Goldilocks in US Politics

I am not going to get political here on the blog--we need a few places to escape campaigns, don't we? But I was amused by this headline and the news that the GOP candidates have been invoking Goldilocks recently.

From Mitt Romney Upbeat After Strong Debate, Compares Newt Gingrich To 'Goldilocks':

"Speaker Gingrich said the debate before last night -- that the crowd wasn't allowed to cheer, and so he couldn't do so well because the crowd was too quiet," said Romney, referring to the NBC News debate where the audience was asked to hold its applause. "Then last night, he said the crowd was too loud. It's like Goldilocks. This porridge is too hot, this porridge is too cold."

But Romney's not alone, from the same article:

Former Sen. Rick Santorum also recently invoked Goldilocks, saying Gingrich was "hot, radioactive" and Romney was "cold, timid" -- but he was "just right."

Okay, candidates. How about Sleeping Beauty next? That one should be easy! Emperor's New Clothes and Cinderella are way too easy. Extra points and my vote if you can invoke Bluebeard or Robber Bridegroom! Or Twelve Dancing Princesses--now that would be amazing.

TV: Castle and Little Red Riding Hood

Castle, the ABC series, is drawing some inspiration from fairy tales for the 17th episode of its 4th season with an episode titled, "Once Upon a Crime." From Castle Scoop: Sarah Jane Morris Gets Involved In a Fairy Grimm Episode:

ABC’s Castle will kinda-sorta — but not really — crossover with the network’s freshman hit Once Upon a Time when Sarah Jane Morris guest-stars in a fairytale-flavored installment later this winter.

In this season’s 17th episode — titled, natch, “Once Upon a Crime” — Morris will play Leslie Morgan, a woman whose sister, Amy, was found dead in Central Park. The peculiar details of this quite unhappy ending? Amy was dressed as Little Red Riding Hood and the victim of an apparent wolf attack.

It looks like this will most likely air in the US on February 27th unless that timeslot gets preempted for something else and it gets bumped a week or two.

The series previously had a Goldilocks inspiration in its second season in the episode titled, "The Third Man." It was cleverly done so I am hoping this one is as witty, but I doubt it will be as subtle.

France Month: Cendrillon by Charles Perrault and illustrated by Charlotte Gastaut

I already shared Charlotte Gastaut's Princess and the Pea today with links to her site and blog. So I will let her Cendrillon speak for itself.

France Month: La princesse au petit pois by Hans Christian Andersen and illustrated by Charlotte Gastaut

La princesse au petit pois by Hans Christian Andersen and illustrated by Charlotte Gastaut is another Princess and the Pea, of course. Gastaut has illustrated many fairy tales and I have already featured Les fées by Charles Perrault and illustrated by Charlotte Gastaut. She has many more books, but alas I could not find good images for many of them although I am also sharing her Cinderella in a separate post today. There is a hidden page on her under construction website to see some unlabeled images and she has a blog where she occasionally shares more including some murals. I like her clean style.

Book description:

« Il était une fois un prince qui voulait se marier. Hélas aucune des jeunes filles qu on lui présentait ne trouvait grâce à ses yeux. Un soir, par un terrible orage, une jeune fille frappa à la porte du château. S'agissait-il, enfin, de la princesse tant recherchée ? » Trop d'enfants aujourd hui ne connaissent plus les contes classiques. Ces contes qui, pourtant, aident à grandir, enrichissent l imaginaire de milles et une créatures, fées, princesses ou dragons et apportent à la vie une moral pleine d humour où les méchants sont punis et les plus petits récompensés. Des contes qui donnent envie d apprendre à lire et de plus tard raconter, transmettre l histoire à ses enfants ! Pour faciliter l accès à cette formidable richesse de la littérature jeunesse, voilà une collection à petit prix, avec des histoires magnifiquement illustrées et surtout des textes, adaptés aux enfants, qui ont su garder l'impertinence, l ambiance et les tournures si particulières des contes de fées...

Scottish Ballet: Sleeping Beauty

This time I have video of a current ballet: The Scottish Ballet's production of Sleeping Beauty. This one is filled with vibrant, bright colors and looks like fun. Too bad I am more than an ocean away... The production is touring Scotland, so it is more accessible if you are there.

This is one of my favorite ballets thanks to the music, I admit. I was raised on Nutcracker (or I raised myself on it and drove the parental units crazy wearing out recordings of it as a preteen) so Tchaikovsky will always be important to me. There's also a gallery on their site of images, but I don't have time to import them here today. It looks like a gorgeous production.

