Bryan Singer to Direct 'Jack and the Giant Killer'

Okay, this could be fun: Bryan Singer to Direct 'Jack and the Giant Killer' which is reporting from the fresh Hollywood Reporter announcement.

Jack is a slight reworking of (shocker!) Jack and the Beanstalk with a dash of The Brave Little Tailor. It dispenses with that "I'll sell you some magic beans, and some oceanfront property in Arizona" trope, and is instead set in motion when a giant kidnaps a princess. Obviously, that premeditated action is unacceptable, and it threatens the longstanding peace between men and giants. A young farmer named Jack is given the task to lead an expedition to the giants' kingdom in the hopes of rescuing her. Mark Bomback and Darren Lemke penned the script, which is reportedly a more mature take on the fairy tale than you or I might expect. I don't think that means any rampant sex, violence, or cussing but rather that it'll feature the kind of unblinking action that Lord of the Rings did. I mean, Jack's fighting giants. That's hardcore when done realistically.

And there's more about other versions of the tale at Bryan Singer Tackles Jack the Giant Killer For New Line, the only article I saw that admits that Giant-Killer is different from Beanstalk Jack. It even mentions the story's occasional ties to King Arthur. I'm impressed by a fully researched article!

Hopefully there will be some women actually doing stuff in the movie instead of waiting around to be rescued. The movies always seem to be weakest at updating women's roles.

This one is now slated for a 2011 release, so don't hold your breath or anything, but a change of directors is a pretty good sign it will go into development and actually appear on a screen somewhere, someday.

I enjoyed the first two X-Men movies Singer directed, but Superman Returns not so much although that was from script issues more than directing. (And I'm really picky about Superman. And I was disappointed that we got that movie instead of a better X-Men 3.) So I'm hopeful this will be a fun take on the fairy tale whatever the final storyline.

Oh, and if you want to read the original tale--kidnapped daughter included--try here at Jack the Giant-Killer.

Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures

I just received an email about this new journal and definitely want to share. (I edited the email a little to generalize it for public consumption.)

Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, is an interdisciplinary, refereed academic journal whose mandate is to publish research on, and to provide a forum for discussion about, cultural productions for, by, and about young people. Jeunesse often publishes academic work on fairy tales, which may be of interest to SurLaLune's visitors.

In our Summer Issue 1.1, we included an article by Lisa Orr entitled "Difference That Is Actually Sameness Mass-Reproduced": Barbie Joins the Princess Convergence," which discusses Disney princess culture.

In our upcoming Winter Issue 1.2, we will be including an article by Pauline Greenhill and Steven Kohm, entitled "Little Red Riding Hood and the Pedophile in Film: Freeway, Hard Candy and The Woodsman."

We would love to be a resource for those interested in fairy tales and a venue for those who would like to consider publishing an academic article on fairy tales.

So here's another resource for those studying children's literature and issues as well as fairy tales at times. That's always good news!

I'm interested in the Barbie article since I haven't read much about this obviously lucrative line for the Barbie franchise. Not that there are always fairy tales used--the latest is Barbie and the Three Musketeers--but I've been amused by them all. I never associated Barbie with classical literature or folklore before these lines began. I'm not exactly comfortable doing it now, but I prefer Barbie this way than the traditional way if I must have her jumping out at me every time I shop for toys or DVDs. (And don't get me started on Bratz...)

And I admit to being impressed that at least Mattel chooses less popular or less used fairy tales when they use fairy tales--Rapunzel and Twelve Dancing Princesses have definitely received a boost of recognition thanks to Barbie as Rapunzel and Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses. How about Barbie in the Wild Swans next?

Fairy Tale Sisterhood

In Why sisters can't escape the Cinderella curse, columnist Leah McLaren discusses sister relationships, pulling material from Cinderella, Deborah Tannen's You Were Always Mom's Favourite! Sisters in Conversation Throughout Their Lives and well-known sister pairs in pop culture. There isn't much about Cinderella, but the article reminded me of my own searches for strong sibling pairs in fairy tales over the years. My searches have been mostly unfruitful.

In many fairy tales, folklore and myths, the most successful pairings are of siblings of opposite genders, think Hansel and Gretel, Brother and Sister and others. There has even been a collection, The Barefoot Book of Brother and Sister Tales by Mary Hoffman, of positive brother and sister pairing tales which is now out-of-print.

