Watch an Opera: Little Red's Most Unusual Day: Activities During Corona

LITTLE RED’S

MOST UNUSUAL DAY

Created by John Davies and shared with permission

Music by Offenbach and Rossini

The Nashville Opera intended to tour Nashville, TN area schools with performances of Little Red's Most Unusual Day this spring. Since those plans had to be cancelled thanks to Corona, the Nashville Opera has shared a video of the performance online instead. They also have a Story Board, a Mini Guide and Coloring Pages to accompany the performance video on their Little Red's Most Unusual Day page.

I live in the Nashville area and am thrilled to offer a little bit of fairy tale related art from one of my local arts organizations!

Here's the video embedded:

Bargain Ebook: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden is on sale for $1.99 in ebook format.

Book description:

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A magical debut novel for readers of Naomi Novik’s Uprooted, Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, and Neil Gaiman’s myth-rich fantasies, The Bear and the Nightingale spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular talent with a gorgeous voice.

At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn’t mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.

After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa’s stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.

As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse’s most frightening tales.

Praise for The Bear and the Nightingale

“Vasya [is] a clever, stalwart girl determined to forge her own path in a time when women had few choices.”—The Christian Science Monitor

“Stunning . . . will enchant readers from the first page. . . . with an irresistible heroine who wants only to be free of the bonds placed on her gender and claim her own fate.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Utterly bewitching . . . a lush narrative . . . an immersive, earthy story of folk magic, faith, and hubris, peopled with vivid, dynamic characters, particularly clever, brave Vasya, who outsmarts men and demons alike to save her family.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Arden’s supple, sumptuous first novel transports the reader to a version of medieval Russia where history and myth coexist.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

SurLaLune's Small Print:

As an Amazon Associate, the SurLaLune Fairy Tale site earns a percentage from qualifying purchases as a referral incentive which helps support the site. Your cost does not increase by using the links on this site. Read SurLaLune's Privacy Policy here.

Volunteer Proofreading for SurLaLune Tales Database: Activities During Corona

So I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was thinking of ways to provide volunteer opportunities during this time of Corona Isolation.

For many of us, the most important thing we can do right now is stay home and practice social distancing. For those of you looking for a way to do volunteer work, this is one opportunity.

The new version of SurLaLune Fairy Tales site--which is still in beta and hasn't officially launched yet--has a new tales database under construction. The database is a repository of tales from all around the world, classified by ATU number or Migratory Legend number when possible. Currently, the database has over 135 books in it, a few still under construction, and roughly 5,000 tales already input. You can see the database under construction at http://dev.surlalunefairytales.com/books.php.

Yes, that's a lot, but it doesn't come near to what is available to make SurLaLune an even more robust resource, free to readers around the world. But it takes time to proofread the many books and tales before they can be entered. Books published 1924 or earlier are now in the public domain in the U.S. and qualify for entry. Many have been scanned as images and can be found in online repositories like Google Books and the Internet Archive.

This week--or longer if necessary--I am asking for volunteers to help proofread copy for Fairy Tales from South Africa by Mrs. E. J. Bourhill and Mrs. J. B. Drake, first published in 1908. Digitized copies of the books are available at:

https://books.google.com/books?id=cs0WAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

and

https://archive.org/details/fairytalesfroms00hollgoog/mode/2up

There you will also find computer OCR text of the tales but they are riddled with errors from the computer scanning. This book's Plain Text copy starts at https://books.google.com/books?ppis=_e&printsec=frontcover&id=cs0WAAAAYAAJ&output=text You do not need to start from scratch in producing the text unless retyping it yourself is your groove. I have a friend who types a 100+ words a minute with precise accuracy and she prefers to type instead of proofread. Most of the rest of us tend to like proofing the existing OCR text instead.

So to participate, choose one tale from the list below, and produce a proofread text copy of it. Then email a copy of the tale to me at heidi @ surlalunefairyatles.com for formatting and insertion into the SurLaLune Fairy Tales database at http://dev.surlalunefairytales.com/book.php?id=143.

If you'd like to volunteer, please post your name in the comments and claim the tale. A few have already been done by me and entered.  Check the comments to be sure your tale hasn't already been claimed. You can do more than one tale, too, of course!