There is also video of a webcast they did backstage of a performance. This is a tech savvy ballet company!


Scottish Ballet: The Sleeping Beauty 2011 - Trailer from Scottish Ballet on Vimeo.

France Month: Les trois petits cochons by Sylvie Bessard (Auteur), Agnès Lestrade (de) (Auteur)

Les trois petits cochons by Sylvie Bessard (Auteur), Agnès Lestrade (de) (Auteur)

Book description:

Il était une fois trois petits cochons qui voulaient construire leurs maisons. Le premier construisit sa maison avec de la paille, le deuxième avec du bois, et le troisième avec des briques. Les deux frères du troisième petit cochon se moquèrent de lui, mais, quand le loup vint à souffler sur leurs maisons pour les faire voler en éclats, ils furent bien contents d’aller trouver refuge dans la maison de briques...

Mirror, Mirror (2012): New International Trailer and a Featurette

That's the new 2-minute international trailer for Mirror, Mirror (2012). And I just realized we are only 7 weeks away from release since it is out on March 16th. Wow. I am expecting the media coverage to start boosting soon and I will try to share a good amount of it here.

I am trying to decide how much Snow White discussion to have on the blog. I discussed a lot when I released Sleeping Beauties: Sleeping Beauty and Snow White Tales From Around the World. But there is always more.

And while we are here, a new featurette, too.

Bargain Book: Today Only: A Drowned Maiden's Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz

A Drowned Maiden's Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz is the Amazon Deal of the Day today for $.99. The price will go back up at midnight PST. Schlitz wrote the Newbery Medal winner, Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village.

Book description:

Maud Flynn is known at the orphanage for her impertinence. So when the charming Miss Hyacinth chooses her to take home, the girl is pleased but baffled, until she learns of her new role: helping to stage elaborate séances for bereaved patrons. As Maud is drawn deeper into the deception, playing the "secret child," she is torn between her need to please and her growing conscience. It takes a shocking betrayal to make clear just how heartless her so-called guardians are. Filled with fascinating details of turn-of-the-century spiritualism and page-turning suspense, this novel from Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz features a feisty heroine whom readers will not soon forget.

No, this isn't directly folklore related, but is on the slant with the subject matter--and cool title--and so I thought it crossed over well in interests for many of you dear readers.

New Book: Hans My Hedgehog: A Tale from the Brothers Grimm by Kate Coombs and John Nickle

Hans My Hedgehog: A Tale from the Brothers Grimm by Kate Coombs (Adapter), Brothers Grimm (Author), John Nickle (Illustrator) was released this past Tuesday.

I haven't seen copy in person, but I'm always thrilled with a new picture book featuring one of the less popular fairy tales. Hans My Hedgehog is a sentimental favorite of many fairy tale fans and hopefully this book will also introduce the tale to a new audience.

Book description:

A classic tale of love and acceptance from the Brothers Grimm is beautifully rendered in this magical retelling.Hans is an unusual boy. Born a hedgehog from the waist up, he knows what it’s like to truly be an outcast. Even his amazing fiddle playing can’t help him fit in. So Hans flees to the forest with his herd of loyal pigs and only his music to keep him company. But then a most unusual thing happens: When Hans crosses paths with two kings with two lovely daughters, his luck starts to change. Will this lonely soul find true love after all?

This lively and lyrical retelling of the classic Grimm’s tale, paired with lush, detailed illustrations, reminds us of the power of music, the importance of belonging, and the transformative effect of love.

The reviews for the book so far are great--Kirkus starred it--and there is an interview with Kate Coombs at The Enchanted Inkpot this week, too. Most of the interview is about Coombs work as an author, but she answered a few questions about fairy tales, too. Here's an excerpt:

I don't see as many picture book fairy tales these days. Why is that?

Hans My Hedgehog is kind of an anomaly because very few picture book retellings of fairy tales are being published right now, after a heyday that took place 20 or so years ago. Many parents want their children to jump into reading chapter books right out of kindergarten. They seem to think that picture books are babyish. This is unfortunate because picture books for children in grades 1-3 can make a wonderful bridge and hook kids into wanting to read more.

Could you talk a little about fairy tale retellings for middle grade and young adult readers?

