement Herd, won several awards for the beautiful scenes found on every page of the bedtime story.

The basic storyline of the book points out the various objects in the child's bedroom, and then says goodnight to each of the objects previously pointed out. As a child, I thoroughly enjoyed pointing out each of the mentioned objects (often hidden in the complex scenes). The clock in the bedroom progressively becomes later and later as the story goes on, and a mouse appears in each of the pictures. The whole story can be found at http://www.geocities.com/burgerzking/moon.html, but this site only gives the story, and none of the beautiful pictures can be seen with the words.

After finshing Ever After, I wanted to point out another Cinderella storyline found within the movie. The obvious Cinderella character is Danielle who has lost her father and been forced to live with a cruel stepmother and two stepsisters. However, I believe that another of the characters can be seen as a Cinderella character.

Danielle's stepsister, Jacqueline, carries many of the Cinderella characteristics. She is a kind girl (especially in comparison with her older sister), she is treated cruelly by her mother, and she is often forced into servitude in Danielle's absence. While she is treated better than Danielle, she is not treated well all the time, and when Danielle runs off with the prince for the day, she is even forced to fetch things for her mother and sister. Also, after Danielle is beaten, Jacqueline is the one who is there to comfort her and tend to her wounds. Her mother is rude to her and only sees her as a fat girl who is good for nothing but saying stupid things and eating all of the food in the house. However, in the end, she also finds her prince. The movie alludes to the fact that she becomes romantically involved with one of the courtiers (her "prince"), and she is saved from the servitude that her mother and sister face.

I thought this was a beautiful parallel to the story within the bigger Cinderella story.

I have decided to use this post as a study guide for the first exam. These notes are not written in correct grammar and sentence structure, but they are for my own notes. Here is a breakdown and summary of all of the Tatar fairy tales we have discussed:

Little Red Riding Hood:

The growth of LRRH has shown her to transition from a strong girl who could take care of herself to a weak girl who must be saved by others.

The Story of Grandmother (told by Louis and Francois Briffault) – The wolf has the child eat her grandmother. The girl tricks the wolf and finds her escape when she says she needs to relieve herself outside. Reference to pins and needles
Little Red Riding Hood (Charles Perrault) – story written for children and adults in which a helpless girl enables her own rape. This story changed LRRH forever because she no longer defeated the wolf. Perrault presents a moral message portraying her demise as her own fault.
Little Red Cap (Brothers Grimm) – The one I knew growing up. The wolf ate granny and LRRH, but a hunter comes and saves them and kills the wolf by filling his stomach with heavy stones. This LRRH teaches children that they should always obey or be subjected to death. The hunter calls the wolf “you old sinner.” An obedience tale
The Little Girl and the Wolf (James Thurber) – a short story that shows an intelligent Red only getting 25 feet from the bed and knowing the wolf wasn’t granny. She shoots the wolf and the moral is given: It is not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be.
The False Grandmother (Italo Calvino) – The little girl gives items to obstacles on her way to granny’s house and is thus allowed to pass them. She does not eat her grandmother and stalls for time. The ogress allows Red to relieve herself outside and then chases Red. The ogress cannot get past the obstacles and dies in the river. She is a planner and thinks on her feet.
Goldflower and the Bear (Chiang Mi) – Goldflower saves herself and her brother by tricking the bear to go outside and open its mouth to allow spears to kill it. This Red is tough, smart and takes care of what needs to be done.
Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf (Roald Dahl) –granny, the wolf, and LRRH know the traditional tale and notice when they deviate from it. At the end, Red whipped a pistol from her knickers and shot the wolf dead. She ended up with a lovely furry wolfskin coat.
The Three Little Pigs (Roald Dahl) – An extension of LRRHATW mixed with the three little pigs. The last pig calls Red and Red kills the wolf. Then Red turns and kills the pig as well and makes a pigskin travelling case.

Snow White:

SW has a stable core identified by 9 episodes: origin (birth of the heroine), jealousy, expulsion, adoption, renewed jealousy, death, exhibition, resuscitation, and resolution. It is the reflection of a young woman’s development. Most critics point to the strong mother/daughter conflicts.