Since this is a volunteer project, you will also get credit for your contribution in the notes to the tale. You can dedicate it to someone. For example, I can add:

This tale was proofread and submitted to the SurLaLune Fairy Tales Database by Anne Shirley in loving memory of Matthew Cuthbert.

Or anything like that within reason.

Here is the list of tales with a short style guide. You can paste your final proofed text straight into an email to me. No need to create a document to send but you can use Google Docs if you prefer and send me a link to that.

If you have more questions, please post them in the comments and I will reply and update this with answers. I'm sure I've forgotten something despite pondering this for a few weeks now.

TALE	VOLUNTEER
Introduction: To All Children Who Still Love Fairy Tales	Natalie
Setuli; or, The King of the Birds	Natalie
Story of the King's Son and the Magic Song, The	Natalie
Story of the Little Birds Who Lived in a Cave, The	Natalie
Story of the Shining Princess, The	Lena3982
Rabbit Prince, The
Unnatural Mother, The
Three Little Eggs, The
Serpent's Bride, The: Part I.	Heidi Anne Heiner
Serpent's Bride, The: Part II.	Heidi Anne Heiner
Fairy Bird, The
Cock's Kraal, The
Baboon-Skins	Heidi Anne Heiner
Reward of Industry, The
Story of Semai-mai, The: Part I.
Story of Semai-mai, The: Part II.
Fairy Frog, The
Nya-Nya Bulembu; or, The Moss-Green Princess	Heidi Anne Heiner
Enchanted Buck, The	Heidi Anne Heiner
Beauty and the Beast, The	Bonnie
White Dove, The	Lena3982

Some standardized styles that make it easier for me to quickly format the text:

1. Do not indent any paragraphs but put double spaces between them.

2. For copy that needs to be indented, please don't. Just keep it together single spaced--do not double space between lines of the copy.

For example:

Run, run!
As fast as you can!
You can't catch me,
I'm the Gingerbread Man!

3. For footnotes, put the footnote number in the tale's text like this [1]. Then add the footnote itself to the end of the copy with a [1]: in front of it.

For example:

"Merci," [1] she said to her readers.

FOOTNOTES

[1]: Merci: Thank you!

New Old Book: Johnny Breadless: A Pacifist Fairy Tale by Paul Valliant-Couturier and Prof. Jack Zipes

Johnny Breadless: A Pacifist Fairy Tale by Paul Valliant-Couturier (Author), Prof. Jack Zipes (Editor) was released earlier this month. I have a review copy on my desk, but haven't had a chance to read it yet. I say this is a new old book because it is a new edition of a long out of print folklore book. Zipes' current mission is to resurrect these "lost" folklore related books for new generations. Zipes provides an introduction explaining the significance of this book and why it was chosen for reprint with a new English translation.

Book description:

During World War I at Christmas time in 1914 there were sudden widespread unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front organized by the French, British, and German soldiers. They crossed trenches to exchange food, souvenirs, and ideas. In some cases they played soccer, sang Christmas carols, held burial ceremonies, and exchanged prisoners of war. The ceasefires were also held at various places in 1915. However, by 1916, the war had become more bitter, and the officers in the French, British, and German armies squashed the ceasefires. Killing was much more important than peacemaking.

Paul Vaillant-Couturier (1892-1937) was one of the French soldiers among those who celebrated truce. As a young man from a well-to-do bourgeois family in Paris, he had never thought he would one day fight for France and kill Germans. His parents were successful singers and actors, and as he indicated in his fictional autobiography, he was groomed to become a professional lawyer or engineer. However, he followed in his parents' footsteps and became an artist. Yet, after enlisting in the French army and serving in the infantry and artillery, he came to realize how cruel war was and caused the deaths of thousands of young men who sacrificed their lives to protect the interests of the ruling classes. By the time he was dismissed in 1919, he emerged as a pacifist and socialist with five medals of honor for heroism. From this point of his life, he went on to become a major journalist and politician; he was one of the founders of the French communist party and served as editor of the left-wing newspaper L'Humanité. He died in 1937 due to wounds from an assassination attempt.

