Journals Week: Journal of American Folklore

The Journal of American Folklore is a publication of The American Folklore Society. If your primary interest is fairy tales, this is not going to be your favorite journal--the ones mentioned earlier this week have more directly fairy tale related articles on the whole. However, the journal is one of the top ones about folklore in general and merited its own post.

The Journal of American Folklore, the quarterly journal of the American Folklore Society since the Society's founding in 1888, publishes scholarly articles, essays, notes, and commentaries directed to a wide audience, as well as separate sections devoted to reviews of books, exhibitions and events, sound recordings, film and videotapes, and exhibitions and events. Its contents are not restricted to folklore in the United States; in fact, the Journal publishes materials on folklore anywhere in the world.

The contents of the Journal reflect a wide range of professional concerns and points of view. Articles present significant research findings and theoretical analyses from folklore and related fields. Essays are interpretive, speculative, or polemic. Notes are narrower in scope and focus on a single, often provocative, issue of definition, interpretation, or amplification. Commentaries briefly address topics raised in earlier articles.

Members of the American Folklore Society receive four issues of the Journal each year as one of their member benefits.

The full text of issues of the Journal from Volume 114 (2001) to the present is available online through Project MUSE. AFS members receive complimentary access to the issues of the Journal available through Project MUSE as a benefit of membership.

Here's a link to Journal of American Folklore: Recent Tables of Contents. If you browse there, you'll find very little that is fairy tale oriented, but there's plenty of interesting reading all the same.

Reminder: Please read Call for Contributions: Graduate Programs Information and send me an email if you have a contribution.

Bluebeard by Sidhe Etain

Last week I received an email from Sidhe Etain who designs costumes and shares her work online. Recently she designed costumes for the Bluebeard fairy tale and then created some photographic illustrations of the tale using the costumes.

If you read the text and look at the pictures, you will see she takes a more modern approach than the text. In this version, the wife dispenses with Bluebeard instead of her brothers doing so. An interersting juxtaposition of text and imagery.



She uses the text from Walter Crane's illustrated version of Bluebeard published in 1875 and supplements it with thirteen photographs. I am sharing three here, but click through the links to see the entire piece.


All the costumes on her site--not just the Bluebeard ones--are beautiful. And I always enjoy seeing Bluebeard interpreted by others. It is so often forgotten as a fairy tale, thanks to its unromantic and horrific elements.

Journals Week: Journal of American Folklore

The Journal of American Folklore is a publication of The American Folklore Society. If your primary interest is fairy tales, this is not going to be your favorite journal--the ones mentioned earlier this week have more directly fairy tale related articles on the whole. However, the journal is one of the top ones about folklore in general and merited its own post.

The Journal of American Folklore, the quarterly journal of the American Folklore Society since the Society's founding in 1888, publishes scholarly articles, essays, notes, and commentaries directed to a wide audience, as well as separate sections devoted to reviews of books, exhibitions and events, sound recordings, film and videotapes, and exhibitions and events. Its contents are not restricted to folklore in the United States; in fact, the Journal publishes materials on folklore anywhere in the world.

The contents of the Journal reflect a wide range of professional concerns and points of view. Articles present significant research findings and theoretical analyses from folklore and related fields. Essays are interpretive, speculative, or polemic. Notes are narrower in scope and focus on a single, often provocative, issue of definition, interpretation, or amplification. Commentaries briefly address topics raised in earlier articles.

Members of the American Folklore Society receive four issues of the Journal each year as one of their member benefits.

The full text of issues of the Journal from Volume 114 (2001) to the present is available online through Project MUSE. AFS members receive complimentary access to the issues of the Journal available through Project MUSE as a benefit of membership.

Here's a link to Journal of American Folklore: Recent Tables of Contents. If you browse there, you'll find very little that is fairy tale oriented, but there's plenty of interesting reading all the same.

Reminder: Please read Call for Contributions: Graduate Programs Information and send me an email if you have a contribution.

Bluebeard by Sidhe Etain

Last week I received an email from Sidhe Etain who designs costumes and shares her work online. Recently she designed costumes for the Bluebeard fairy tale and then created some photographic illustrations of the tale using the costumes.

If you read the text and look at the pictures, you will see she takes a more modern approach than the text. In this version, the wife dispenses with Bluebeard instead of her brothers doing so. An interersting juxtaposition of text and imagery.



She uses the text from Walter Crane's illustrated version of Bluebeard published in 1875 and supplements it with thirteen photographs. I am sharing three here, but click through the links to see the entire piece.


All the costumes on her site--not just the Bluebeard ones--are beautiful. And I always enjoy seeing Bluebeard interpreted by others. It is so often forgotten as a fairy tale, thanks to its unromantic and horrific elements.

Journals Week: Folklore

Folklore is the journal of The Folklore Society and has been in print under a few changing titles since 1878--Folk-lore Record and Folk-lore Journal--making it one of the oldest journals devoted to folklore and fairy tales.