The Young Slave (Giambattista Basile) – 1st recorded story of SW. SW was left in the coffin to her uncle and his wife. The wife became curious and found the girl and became jealous of her b/c she thought she was sleeping with her husband. SW (Lisa) is somewhat magical and is a stronger character than most. She affects her own reward for being beautiful and as an apology from her uncle. The reward is marrying the prince.
Snow White (Brothers Grimm) – The story we all know. The stepmother used witchcraft to change her appearances and create poisonous objects, and she was jealous of SW’s beauty. She wanted to eat the heart and lung of SW when she was left in the woods thus ingesting her beauty. SW cooks and cleans all the time, and she is too dumb to stop the stepmother from killing her. She is pretty, naïve, and passive.
Lasair Gheug, the King of Ireland’s Daughter (Scottish tale) – The stepmother is jealous over an inheritance and the mirror is switched out for a fish. The conflict then turns to one over beauty. The old hag tells the stepmother to kill things the father loves and finally he takes SW out and cuts off three of her fingers (and she says it doesn’t hurt because he is the one doing the cutting). SW saves the prince by releasing the enchantment on his cat form. The stepmother found out she was still alive and sent her a gift that would kill her. SW’s husband locks her in a coffin and eventually remarries. The new wife finds her, and SW has the new wife marry her father. SW got around the oath by getting on a wild boar’s back and not baptizing her three children.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Anne Sexton) – SW is dumb and passive and only worthwhile because she is a virgin. This one used a bit more satire and seemed to be a poetry and shortened version of the Grimm’s SW.

Hansel and Gretel:

This fairy tale is shaped by food. The evilness in these stories is often women: the stepmother at home and the witch in the forest. This children triumph over the adults which is a message for the lower class to let them know that they can rise above their status. The father is typically reunited with his children while the stepmothers are often killed or divorced.

Hansel and Gretel (Brothers Grimm) – The typical story where Hansel starts out as the hero in taking the breadcrumbs but Gretel ultimately saves them both from the evil woman in the house. In this story, many references to God are made which turns this tale into a Christian moral story. The wife had died and they lived happily ever after with their father.
The Juniper Tree (Brothers Grimm) – The father’s son was killed by the stepmother and the little girl was made to believe she slapped his head off. The sister buried the bones under the juniper tree and the brother is reincarnated into a bird. When the bird sings outside of the house, it makes the father and sister happy but the mother becomes terrified. She is killed and the boy is brought back to life. This story also makes references to goodness and God (the devil got hold of her).
The Rose Tree (Joseph Jacobs) – The same as the Juniper Tree but this time it is a little girl that dies and the brother buries her. This time the mother dies, but the girl is not brought back to life.
Little Thumbling (Charles Perrault) – The youngest of seven boys (and the smallest) is the hero in this story. He outsmarts the ogre to save his brothers and even gain his family wealth so that they no longer have to worry about starving. It also ends with him having only taken the boots and getting money as a courier in which lovers pay a lot and wives pay little.
Pippety Pew (Norah and William Montgomerie) – Much like the juniper tree in that the little boy was killed because the wife had tasted too much of the rabbit and ate it all. The boy as a dove killed the wife and the father and daughter lived happily ever after.
Molly Whuppie (Joseph Jacobs) – Much like Tom Thumbling, the characters were girls instead of boys. Again, the youngest saves the three daughters. This time, she is sent on several quests after rescuing the sisters, and each time a sister is given a husband as a reward. In the end, Molly has to steal the giant’s sword, the giant’s purse, and the giant’s ring to get her prince of a husband.

Cinderella:

Two main tales differentiated by the influence of the father. The catskin tales stem from a misplaced lust of the father and the Cinderella tales are from an absent father and a cruel stepmother. In the catskin tales you have: a lustful father, incest, voluntary “ugliness”, active heroine, takes place out of the home, mothers are dead, and the fathers repent and are forgiven. In Cinderella you have: a stepmother, hatred/domestic slavery, “ugliness” forced upon her, passive, absent or powerless fathers, rescue by a prince, and mothers and stepsisters are not reconciled.