Concerned about the future of young people, Vaillant-Couturier published numerous books about the war, and one of his most significant works was Jean sans pain (Johnny Breadless, 1921). It describes a much different education than he had received, for Johnny Breadless is an orphan and does not understand why and how his parents died and why there is no help for him. It is only after he encounters an amazing rabbit who takes him on a trip to various parts of France during World War I that Johnny begins to grasp the true conditions that lead to the exploitation of common people and to wars that benefit the rich. It is in this remarkable fairy-tale novel that a ceasefire takes place-one that gives Johnny hope that people can live together in peace. It is a truce that Vaillant-Courturer "waged" for most of his life.

SurLaLune's Small Print:

As an Amazon Associate, the SurLaLune Fairy Tale site earns a percentage from qualifying purchases as a referral incentive which helps support the site. Your cost does not increase by using the links on this site. Read SurLaLune's Privacy Policy here.

Bargain Ebook: TODAY ONLY: A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer for $1.99

TODAY ONLY: A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer is on sale in ebook format for $1.99. Catnip for many of you since this is a Beauty and the Beast retelling!

Book description:

In a lush, contemporary fantasy retelling of Beauty and the Beast, Brigid Kemmerer gives readers another compulsively readable romance perfect for fans of Marissa Meyer.

Fall in love, break the curse.

It once seemed so easy to Prince Rhen, the heir to Emberfall. Cursed by a powerful enchantress to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year over and over, he knew he could be saved if a girl fell for him. But that was before he learned that at the end of each autumn, he would turn into a vicious beast hell-bent on destruction. That was before he destroyed his castle, his family, and every last shred of hope.

Nothing has ever been easy for Harper. With her father long gone, her mother dying, and her brother barely holding their family together while constantly underestimating her because of her cerebral palsy, she learned to be tough enough to survive. But when she tries to save someone else on the streets of Washington, DC, she's instead somehow sucked into Rhen's cursed world.

Break the curse, save the kingdom.

A prince? A monster? A curse? Harper doesn't know where she is or what to believe. But as she spends time with Rhen in this enchanted land, she begins to understand what's at stake. And as Rhen realizes Harper is not just another girl to charm, his hope comes flooding back. But powerful forces are standing against Emberfall . . . and it will take more than a broken curse to save Harper, Rhen, and his people from utter ruin.

SurLaLune's Small Print:

As an Amazon Associate, the SurLaLune Fairy Tale site earns a percentage from qualifying purchases as a referral incentive which helps support the site. Your cost does not increase by using the links on this site. Read SurLaLune's Privacy Policy here.

Bargain Ebook: TODAY ONLY: The Gold-Son by Carrie Anne Noble for $.99

The Gold-Son by Carrie Anne Noble is on sale TODAY ONLY for 99 cents on Amazon. This book draws on folklore about leprechauns and fae for inspiration.

Book Description:

All sixteen-year-old Tommin wants is to make beautiful shoes and care for his beloved grandmother, but his insatiable need to steal threatens to destroy everything. Driven by a curse that demands more and more gold, he’s sure to get caught eventually.

When mysterious Lorcan Reilly arrives in town with his “niece,” Eve, Tommin believes the fellow wants to help him. Instead, Lorcan whisks him off to the underground realm of the Leprechauns, where, alongside Eve, he’s forced to prepare to become one of them.

As Lorcan’s plans for his “gold-children” are slowly revealed, Tommin and Eve plan their escape. But with Tommin’s humanity slipping away, the fate-crossed pair has everything to lose unless they can find a way to outsmart a magical curse centuries in the making.

SurLaLune's Small Print:

As an Amazon Associate, the SurLaLune Fairy Tale site earns a percentage from qualifying purchases as a referral incentive which helps support the site. Your cost does not increase by using the links on this site. Read SurLaLune's Privacy Policy here.

Read a New Book: Smoke Bitten by Patricia Briggs: Activities During Corona

Smoke Bitten (A Mercy Thompson Novel Book 12) by Patricia Briggs was released last week and was one of my escape hatches from Coronavirus Isolation last week. I've been reading Briggs' for years and years. This newest entry in her Mercy Thompson series is fun and particularly suitable for SurLaLune (several in the series are) because of the appearance of fairy tales in it. Diamonds and Toads provides some inspiration. Baba Yaga is a recurring character who makes an appearance. And so much of the world building uses folklore and fairy tales in general.