On the other hand, when siblings of the same gender are presented, they are most often rivals. One of the few exceptions is Snow White and Rose Red which is more of literary origin than oral with very few variants. Most often we are given the good and bad girls like in Diamonds and Toads or the plucky third child (male or female) who triumphs--sometimes saving the lives of the other siblings--despite lack of support or esteem from the family. There aren't collections of positive sisters tales or brothers tales, by the way. Not that I've ever discovered. If I ever find enough to warrant a collection, I just compile one myself!

I credit some of Snow White and Rose Red's popularity to its rare celebration of sisterhood. Sisters embrace it. Mothers embrace it. I'm still surprised at the picture book version, Rose Red and the Bear Prince, which eliminates one of the most endearing elements of the tale--the sister! It tried to be feminist but for me failed in neglecting the power of sisterhood that is inherent in the tale.

Of course, there is also Twelve Dancing Princesses, but they are even less developed and are operating under a curse in some versions. A true sisterhood isn't really visible. Their limited interaction can even be rather hostile, such as when the youngest sister is ridiculed for sensing something isn't right.

Some of this stereotyping and story development comes from the demands of abbreviated storytelling, quick constructs are necessary to bring about opposition and conflict. However, it doesn't promote family harmony very well. And why are opposite gender pairs still portrayed so well overall while same genders are almost always rivals? How well do these constructs mirror reality?

I'm eight years older than my only sister and we've become friends as adults, but the age gap didn't lend itself towards too much outright rivalry over the years. Still, we share a bond that does not include our brother, one that is important to me.

And here's some modern thoughts on sister relationships from the article that inspired the post in the first place. From the article:

In her new book You Were Always Mom's Favourite! Sisters in Conversation Throughout Their Lives, U.S. linguist Deborah Tannen looks at all aspects of sisterly communication, from the reverent to the rivalrous, and the effect it has on female sibs throughout their lives. Sisterhood is one of the closest human relations, she writes, but also one of the most fraught – marred as it so often is by the trap of Cinderella-style competition.

“Women's closeness often has to do with confidences, where as for men it's more often about doing things together,” she told me over the phone from her office in Washington, D.C. “Because many sisters tend to talk more often and for longer periods of time and about more personal topics than most brothers, you've got more opportunity to connect but also to say the wrong thing and step on toes. It's possible that, because sister relations are more complicated and fraught, it may make it harder to work together.”

So that's food for today's thoughts...

Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ

'Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ' (NDS) Coming to Europe. The game was released in North America a year ago--long before this blog came into existence--and I thought I'd give it a post at least since I admit that video games using fairy tales fascinate me, even though I am not a gamer.

Our story begins with the invasion of this fairy tale land by hordes of ravenous zombies. And they won’t stop at anything: from the succulent legs of ham of the Three Little Pigs to the sawdust brain of Pinnochio, they are all tasty morsels for the living dead. Grotesque aberrations plague the enchanted forests. Prince Charmings wake up Sleeping Beauties with a real love bites and ferocious wolves die when they attack abandoned little girls. Only one heroine can stop this babbling army. Her name is Red, Little Red Riding Hood, and now she’s armed and dangerous!

But she will not be alone: Momotaro, the peach boy who’s recently arrived from Japanese folklore, will join her on this dangerous crusade. But… what powers and secrets does this legendary character hold?

Zombie BBQ is a really fun shooter for NDS, where you have to move forward by shooting down every living (or dying) creature in your path! Use the great arsenal of weapons at your disposal to do away with the savage hoards of zombies. Shoot, blast, massacre, bombard and burn your enemies to the bone with a simple touch of your stylus on the console screen. Can you save fairy tale land or will you let its creatures live an unhappy-ever-after-life?

You can view the game trailer on YouTube here. I'm not embedding it since it is rather more graphic than I usually show here without warning.

You can also read more about the game on Amazon at Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ. Alas, it is only available on Nintendo's DS platform.

And, yes, Little Red Riding Hood makes the rounds in the video game world. She's in Fairytales Fights, The Path and this one. If she were real, she'd be rich with how often she appears in products. She's rather the publicity hound of the fairy tale realm.

And what is up with the zombie trend these days? Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith or The War of the Worlds Plus Blood, Guts and Zombies by H.G. Wells and Eric S. Brown? I can understand the vampires and werewolves more--at least they converse--but zombies, well, they are just icky. I do understand the humor, but I cannot imagine this trend going on as long as the others.

I infinitely prefer steampunk which I am just beginning to delve into myself. More about that soon, too.