Even as the picture book fairy tale is showing signs of becoming extinct, novelizations for MG/YA are really taking off. So at least we aren't losing the stories altogether! I would even say that the 1990s and this new century have brought a golden age of fairy tale retellings for older children. For example, consider the incredible variety of Cinderella retellings: you get Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine, which famously imagines an explanation for Cinderella's passiveness; you get a lesbian Cinderella tale in Malinda Lo's Ash; and you get a cyborg Cinderella in Marissa Meyer's new book, Cinder. I love seeing what different authors do with the same story bones. The retelling movement is starting to reach beyond European tales more frequently, I am happy to say. Grace Lin's book, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, draws on Chinese folklore, and Jasmine Richard's The Book of Wonders uses Scheherazade and Sinbad to create something new. I can't wait to see what happens next.

What advice do you have for someone planning on doing an MG/YA retelling?

The retellings are coming fast and furiously, so as an author, you have to be careful what you choose to retell. A few years ago, I had just about finished a novelization of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," a story I chose because no one had done much with it, when someone else beat me to the punch. Since then, another half dozen versions have come out! I won't even tell you the story I'm tinkering with now. Suffice it to say, it's a lesser known fairy tale.

Whatever you decide to retell, you should work on giving your version a unique spin, the way Meyer did with Cinder, the way Jane Yolen did recently in her Appalachian Snow White retelling, Snow in Summer. It isn't enough to retell a story: you have to make it your own. That's really what Gail Carson Levine did with the Cinderella story. That and her fine characterization are what keep Ella Enchanted in print.

I'm hoping this fairy tale popularity will inspire publishers to give us some new beautiful fairy tale picture books. I have a lot of more obscure but interesting ones on my wishlist actually after working on all of these SurLaLune compilations and translating a few. There are some great Cinderellas out there as well as Beauty and the Beast and Snow White.

New Book: Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights by Marina Warner

 

Marina Warner has a new book out this year, Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights, which has already been released in the UK but won't be available in the US until March. But the press is hot on it in the UK, so I wanted to share today. If you are in the UK, you can have joy now and order the book right away. In the US, you can order the book from the UK now or wait until March. I'm waiting to spare my budget, of course, but I must admit I prefer the UK cover (the one on the left). What about you?

Book description (UK edition):

From the Inside Flap

Magic is not simply a matter of the occult arts, but a whole way of thinking, of dreaming the impossible. As such it has tremendous force in opening the mind to new realms of achievement: imagination precedes the fact. It used to be associated with wisdom, understanding the powers of nature, and with technical ingenuity that could let men do things they had never dreamed of before.

The supreme fiction of this magical thinking is The Arabian Nights, with its flying carpets, hidden treasure and sudden revelations. Translated into French and English in the early days of the Enlightenment, this became a best-seller among intellectuals, when it was still thought of in the Arab world as a mere collection of folk tales. For thinkers of the West the book's strangeness opened visions of transformation: dreams of flight,speaking objects, virtual money, and the power of the word to bring about change.Its tales create a poetic image of the impossible, a parable of secret knowledge and power. Above all they have the fascination of the strange - the belief that true knowledge lies elsewhere, in a mysterious realm of wonder.

As part of her exploration into the prophetic enchantments of the Nights Marina Warner retells some of the most wonderful and lesser known stories. She explores the figure of the dark magician or magus, from Solomon to the wicked uncle in Aladdin; the complex vitality of the jinn, or genies; animal metamorphoses and flying carpets.Her narrative reveals that magical thinking, as conveyed by these stories, governs many aspects of experience, even now.In this respect, the east and west have been in fruitful dialogue. Writers and artists in every medium have found themselves by adopting Oriental disguise. With startling originality and impeccable research, this ground-breaking book shows how magic, in the deepest sense, helped to create the modern world, and how profoundly it is still inscribed in the way we think today.

About the Author

Marina Warner spent her early years in Cairo, and was educated at a convent in Berkshire, and then in Brussels and London, before studying modern languages at Oxford. She is an internationally acclaimed cultural historian, critic, novelist and short story writer. From her early books on the Virgin Mary and Joan of Arc, to her bestselling studies of fairy tales and folk stories, From the Beast to the Blonde and No Go the Bogeyman, her work has explored different figures in myth and fairy tale and the art and literature they have inspired. She lectures widely in Europe, the United States and the Middle East, and is currently Professor in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies, University of Essex. She was appointed CBE in 2008.