In this one, another well-known fairy tale character is one of the villains in the book. It's a built-up reveal that fairy tale fans may pick up on earlier than others--the clues are fair and accurate--but I don't want to ruin it by saying who. However, it was a fun element of the book for me.

Mercy Thompson, car mechanic and shapeshifter, faces a threat unlike any other in this thrilling entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series.

I am Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman.

My only “superpowers” are that I turn into a thirty-five pound coyote and fix Volkswagens. But I have friends in odd places and a pack of werewolves at my back. It looks like I'm going to need them.

Centuries ago, the fae dwelt in Underhill—until she locked her doors against them. They left behind their great castles and troves of magical artifacts. They abandoned their prisoners and their pets. Without the fae to mind them, those creatures who remained behind roamed freely through Underhill wreaking havoc. Only the deadliest survived.

Now one of those prisoners has escaped. It can look like anyone, any creature it chooses. But if it bites you, it controls you. It lives for chaos and destruction. It can make you do anything—even kill the person you love the most. Now it is here, in the Tri-Cities. In my territory.

It won't, can't, remain.

Not if I have anything to say about it.

SurLaLune's Small Print:

As an Amazon Associate, the SurLaLune Fairy Tale site earns a percentage from qualifying purchases as a referral incentive which helps support the site. Your cost does not increase by using the links on this site. Read SurLaLune's Privacy Policy here.

Read Fairy Tale Review's The Coral Issue for Free: Activities During Coronavirus

Read some new fairy tale and folklore related short stories, poems, and such for free!

Tweeted yesterday by Fairy Tale Review:

"Fairy tales to the rescue. The Coral Issue (2020) has just been made *free* to readers through April 30. Readers, enjoy. Huge gratitude for saying yes when we asked, @WSUPress and @JSTOR."

You can read the entire issue for free for the next six-ish weeks at https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13110/fairtalerevi.16.issue-1.

If you are unfamiliar with Fairy Tale Review:

Fairy Tale Review is an annual literary journal dedicated to publishing new fairy-tale fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The journal seeks to expand the conversation about fairy tales among practitioners, scholars, and general readers. Contents reflect a diverse spectrum of literary artists working with fairy tales in many languages and styles

And each edition is a shout out to the work of Andrew Lang and his wife Leonora Lang and their colored fairy books. Because even if only his name was on the cover, the colored fairy books work was predominantly hers and built on his public persona as a folklorist. So both husband and wife were important to the series' production and success. I just have to add that because I am a big fan of Leonora Lang's contributions to folklore.

Lego's Hans Christian Andersen Set: Activities During Corona

I am thinking about some kind of Lego Fairy Tale challenge for Activities During Corona. I haven't finished thinking it through--although I plan to keep it simple--and have to emphasize it is in no way connected with the Lego company, of course. For inspiration, I went web surfing for some fairy tale related Lego builds.

I somehow missed the release of LEGO 40291 Creative Storybook Set (307 Pieces) (Hans Christian Anderson) a while back! Even when I am not actively posting on the SurLaLune blog, I am always noticing and keeping my own lists of fairy tale related items. This set is a natural for Lego since they share their homeland of Denmark with Hans Christian Andersen. Just looking at it reminded me of my own trip to Copenhagen in 2017 when I got to see many HCA related places and pieces. I loved Copenhagen and hope to return someday for another visit.

This set was a free gift with purchase item and I missed this although I even get the Lego catalogs and have for years. I have many, many Lego fans in my family.

This set, reminiscent of the Once Upon a Brick set with it's open book design, depicts Andersen sitting on a park bench, writing one of his tales. The opposite page portrays a scene from The Ugly Duckling. It's still fairly easy to find through online retailers, but not Lego themselves. My links are to Amazon but you can hunt around for it online if you are interested in it.

SurLaLune's Small Print:

As an Amazon Associate, the SurLaLune Fairy Tale site earns a percentage from qualifying purchases as a referral incentive which helps support the site. Your cost does not increase by using the links on this site. Read SurLaLune's Privacy Policy here.