Folklore is also relatively affordable for the student and armchair enthusiast since it comes with individual membership to The Folklore Society. In addition, other benefits are offered such as access through JSTOR to all Folklore issues (don't need an academic subscription!).

Here's the official list of benefits: "Benefits of Folklore Society membership include: receipt of FLS News, access to JSTOR's electronic archive of back-numbers of Folklore; information about publications and events, preferential rates for some events and publications, and access to FLS information services and library."

Here are the 2009 Membership Rates for the Folklore Society:

Ordinary membership: US$81/£45
Household membership: US$90/£50
Reduced membership (Students, Unwaged, Pensioners): US$50/£28 (proof of status required)

Aims and scope from the website:

•Folklore is one of the earliest English-language journals in the field of folkloristics, first published as Folk-Lore Record in 1878.

•Folklore publishes ethnographical and analytical essays on vernacular culture worldwide, specialising in traditional language, narrative, music, song, dance, drama, foodways, medicine, arts and crafts, and popular religion and belief. It reviews current scholarship in a wide range of adjacent disciplines including cultural studies, popular culture, cultural anthropology, ethnology and social history.

•Folklore prides itself on its special mix of ethnography, analysis and debate, formal and informal articles, reviews, review essays and bibliographies. It encompasses both North American and European approaches to the study of folklore and covers not only the materials and processes of folklore, but also the history, methods and theory of folkloristics.

•Folklore aims to be lively, informative and accessible, whilst maintaining high standards of scholarship.

Folklore has a great history of scholarship that is ongoing today. It is the journal in which many of the earliest well-known folklore and fairy tale scholars published their research and findings. It is also where they sparred over theories. You'll find Andrew Lang, Joseph Jacobs, W. R. S. Ralston, Marian Roalfe Cox and many others represented in its early issues.

All you need is internet access to read much of the scholarship published in the early years of the journal's 120 year history since many of the issues have been digitized by Google in Google Books. Unfortunately, they are not well organized and searching them is an exquisite kind of torture all too often, but they are there. I am hoping for better indexing and searching in the future as Google Books organizes itself better. Here's an example: The Folk-lore journal, Volume 7 By Folklore Society.

If you aren't interested in subscribing, individual articles from the past several years are also available for a fee through InformaWorld. If you follow that link, you can also peruse the table of contents and abstracts (not all articles have abstracts) from the last ten years of issues.

Folklore is Abstracted/Indexed in:

Anthropological Index Online; B H A Bibliography of the History of Art; Bibliography of Native North Americans; British Humanities Index; Current Abstracts; Humanities Index; Humanities International Index; International Bibliography of the Social Sciences; Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts; M L A International Bibliography (Modern Language Association of America); OCLC; Periodicals Index Online; ProQuest Central; Religion Index One: Periodicals; Thomson Reuters' Arts & Humanities Citation Index.

Reminder: Please read Call for Contributions: Graduate Programs Information and send me an email if you have a contribution.

Alice and Dorothy: Makeup Releases

Okay, I admit it. I don't consider Alice in Wonderland or Wizard of Oz to be fairy tales, just popular classic novels that are suffused with fantasy and some fairy tale tropes. I equate them more to Lord of the Rings and Narnia than Charles Perrault or the Brothers Grimm. I'm not saying this to open debate. Just to state my own leanings.

However, popular culture--and a good many of you--disagree with me. And I admit I am drawn to the imagery as well as surveying both stories' influence on pop culture, thanks perhaps more to both stories repeated interpretation in film, too. (Once again, influence does not a fairy tale make. Star Trek and Star Wars have managed similar influences, too, IMHO.) I doubt Oz would be so popular today without Judy Garland's full color adventure on film. Experience backs me up on this. I have only met a handful of people in my lifetime who have ever read Baum's Oz series or even The Wizard of Oz alone, but rarely have I met someone who hasn't seen the film repeatedly.

That said, I will cover Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz here when something catches my fancy. And here's some fun stuff recently released--all makeup themed today--in honor of releases of new films (Tim Burton's upcoming Alice especially), anniversaries of old films (70th of Oz film), etc.

First the nail polishes:


This was a rerelease of a very popular collection released several years ago by China Glaze. Fun names include Ruby Pumps (red), Dorothy Who? (blue), Good Witch? (pink), Ten Man (silver), Cowardly Lyn (gold), and C-C-Courage (purple). This is available in stores currently or online such as at Transdesign (not a SurLaLune affiliate).


This is a Spring 2010 release by OPI. Off with Her Red! and Thanks So Muchness! are the reds. Absolutely Alice is the blue. Mad as a Hatter is a glitter with a rainbow of colors despite its appearance in images.

And finally, this one was shared by Natalya. Her email is what convinced me to go ahead and post about the polishes, too, something I had been debating for a while.


This is clever. Very clever. Released this Friday by Urban Decay. I'm a sucker for pop-up books and this is tempting although I can't wear eye shadow due to several allergies, especially to nickel. But the box is so pretty...too bad there isn't chocolate inside instead!

And speaking of pop-ups, Robert Sabuda has OF COURSE interpreted both of these stories into pop-up books. See The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: A Commemorative Pop-up and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: A Pop-up Adaptation. I really wish he would do some fairy tales....