Yeh-hsien (Chinese Cinderella) – girl loved the fish, but the stepmother killed and cooked it. The fish bones granted any wish Cinderella wanted, and she went to the festival where the king fell in love with her. She lost her shoe and he found her because of it. He became greedy with the fish bones and thus lost them.
Donkeyskin (Charles Perrault) – The original mother tells the husband to marry only the girl who is more beautiful, more accomplished, and wiser than she was. He only finds his daughter, and she runs away out of fear of marrying her father. Her godmother suggested she have her father make her two dresses and kill the magical goat. He does, and she runs away with the donkeyskin as a disguise. She found work as a scullery maid and would often try on her dresses. One day the prince spied on and found her, and he wanted to make her his wife. Donkeyskin put her ring in the prince’s cake and he set out to find her. They married, and she forgave her father.
Cinderella (Brothers Grimm) – The stepmother made her a servant and made her lie in the ashes. When the father went to town, she only wanted a branch from the tree that brushed his hat. She planted the sprig on her mother’s grave and it grew into a tree where a dove sat. The dove was the fairy godmother who gave her dresses to go to the ball in. The shoe was lost, and each of the stepsisters cut off parts of their feet to fit into the shoe. Cinderella married the prince and the mother and sisters got their eyes pecked out.
Catskin (Joseph Jacobs) – She was going to have to marry a rough old man so she ran away to eventually work as a scullion. She had hidden her dresses and went to the ball dressed in them. The young lord wanted to find out about her, and she gave him riddles. Catskin saved him because he wouldn’t eat without marrying her. The father was forgiven for trying to sell her off.
The Story of the Black Cow (Alice Elizabeth Dracott) – the male version of Cinderella. The boy did not have a loving home, but he loved a cow that would give him sweets. When the stepmother found out, she was going to kill the cow so the cow and the boy ran away together. The boy wished to be made of gold, and this caught the eye of the princess who eventually married him.
Cinderella (Lin Lan) – Beauty and pock face were stepsisters. One of her shoes slipped off and she asked three passersby to pick it up. She finally married the scholar and they were going to live happily ever after. Pock Face pushed Beauty down the well and she and her mother told the scholar that Beauty had smallpox. Then Pock Face pretended to be Beauty and went back to the scholar. Beauty was transformed into a sparrow, then bamboo shoots, then a bed, and finally her shadow convinced an old woman to sell a bag to her husband so that she could tell Beauty’s story. Beauty killed the stepsister and sent her roasted bones back to her mother.
The Princess in the Suit of Leather (Egyptian folktale) – The mother made her husband promise not to marry again unless the woman could fit her anklet. The princess was the only one on which it fit, so she ran away to a hide tanner who made a suit of leather for her. She began working for a queen. She followed the household to a ball and sprinkled sequins to cause a divergence. The queen suggested that the prince find the woman and marry her. He waited for her, and she pulled off his ring in her haste. She baked it into a cake and he knew who she was. They were married, and she forgave her father who gave half of his kingdom to her.

We are currently watching Ever After in class, and I cannot wait to finish the movie. The design and set of the movie are absolutely exquisite and I cannot tear my eyes from the beautifully designed costumes. I was so captivated by the plot that I could not leave the classroom until the video was turned off (5 minutes after class was supposed to be let out). I have seen the movie previously, but it has been many years since my last viewing of it. I believe I am enjoying it so much more now because we have completed several other Cinderella stories, and this one is a great twist on the traditional story.

In this story, the father is not just a passive man who allows bad things to happen to his daughter, but he is a kind, loving, and doting father who is taken too early in life by a sudden heart attack. The cruelty of the stepmother and stepsisters is parallels the traditional Cinderella stories, and her mannerisms are much like that of the Ella Enchanted character I came to love. Unfortunately for me, I do not seem to remember how the movie ends, and I thus cannot wait to attend class tomorrow and learn the rest of the story.

I recently went back and reread one of my all time favorite children's picture books: Green Eggs and Ham. The plot of the story is obviously simple, but a few nuances of the book were quite surprising this time around.

In Green Eggs and Ham, Sam-I-Am attempts to get the other character to taste the green eggs and ham. His friend will not try the dish no matter what Sam-I-Am does. Sam-I-Am asks his friend to try the dish with a mouse, in a house, with a fox, in a box, in a car, in a tree, on a train, in the dark, with a goat and on a boat. Finally, he tries the green eggs and ham, and of course, finds that he actually enjoys the dish.

I believe this book is supposed to teach children a lesson about trying new things that they might not otherwise try. I know that several children after having read this book went out and tried green eggs and ham. As a child, I did not know what green eggs and ham were, and they actually made me think that the meat and eggs were rotten. However, I now know that they are actually green because of an addition of spinach and pesto sauce.

The illustrations in this book, much like Dr. Seuss' other books, are exquisite. The characters are not life-like people, but they are figures that are interesting and different. The illustrator also took the liberty of adding many great contraptions to the book such as the extendable arm on which to present the green eggs and ham.

I also decided to find out a little bit more about the book and was surprised to learn that Dr. Seuss wrote this book using only 50 words. All but one of the words is monosyllabic, and they are almost all of Germanic origin. The 50 words used in the book are as follows: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you. It is said that Dr. Seuss' publisher bet him that he could not write a book in 50 words or less, and Dr. Seuss proved him wrong!

I was grateful for the opportunity to reintroduce myself to this book, and enjoyed every second of it!

Recently, I have reintroduced myself to my favorite forms of children's literature: children's music. While we have read about many stories that have been changed from their original forms to the more child appropriate versions we know today, songs are often created solely for children. Just listening to the music for a few hours has automatically put me in an extremely happy mood. The songs are almost always upbeat, they often teach a lesson (either moral or educational), and they generally bring back positive memories of a more peaceful time in my life.