Bargain Ebook: Spindle Fire by Lexa Hillyer

And because reading is really my own favorite activity, Corona sheltering or not, I will be posting more books to read, too.

Spindle Fire by Lexa Hillyer is on sale in ebook format for $1.99. This one is a Sleeping Beauty inspired novel. It features two sisters, an unusual construct in Sleeping Beauty tales, but a fascinating way to deal with the sleep curse. All links are to Amazon, see small print below.

Book description:

Half sisters Isabelle and Aurora are polar opposites: Isabelle is the king's headstrong illegitimate daughter, whose sight was tithed by faeries; Aurora, beautiful and sheltered, was tithed her sense of touch and her voice on the same day. Despite their differences, the sisters have always been extremely close.

And then everything changes with a single drop of Aurora's blood--and a sleep so deep it cannot be broken. As the faerie queen and her army of Vultures prepare to march, Isabelle must race to find a prince who can awaken her sister with the kiss of true love and seal their two kingdoms in an alliance against the queen.

Isabelle crosses land and sea; unearthly, thorny vines rise up the palace walls: and whispers of revolt travel in the ashes on the wind. The kingdom falls to ruin under layers of snow. Meanwhile, Aurora wakes up in a strange and enchanted world, where a mysterious hunter may be the secret to her escape . . . or the reason for her to stay.

Spindle Fire is a lush fantasy set in the dwindling, deliciously corrupt world of the fae and featuring two truly unforgettable heroines.

SurLaLune's Small Print:

As an Amazon Associate, the SurLaLune Fairy Tale site earns a percentage from qualifying purchases as a referral incentive which helps support the site. Your cost does not increase by using the links on this site. Read SurLaLune's Privacy Policy here.

From the Brothers Grimm Series on Folkstreams Vimeo Channel: Activities During Coronavirus

Last week one tweet I read that made me laugh was a mother stating emphatically that she's not going to do anything educational while stuck at home with her young kids. They would watch too much tv. They would eat too much junk. Essentially, they would escape anyway they could during the Corona shutdown. I laughed. I liked that she was lowering her expectations and not putting too much pressure on herself. But even those activities will get old in my opinion, so I will keep looking for fairy tale related options to share. Fairy tales and folklore are about surviving trying times.

But on the note of watching TV, I wanted to share links to the From the Brothers Grimm series by Tom Davenport. These are rentable for a few dollars each on the Folkstreams Vimeo Channel. This is just an FYI service from SurLaLune--there is no affiliate earnings with these. Davenport Films made these many years ago so they are not HD and have a folksy feel. They are also mostly set in Appalachia. They are more suitable for older kids, I'd say 3rd grade and up.

I've linked and embedded the films below but some may not embed due to privacy settings. Just follow the links to learn more. They are all viewable for a $1.95 month long rental each.

My husband's favorite (and thus one of my sentimental favorites, too) is Soldier Jack or The Man Who Caught Death in a Sack:


Soldier Jack or The Man Who Caught Death in a Sack from Folkstreams on Vimeo.

Jack and the Dentist's Daughter


Jack and the Dentist's Daughter from Folkstreams on Vimeo.

I remember when this aired on PBS, the last film they produced, Willa: An American Snow White:


Willa: An American Snow White from Folkstreams on Vimeo.

Hansel & Gretel: An Appalachian Version


Hansel & Gretel: An Appalachian Version from Folkstreams on Vimeo.

Ashpet: An American Cinderella


Ashpet: An American Cinderella from Folkstreams on Vimeo.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel


Rapunzel, Rapunzel from Folkstreams on Vimeo.

Mutzmag or The Girl Who Killed the Cannibals. This tale appears in many of the strong women of folklore collections.


Mutzmag or The Girl Who Killed the Cannibals from Folkstreams on Vimeo.

The Frog King


The Frog King from Folkstreams on Vimeo.

Bristlelip is a version of King Thrushbeard.


Bristlelip from Folkstreams on Vimeo.

Bearskin or The Man Who Didn't Wash for Seven Years--Another favorite tale of mine. Really gets the feel of how disgusting Bearskin is!