Fairy Tales and Psychology

No, I'm not bringing out Bettelheim or Jung or von Franz today. I wanted to offer a link to this article: HUMAN MATTERS: Failure to trust own knowledge, instincts can lead to catastrophe by Steven Kalas.

Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor with a regular column and a book. In this week's column, he uses fairy tales to illustrate his points about trusting our instincts. Little Red Riding Hood is the star of the examples and I appreciate the article and its message. I wish I could just quote it all right here, right now. But here are some key parts:

The Brothers Grimm are sometimes criticized for being, well, grim.

See, children suffer in these fairy tales at the hands of cruel parents and witches and sometimes the teeth of wild animals. Sometimes the children are rescued by fairy godmothers and other assorted providence. Sometimes they escape to freedom by their own wits and resourcefulness. Other times they don't. Sometimes they die.

Just like in real life. Which is why I dig the Brothers Grimm. Classic fairy tales are so human. So real. And they do more than entertain. Classic fairy tales teach us, young and old alike. They ask us to look at ourselves and our culture.

Wonderful. I want to borrow that well-worded answer every time I'm asked about the suitability of fairy tales for children. But the article isn't really about children's but more about women's issues.

The classic "take" on Little Red Riding Hood is as a morality play about the dangers of naivete. But, I suggest that Little Red Riding Hood's problems are far worse than that. Here's the deeper question: Hey Red! What is it in you that keeps overriding your own senses! Keeps overriding your own experience.

It ain't your grandmother! Run!

I'm thinking of buying several copies of "Little Red Riding Hood," so I can have them on hand to give to patients in therapy. Especially female patients. I can't explain why, but most therapists (including myself) will tell you they encounter a higher number of women than men who consistently don't and won't believe their own eyes, their own ears and their own felt experience, especially as it regards love relationships with wolves. Er, some men.

And that's all I'll quote but there's at least twice this in the article itself, including more food for thought and some examples from his practice. Click through and read it.

The article reminds me of what The Path video game is trying to accomplish, using Little Red Riding Hood to explore women's dangers and fears in the world. Kalas is discussing less physically dangerous relationships, but the message applies to more.

In a related vein of thought, I had a great conversation this past weekend with Brian Hull, a professional puppeteer (more about him in days to come!) who regularly adapts fairy tales and other stories for children's theatre. He told me that of all the fairy tales he performs, Hansel and Gretel always receives the most resistance by parents and teachers for multiple reasons, one being that the witch is not redeemed but destroyed. Hull explained his reasoning that redeeming the witch, giving her a change of heart, negates the cautionary aspects of the tale. "The witch is the stranger in the park with candy," he said. "Why would we want to make the stranger a good person?"



When one equates the witch with the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood (or even Three Little Pigs), it's more scary to consider making these tales less scary, to negate their messages that the world is dangerous and to be savvy and aware. Unfortunately, the message is an important one and feeds into everyone's deepest fears whether they be child or adult. But it is one that cannot safely be forgotten or ignored.

So keep reading the fairy tales. Perhaps not at bedtime but during family time when life lessons are taught with love and a hope for safety. And I'll borrow from Kalas' article again, quoting a wise woman:

"When people show you who they really are, believe them." -- Maya Angelou

C is for Fairy Tale Cookies

My sweet tooth was inspired by these cookie stamps. They are retired but most are still available at Artistic Cookies. (I am not affiliated and do not vouch for this seller. I'm linking because I fell in love with these.) Really, the stamps themselves are charmingly designed. Alas, my favorite, The Frog Prince, is already sold out since this set is discontinued. I will have to be satisfied with a picture.



I admit I don't bake so I'm not sure why I'm always charmed by cakes and cookies. One of my dear friends does bake and works well with cookie cutters and decorating cakes.



I am actually surprised that the set did not include Cinderella, at least not from what I have discovered. Cinderella is so rarely left out that I was surprised she was usurped by Puss in Boots and Frog Prince.



However, all of the stamps themselves provide rather gender neutral designs for the cookies which perhaps explains the absence of a glass slipper. But I also find myself wanting a Gingerbread Man.



Aren't you craving a cookie by now? I'm as bad as the with in Hansel and Gretel today, aren't I?



If your preferences run to cookie cutters instead of stamps, here's a nice set that should do the trick. They are also much more reasonably priced!



And, don't forget an apron...

Hansel and Gretel Movies

Film School Rejects reviews films and occasionally offers Foreign Objects (foreign films). Last week, Rob Hunter reviewed a Korean version of Hansel and Gretel which is due to be released on DVD in the United States in November.