A really great website listing some of the most popular and favorite children's songs is as follows:
http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/music.htm.

My favorite children's songs were often the Disney songs from the fairy tale remakes. While they have little to do with the original fairy tale forms, they are enchanting songs for small children (and even 22 year old college students).

I read a study that showed that children who listened to music matured into more intelligent young adults and did better in school. The article in Child Neuropsychology showed that children who listened to music when they were young were more musically inclined and more expressive. These are often measurements of intelligence, and thus these children appear to become more intelligent than their peers who do not regularly listen to music as children.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a714015723~db=all

Today I watched the Ella Enchanted movie, and I found that I was sorely disappointed after having read the book. Several aspects of the story were changed, and these changes seemed to be frivolous. First of all, Ella's relationship with her father was one of a loving father who truly cared for his daughter. This is completely contradictory to the father of the book who would readily sell his daughter if given the right price. I assume the producers made this change to appeal to a young audience who would be troubled by an unkind father. However, I feel that the strained relationship is part of what gave Ella her character.

Another difference was that all of the creatures in the land spoke the same language. The book did a much better job by portraying various languages for each of the magical creatures. Without the presence of the numerous languages, Ella was unable to show how smart and cunning she truly was. One of her gifts was the ability to quickly adapt to communicate with all of the creatures in the land. This aspect of Ella's character was completely removed when the movie was produced.

Next, Lucinda never realized the negative aspects to big magic. In the book it was a relief to finally see Lucinda cease her big magic. However, it seems that Lucinda's character was denied a shift in dynamics when her character was left in one dimension and unchanging.

Mandy played a much smaller role in the movie than she had done in the book. In the book, Mandy had been a character Ella could always rely on, but she was often absence in the book. I missed the motherly aspect Mandy had lent Ella.

Also, small details were removed throughout the movie that could have added so much in such short times. The movie never portrayed Ella's childhood friend learning of Ella's curse and using it against her. The movie said nothing of Ella's stay in the finishing school, where much of her turmoil actually began. The movie showed no change in Olive's character whereas the book had illustrated a progression from the naive almost-friend to the demanding step-sister. The movie also completely ignored the glass slippers after Ella stole them. This upsetting change completely removed the budding relationship formed by Ella and Char, and it removed the significance of the glass slippers as the Cinderella tie. All aspects of the "typical" Cinderella story (i.e. the pumpkin carriage, the glass slippers, the masquerade ball, etc) were gone in the final production of the movie.

Finally, the most important change was the change to Ella herself. In the book, she was portrayed as an incredibly strong, selfless, fun, and rebellious young woman. However, in the book, she showed a small bit of each of these traits, but they were greatly diminished. After the many changes enacted on the original Ella, much of her admirable and lovable character was lost in translation.

I definitely prefer the book to the movie, and I would love to read the book again while I would be more hesitant to watch the movie again.

I decided to put some more variety into my web journal, and I was able to find a really neat website that lists children's literature from the 17th to the 20th century. The author's list was not particularly useful because many of the stories (like Cinderella) are entered under unexpected authors, and it is very hard to find the story you are looking for. However, the list of titles was a ton of fun to look at. Each story comes with a full citation and a table of contents. I found several stories that I had forgotten about since I have gotten older. If anyone is curious, the website can be found at http://palmm.fcla.edu/juv/juvTitleList.html (which is the list by title)

The bibliography for this website would be as follows:

Cael, Zita, John Ingram, Erich Kesse, and Rita Smith. "Title List." Literature for Children: a State University System of Florida PALMM Project. 13 June 2001. The University of Florida State System. 6 Feb. 2008 .

Prompt question:

To you, what seem to be the most significant changes that Levine has made to the Cinderella tale and character in Ella Enchanted? Explain.

Prompt answer:
Levine has made several different changes to the traditional Cinderella story. First of all, this Cinderella is a much stronger woman who attempts to change her future for herself. Unfortunately, she is bound by a curse, and it is only broken when she saves the prince. Also, the stepsisters seem to have a much stronger negative role in this story. It is Hattie who originally makes Ella's life miserable. I was also fascinated by Ella's incredible love and aptitude for the various languages of her world. This skill invokes the idea of a woman who was born to be queen; one who is ready to speak to every person in her land. Levine completely redefined the typically weak, naive, and passive Cinderella into a modern, smart, and active princess.

The tale as a whole was also transformed into a magical and interesting adventure rather than the lack-luster account of a naive slave girl typical of the original Cinderella tales.