Bearskin or The Man Who Didn't Wash for Seven Years from Folkstreams on Vimeo.

The Goose Girl


The Goose Girl from Folkstreams on Vimeo.

SmartGames Fairy Tales Themed Games: Activities During Corona

So these games look fun even if they are meant for the youngest gamers. I love the designs, especially the Sleeping Beauty maze which makes me think of garden labyrinths, of course. And is suitable to the tale's theme with the prince trying to navigate the thorns to reach the castle.

SmartGames Sleeping Beauty Board Game Description:

Discover the magic of the classic fairy tale with this original puzzle game. Can you help the prince reach Sleeping Beauty’s castle? Or maybe you’d prefer to help Sleeping Beauty escape on her own? Try to find the path from the entrance of the maze to the castle…without getting lost! Or perhaps you prefer to play as the dragon? Then the object of the game becomes the opposite! Place the dragon in the maze so that he blocks all paths to the castle, preventing and the knight and Sleeping Beauty from reaching each other. Sleeping Beauty includes 48 challenges (24 with the dragon and 24 without). It also features a family friendly picture book with a modern twist on the original story.

SmartGames Little Red Riding Hood Deluxe Board Game Description:

SmartGames Little Red Riding Hood is an enchanting puzzle game for young children. Can you help Red Riding Hood find Grandma’s house in the forest? Can you out-smart the wolf when he appears?

Play Little Red Riding Hood by arranging the puzzle pieces on the gameboard so that a direct path is created from Red Riding Hood to Grandma's house. Then, in the last 24 challenges, players have to create two paths: one for Red Riding Hood, and the other for the Wolf! A great introduction to Spatial Insight, Planning and Problem-Solving skills for kids.

Little Red Riding Hood also includes a family-friendly picture book with a SmartGames 'twist' on the original tale.

SmartGames Snow White Description:

• DEDUCTION FUN! Can you find out where Snow White goes? SmartGames Snow White Game, A Preschool Puzzle Game & Brain Game for Kids, Cognitive Skill-Building Challenges, Ages 4-7
• BRAIN GAMES BUILD SKILLS: Your children can build upon their spatial insight, language, problem solving and flexible thinking while playing the Snow White preschool board game. It’s so fun to play, they’ll forget they’re learning!
• PUZZLE INCLUDES: Large vertical house/game board, Snow White, Seven Dwarfs, Evil Queen, challenge booklet with solutions and a bonu colorful picture book.
• AGES 4-7: Snow White is perfect for kids ages 4-7. With the 4 different skill levels of Starter, Junior, Expert, and Master, your little one is sure to find the perfect challenges to tease their brain and help them think outside the box.
• AWARD-WINNING: SmartGames is the worldwide leader in multi-level, logic-based family fun games. Our award-winning games offer multi-level play from easy to challenging, and we pride ourselves in making family board games that are perfect for players of all ages.

SmartGames Three Little Piggies Description:

Can you help these three smart pigs build their houses? Can you set them up so that the pigs can play outside? If you spot the wolf can you help the pigs stay safe inside their houses?

Three Little Piggies is a great brain game for young children. It features 3 big puzzle pieces that are easy to hold, and kids will be intrigued by the way the pigs fit inside the houses and look through the windows. The game includes a story book with images and booklet with 48 challenges (24 with the wolf and 24 without). Also helps develop early Spatial Insight, Planning and Problem-Solving skills.

SurLaLune's Small Print:

As an Amazon Associate, the SurLaLune Fairy Tale site earns a percentage from qualifying purchases as a referral incentive which helps support the site. Your cost does not increase by using the links on this site. Read SurLaLune's Privacy Policy here.

Good Luck Sock Women's Little Red Riding Hood Sock

I bought some of these Good Luck Sock Women's Little Red Riding Hood Socks around Christmas when they were on sale and really fell in love with them. Little Red Riding Hood isn't my favorite fairy tale, but I do have much affection for it. These socks are colorful but actually blend well with my jeans or pants when wearing so I've even snuck them on for meetings and such. They hold up well and actually fit my size 10 US feet pretty well although they state they are sizes 5-9.