Eun-soo has a car accident while passing through a forest late at night and awakens to find a young girl in a red cloak offering him assistance. She leads him deep into the woods to her house where he meets her parents and two siblings. The family appears happy, especially the children, even if the parents do seem a bit apprehensive and nervous. The house is garishly decorated in holiday themes and kiddie designs, dinner is a plateful of cupcakes and cookies, and no one seems all that interested in helping Eun-soo find his way out of the forest and back home. Every attempt to leave leads him right back to the house and to the children. Soon the parents have gone missing, a mysterious new couple has arrived, and Eun-soo discovers the dangerous and tragic secret behind it all.

It’s not entirely accurate to call Hansel & Gretel a straight horror film as it’s interested in far more than simple scares. There’s a general sense of creepiness and dread and a handful of jump scares throughout, but the movie’s atmosphere extends well beyond the horrific. Like any fairy tale worth it’s weight in morality and metaphor the movie explores real world cruelty in a fantastic setting for maximum effect. The original Brothers Grimm story serves as a starting point, but the film is more interested in where brutality and lost innocence can lead if left unchecked.

You can also read more about Hansel and Gretel at IMDB, of course. There's another lengthy review from a viewer there who also argues against classifying the film as horror.

I'll admit I'm a wimp when it comes to horror films, even if two different reviewers state that this isn't true horror, they don't deny its creepiness. So I probably will never see it. But I do find it interesting that Hansel and Gretel hasn't been used more often for horror film scripts, at least not directly. Yes, the idea of children in danger is not as popular, but Hansel and Gretel can very easily be teenagers or young adults. This is one of the scariest of the popular tales with just as much potential as Little Red Riding Hood which has been used in this manner much more frequently.

And if you noticed the plural in the post's title, well, there is another Hansel and Gretel film in development apparently: 'Hansel and Gretel' Getting Ready To Kick Ass, With or Without Will Ferrell.

“We have a great first draft turned in on that, and we’ve already done notes and we’re actually having artist illustrations done of the look and the monsters and everything,” McKay revealed, saying that the project is full-steam ahead for his Gary Sanchez Productions. “We’re looking at turning that into Paramount pretty soon; we want to get that going because it’s really, really cool.”

Based loosely on the Brothers Grimm tale of two poor children, a house made of candy and a really scary oven, the live-action and heavy-effects film will pick up where the Grimms left off.

“The idea is that [Hansel and Gretel] fought off the witch, chucked her in the oven, and now they’ve grown up, it’s 15 years later,” explained McKay, who most recently produced “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard” with Jeremy Piven. “They’re witch bounty hunters now, and they’re badasses.”

“There’s really clever stuff in it, like Hansel is diabetic from all the candy the witch made him eat,” McKay said of Wirkola’s script. “He has to do insulin shots every few hours.”

Now I don't even know what to think about that one...but I admit the description made me smile. Bounty hunters, huh? I rather hope that one is produced.

New Book: Crazy Beautiful by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

Here's another book that slipped through the radar until a few days ago. Fortunately, it was also just released a few days ago, so I'm not months behind this time! My dream is for when more authors (or their publicists or their publishers) send me information and possibly even advanced reading copies. And occasionally copies for a SurLaLune Giveaway--reminder that the current giveaway of Fairy Tales Reimagined ends two weeks from today. Thank you again to all who send me nice informative emails! And books! Helps me keep SurLaLune as comprehensive as possible...

But back to the post:

Crazy Beautiful by Lauren Baratz-Logsted is a YA modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I haven't read it. I haven't touched a copy yet. I haven't even added it to SurLaLune's Beauty and the Beast pages yet, but I know there are fans out there who hunger for this type of fiction. It sounds like a great companion book to Beastly by Alex Flinn.

Here's the publisher's description:

In an explosion of his own making, Lucius blew his arms off. Now he has hooks. He chose hooks because they were cheaper. He chose hooks because he wouldn’t outgrow them so quickly. He chose hooks so that everyone would know he was different, so he would scare even himself.

Then he meets Aurora. The hooks don’t scare her. They don’t keep her away. In fact, they don’t make any difference at all to her.

But to Lucius, they mean everything. They remind him of the beast he is inside. Perhaps Aurora is his Beauty, destined to set his soul free from its suffering.

Or maybe she’s just a girl who needs love just like he does.

Intriguing, yes? There is also a PDF of the first chapter to read, if you are interested.