And from Stranger Magic by Marina Warner: review: Sameer Rahim revels in 1,001 tales that last a lifetime, reading Marina Warner's Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights, the first few paragraphs to whet your interest:

The earliest translations of The Arabian Nights appeared around the same time as the Enlightenment philosopher David Hume began debunking Biblical miracles from the “ignorant and barbarous nations” of the East. As the West became more rationalist, Nights-fever caught on among countless artists for whom the tales were an outlet for all sorts of fantasies, both magical and sexual.

Mozart was given a copy by his Italian landlady and picked up themes for his oriental opera The Abduction from the Seraglio; Coleridge read the tales with a “strange mixture of obscure dread and intense desire”, the same feelings he evokes in “Kubla Khan”; and Dickens’s homage to the Nights can be found in A Christmas Carol, when Scrooge tries to trap the Ghost of Christmas Past with a candle extinguisher, like the Fisherman coaxing the Genie back into his magic lamp.

Marina Warner’s Stranger Magic ranges widely, and somewhat wildly, from the earliest Western interpretations to Hollywood films such as The Thief of Baghdad. She takes 15 of her favourite tales and spins a knowledgeable but rather haphazard cultural history.

Warner does not read Arabic and shows little interest in the linguistic texture of the tales – how, for example, any attempt to imitate the rhymed, repetitive prose leads to monstrosities like Richard Burton’s Victorian version, but how turning it into neat English does not reflect its oral origins. She also makes a point of denying their Arab-ness: The Nights, she writes, “has no known author or named authors, no settled shape or length, no fixed table of contents, no definite birthplace or linguistic origin”. But while the stories are certainly universal, they are also firmly rooted in the medieval Islamic world.

France Month: Raiponce illustrated by Princess Camcam

Minicontes classiques : Raiponce par Anne Royer (Auteur), D'après les Frères Grimm (Auteur), Princesse Camcam (Illustrations) is the first Rapunzel I've featured for France month. Yes, the tale is German but there are some early French Rapunzels around, too. (There's a few in my Rapunzel and Other Maiden in the Tower Tales From Around the World). However, the tale isn't well-represented in French picture books beyond the blitz of Disney tie-ins. This book is illustrated by Princess Camcam who also illustrated the brunette Cinderella I shared a few weeks ago.

Book description:

« Il était une fois un homme et une femme qui attendaient leur premier enfant. Derrière leur maison, il y avait un jardin où poussaient de magnifiques fleurs. Quand la femme les aperçut, elle ne voulut rien manger d autre que ces fleurs nommées raiponce. Or ce jardin appartenait à une redoutable magicienne... » Trop d'enfants aujourd'hui ne connaissent plus les contes classiques. Ces contes qui, pourtant, aident à grandir, enrichissent l imaginaire de milles et une créatures, fées, princesses ou dragons et apportent à la vie une morale pleine d'humour où les méchants sont punis et les plus petits récompensés. Des contes qui donnent envie d'apprendre à lire et plus tard de raconter, transmettre l'histoire à ses enfants ! Pour faciliter l'accès à cette formidable richesse de la littérature jeunesse, voilà une collection à petit prix, avec des histoires magnifiquement illustrées et surtout des textes, adaptés aux enfants, qui ont su garder l impertinence, l ambiance et les tournures si particulières des contes de fées...

Hollywood Report: ABC's 'Beauty and the Beast' Ordered to Pilot

From Hollywood Report: ABC's 'Beauty and the Beast' Ordered to Pilot:

ABC is making it a pair of Beauty and the Beast reboots this pilot season.

The female-skewing network is moving forward with its reimagining of the classic fairy tale set in a mythical, dangerous world where a beautiful and tough princess discovers an unlikely connection with a mysterious beast.

Human Target scribe Jonathan E. Steinberg (Jericho) will pen the project with Gary Fleder (Life Unexpected) and Mary Beth Basile (October Road) attached to executive produce the ABC Studios project through their Mojo Films shingle.

ABC's Beauty and the Beast update comes as the network has found success with freshman fairy tale Once Upon a Time, the dual universe drama revolving around Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and her long-lost daughter (Jennifer Morrison).

But will Gaston be forced upon us? Shudder. It's ABC/Disney. It could happen. Just saying. Although I am enjoying Once Upon a Time. I'm just more attached to Beauty and her Beast so I get worried.

Now that Snow White trend really is ending but the fairy tale one isn't!

And isn't everyone excited to know that my Beauty and the Beast Tales From Around the World will be out later this year?