SurLaLune's Small Print:

As an Amazon Associate, the SurLaLune Fairy Tale site earns a percentage from qualifying purchases as a referral incentive which helps support the site. Your cost does not increase by using the links on this site. Read SurLaLune's Privacy Policy here.

Storybook Playsets: Activities During Corona--With Thoughts on SurLaLune Changes on Horizon

I've had the Hansel and Gretel Toy House and Storybook Playset and the others below in my list for posting for a while. I really love the design on all of these, but the Hansel and Gretel is my favorite. All of the candy and the oven right there front and center in the house design makes me cringe and smile. The other two sets are much more innocuous but also pretty, too. I like the Three Bears' house, too.

And don't worry, like yesterday's Princess and the Pea craft, as I share ideas for fairy tale related activities they are not all going to require a purchase. I know economic hardships are going to be one of the biggest challenges for many during this time. And the activities won't all be for kids--or those of us with kid-like hearts for playing with playsets, making crafts, etc.

In fact, I have some ideas of how to allow for volunteer work with getting the new SurLaLune Fairy Tales Database  more populated. I just need to ponder some logistics on that and will share some ideas next week. These are interesting times we live in and I am finding actually one of the things I miss most is the opportunity to do service. I am putting that energy into SurLaLune again after a long year of grief and other distractions. I am determined for this pandemic to bring about some blessings, too. The opportunity to spend some time finishing my current books that have been nearly done for almost two years now and finally getting the new SurLaLune website ready for launch. Good times ahead for those who use the SurLaLune site.

STORYTIME TOYS The Three Little Pigs and Bad Wolf, Book and Toy Set

STORYTIME TOYS Goldilocks and The Three Bears Book and Toy Set

SurLaLune's Small Print:

As an Amazon Associate, the SurLaLune Fairy Tale site earns a percentage from qualifying purchases as a referral incentive which helps support the site. Your cost does not increase by using the links on this site. Read SurLaLune's Privacy Policy here.

Princess and the Pea Craft: Activities During Corona

This is a repost of an activity that I shared in 2009. It has been a popular link ever since.




After digging through my files, I rediscovered this craft that I regularly used for Bedtime themed storytimes when I was working as a children's librarian. This was always a favorite with kids and parents, especially after hearing the tale by Hans Christian Andersen. With summer here and so many children out of school, I thought I'd clean it up a little and create a new pattern to share here.

When I used this craft with large groups, we used wallpaper scraps to create the mattresses as you can see in the completed image above which was made for me by one of the girls who regularly attended my storytimes.

For the SurLaLune version of the pattern, I've created some mattresses out of clip art patterns that can be colored. The bottom blank is the base of the bed or can be used as a pattern for cutting mattresses out of different paper. Of course, the bedposts and base also are wonderful when made out of brown construction paper. The possibilities for adaptation are endless, but if all you have is a printer and some white paper, that's all you need to create this craft. Don't forget to draw a pea or paste a split pea below the lowest mattress. Enjoy!



I've made the craft available in full size in three different file formats:

Princess and the Pea JPG

Princess and the Pea GIF

Princess and the Pea PNG

Printing Tips: If you are on a PC, right click over the image to get a menu and save it to your computer. Then use a photo editor program to print it without any clipping of the image. Printing it from the internet browser will most likely cause clipping unless you adjust your printer settings to print to size. Or you can copy and paste the image to a word processing program such as Word and then adjust margins to avoid clipping before printing.

This is a smaller version of the pattern for illustration purposes only. Use the links above to get bigger images.

Miniature Libraries: Activities During Corona

  

Looking for some small activities while spending extra time at home right now? I recommend My Miniature Library: 30 Tiny Books to Make, Read and Treasure by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini and My Fairy Library: Make a Magical World of Miniature Books by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini. (These are Amazon links, see the note at the bottom of this entry.)

My 10-year-old niece got the first set for her birthday in February and has fallen in love with putting together many of the little books. The My Miniature set contains many fairy tale titles including Beauty and the Beastm Cinderella and Goldilocks. She has been out of school for the last 10 days due to Coronavirus shutdowns in her area. This has been one of the activities that has kept her and her mother (my sister) sort of sane.

My Miniature Library:

My Fairy Library:

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