BTW, I have a list on Amazon of Fairy Tale Influenced Fiction 2009. In fact, I've already started one for 2010 (Fairy Tale Influenced Fiction 2010) which is how I stumbled across Crazy Beautiful.

Sleeping Beauty on Broadway

There are several articles with this latest news but this article was the most informative however brief: Regina Spektor To Write Music For Broadway Show

The singer-songwriter will write the music for a planned Broadway musical called Beauty, based on the fairy tale classic “Sleeping Beauty.”

Spektor is set to collaborate with the lyricist Michael Korie (Broadway’s Grey Gardens) and the director Tina Landau (Superior Donuts).

Beauty is tentatively planned for the 2011-2012 Broadway season after an out-of-town tryout.

Beauty is being presented as an expansion of Landau’s 2002 one-act play produced by the La Jolla Playhouse. The updated Beauty uses the 1812 Grimm fairy tale Sleeping Beauty as a jumping-off point for a ‘contemporary and hauntingly provocative story of beauty lost and beauty found,’ according to a press release statement.

I love that the number of larger budget film and theatre productions of fairy tale interpretations is increasing again...

Fairy Tales and Theatre

More Fairy Tale theatre events around the globe:

New London Theatre Presents Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood: "New London Theatre [in Gwinnett, Georgia] will present 'Cinderella/Little Red Riding Hood' opening September 18th and continuing through September 27th, 2009.

"'Cinderella' is the story of a girl who lives unhappily with her stepmother and two silly stepsisters and dreams of meeting the prince. Cinderella makes it to the ball, meets the basketball-crazy prince, but has to rush out at the stroke of midnight, leaving behind her high-top basketball shoe. The prince searches for the girl who knows all about basketball, but can Cinderella answer the basketball question? It's magic!

"'Little Red Riding Hood' is a mixed-up fairy tale where she meets the seven singing dwarves, a bashful wolf as well as a confused stagehand on her way to Grandmother's house. And there's only minutes until they turn out the lights!"

PANTO COMPETITION: Design costumes for the Ugly Sisters: "Panto season is approaching and the Maidenhead Drama Guild (MDG) [in the UK] is busy preparing for its version of the classic fairy tale Cinderella.

"Cinderella’s ugly sisters have a major part to play in the pantomime and will need suitable costumes to fit their part.

"MDG has teamed up with the Advertiser to give two local young readers, aged 16 or under, the chance to design costumes for the wicked stepsisters."

The Snow Queen is being performed as a ballet in Brisbane, Australia. There are other performances like Sleeping Beauty listed on the same page.

The Brave Tin Soldier is being performed with shadow puppets and other multimedia in Eisenach, Germany.

Finding Lost Books

One of the most common types of emails I have received over the years are from readers desperately searching for the particular collection of fairy tales they grew up with, the exact volume that held the particular stories and illustrations that first sparked their imaginations and began their love of the fantastic and wonderful.

Alas, only a very small percentage have been identified. While I have acquired an extensive knowledge and personal library of Golden Age illustrations (dating roughly 1880 to 1920), most searchers are looking for books published later, usually within a decade or two of their births. There are literally hundreds of possibilities since fairy tale collections have been a staple of many publishers great and small for decades. There are high quality collections with well-known illustrators but there are many more obscure collections that were more generic in nature with little known illustrators, many collections published with a "pulp" attitude of churning them out at low pricing for high profit margins with little concern for quality or accuracy. I'm not insulting these collections--they have contributed to the continuing popularity and availability of fairy tales. They are just very, very hard to identify and track down because they were not intended to be timeless, but rather disposable children's books.

The collection that I grew up with was Best Loved Fairy Tales Published By Parents' Magazine, pictured at the top of this post. Mine has a very important inscription:

April 1979 Easter

Heidi dear:

There are some of the stories you requested at Christmas. I know you will enjoy them as your mother and I enjoyed them.

Love, Grandma

I had requested Beauty and the Beast (not as commonly anthologized as one would think) and we spent much of the Christmas holidays trying to track it down. Grandma didn't give up and finally found it in this collection and mailed it to me. I devoured it many times over the years. Then let it capture dust for many more until I returned to it a few years after I started SurLaLune. I then realized that my love for the Golden Age Illustrators (many represented on SurLaLune) began here since the collection reproduces their work--not in high quality, but in grainy, flat images.. The Beauty and the Beast illustrations are by Walter Crane and thus remain some of my favorites to this day and rather explain why I was compelled to build a site like SurLaLune. So I understand the yearning and searching for lost fairy tale books. I am fortunate that mine wasn't given away, lost, destroyed or otherwise reacquired by the fair folk.


I suspect another popular collection is The World's Best Fairy Tales, A Reader's Digest Anthology since Reader's Digest books have been rather ubiquitous to many households over the years.


Another series is Andrew Lang's Colored Fairy Books, twelve in all, from the Blue to the Lilac. This series has rarely been out of print, thanks to Dover Publications, but the editions including the full color illustrations and not just the pen and inks are rare and expensive. For this reason, fans should rejoice that Dover is publishing Maidens, Monsters and Heroes: The Fantasy Illustrations of H. J. Ford in February 2010.


However, hands down, the most commonly sought collection has been The Golden Book of Fairy Tales by Adrienne Segur. Other Golden Books have also been popular including The Giant Golden Book of Elves and Fairies and The Snow Queen and Other Tales. (I didn't have any of these in my childhood, but Golden has been important in some way to almost every reader I have met. My personal favorite from Golden is still The Monster at the End of this Book.)


The Giant Golden Book of Elves and Fairies was reprinted last year after selling used for crazy prices but it is not guaranteed to stay in print so if this is one of your cherished memories, get it soon. The Golden Book of Fairy Tales by Adrienne Segur has been in print again for a while now, but it isn't guaranteed to stay that way either. When it does, its prices will skyrocket, too. It's that precious to so many.


Alas, The Snow Queen and Other Tales was reprinted not long ago, but it is already out of print again and selling for astronomical prices.

This post isn't just a walk down memory lane. I wanted to recommend some methods for finding "lost" books, be they fairy tales or not. The best location on the web for finding helpful and knowledgeable book sleuths is BookSleuth boards on AbeBooks. If the book is fairy tale related, you can also post on the SurLaLune Discussion Board.

If you do post your question on the board, please give as many details as possible to help others identify your tale. The following information is usually very helpful:

1) A rough estimate of the year you remember reading the story such as the actual year or at least a generalization of a decade.

2) As many details of the story--such as characters, setting, and plot--as you can remember. If there were illustrations, were they in color or black and white? Any details about the cover are sometimes helpful, too.

3) Try to remember if the story was in a collection of stories or a picture book, in other words a single story book with many illustrations. If it was in a collection, what were some of the other stories?

BookSleuth also has its own tips for using its boards. Read them!

Finally, please, don't email me with your requests but use the above methods instead. I will see your post on the SurLaLune boards. My email load is massive and I don't have the resources to answer every email, let alone to research each question sent to me. (I'm not a walking encyclopedia and most questions require time to answer. Even if I know the answer without research, I usually find ways of verifying it in the email.) Too many times I have felt generous and spent up to an hour searching for an answer or writing a response, sent it and never received a reply to know if my efforts even helped. My approach after 11 years of running this website single-handed is that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. I allocate my time to providing information to all with website updates and now writing this blog. If a question is easily answered or sparks my interest, you may get personal service, but the chances are slim. Try these other methods instead. And good luck!

The Little Match Girl Passion by David Lang

Did you know that David Lang won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his The Little Match Girl Passion? (Here's an iTunes link: Lang: the Little Match Girl Passion if you prefer to listen to samples there instead of Amazon.)

Co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall especially for Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices, David Lang's The Little Match Girl Passion was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Setting Hans Christian Andersen's fable in the format of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, Lang elevates the suffering of the little match girl with poignant, evocative music. Lang's piece is scored for four voices and a few percussion instruments, played by the singers. They sing the sad story of a little girl who freezes to death selling matches on the street during a cold winter's night. In notes Lang wrote to accompany the Carnegie Hall premiere last October, he says he was drawn to Andersen's story because of how opposite aspects of the plot played off each other. 'The girl's bitter present is locked together with the sweetness of her past memories, ' Lang says. 'Her poverty is always suffused with her hopefulness. There's a kind of naive equilibrium between suffering and hope.'

Here are some links to reviews and articles about the composition for your further enlightenment:

David Lang Wins Music Pulitzer

David Lang - The Little Match Girl Passion

Carnegie Hall: The Little Match Girl Passion David Lang

Sounds Heard: David Lang's the little match girl passion

With the cold weather and holidays fast approaching, this sounds like a wonderful addition to a holiday music collection since this is one fairy tale that is very much associated with the winter season.