Journals Week: Folklore

Folklore is the journal of The Folklore Society and has been in print under a few changing titles since 1878--Folk-lore Record and Folk-lore Journal--making it one of the oldest journals devoted to folklore and fairy tales.

Folklore is also relatively affordable for the student and armchair enthusiast since it comes with individual membership to The Folklore Society. In addition, other benefits are offered such as access through JSTOR to all Folklore issues (don't need an academic subscription!).

Here's the official list of benefits: "Benefits of Folklore Society membership include: receipt of FLS News, access to JSTOR's electronic archive of back-numbers of Folklore; information about publications and events, preferential rates for some events and publications, and access to FLS information services and library."

Here are the 2009 Membership Rates for the Folklore Society:

Ordinary membership: US$81/£45
Household membership: US$90/£50
Reduced membership (Students, Unwaged, Pensioners): US$50/£28 (proof of status required)

Aims and scope from the website:

•Folklore is one of the earliest English-language journals in the field of folkloristics, first published as Folk-Lore Record in 1878.

•Folklore publishes ethnographical and analytical essays on vernacular culture worldwide, specialising in traditional language, narrative, music, song, dance, drama, foodways, medicine, arts and crafts, and popular religion and belief. It reviews current scholarship in a wide range of adjacent disciplines including cultural studies, popular culture, cultural anthropology, ethnology and social history.

•Folklore prides itself on its special mix of ethnography, analysis and debate, formal and informal articles, reviews, review essays and bibliographies. It encompasses both North American and European approaches to the study of folklore and covers not only the materials and processes of folklore, but also the history, methods and theory of folkloristics.

•Folklore aims to be lively, informative and accessible, whilst maintaining high standards of scholarship.

Folklore has a great history of scholarship that is ongoing today. It is the journal in which many of the earliest well-known folklore and fairy tale scholars published their research and findings. It is also where they sparred over theories. You'll find Andrew Lang, Joseph Jacobs, W. R. S. Ralston, Marian Roalfe Cox and many others represented in its early issues.

All you need is internet access to read much of the scholarship published in the early years of the journal's 120 year history since many of the issues have been digitized by Google in Google Books. Unfortunately, they are not well organized and searching them is an exquisite kind of torture all too often, but they are there. I am hoping for better indexing and searching in the future as Google Books organizes itself better. Here's an example: The Folk-lore journal, Volume 7 By Folklore Society.

If you aren't interested in subscribing, individual articles from the past several years are also available for a fee through InformaWorld. If you follow that link, you can also peruse the table of contents and abstracts (not all articles have abstracts) from the last ten years of issues.

Folklore is Abstracted/Indexed in:

Anthropological Index Online; B H A Bibliography of the History of Art; Bibliography of Native North Americans; British Humanities Index; Current Abstracts; Humanities Index; Humanities International Index; International Bibliography of the Social Sciences; Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts; M L A International Bibliography (Modern Language Association of America); OCLC; Periodicals Index Online; ProQuest Central; Religion Index One: Periodicals; Thomson Reuters' Arts & Humanities Citation Index.

Reminder: Please read Call for Contributions: Graduate Programs Information and send me an email if you have a contribution.

Alice and Dorothy: Makeup Releases

Okay, I admit it. I don't consider Alice in Wonderland or Wizard of Oz to be fairy tales, just popular classic novels that are suffused with fantasy and some fairy tale tropes. I equate them more to Lord of the Rings and Narnia than Charles Perrault or the Brothers Grimm. I'm not saying this to open debate. Just to state my own leanings.

However, popular culture--and a good many of you--disagree with me. And I admit I am drawn to the imagery as well as surveying both stories' influence on pop culture, thanks perhaps more to both stories repeated interpretation in film, too. (Once again, influence does not a fairy tale make. Star Trek and Star Wars have managed similar influences, too, IMHO.) I doubt Oz would be so popular today without Judy Garland's full color adventure on film. Experience backs me up on this. I have only met a handful of people in my lifetime who have ever read Baum's Oz series or even The Wizard of Oz alone, but rarely have I met someone who hasn't seen the film repeatedly.

That said, I will cover Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz here when something catches my fancy. And here's some fun stuff recently released--all makeup themed today--in honor of releases of new films (Tim Burton's upcoming Alice especially), anniversaries of old films (70th of Oz film), etc.

First the nail polishes:


This was a rerelease of a very popular collection released several years ago by China Glaze. Fun names include Ruby Pumps (red), Dorothy Who? (blue), Good Witch? (pink), Ten Man (silver), Cowardly Lyn (gold), and C-C-Courage (purple). This is available in stores currently or online such as at Transdesign (not a SurLaLune affiliate).


This is a Spring 2010 release by OPI. Off with Her Red! and Thanks So Muchness! are the reds. Absolutely Alice is the blue. Mad as a Hatter is a glitter with a rainbow of colors despite its appearance in images.

And finally, this one was shared by Natalya. Her email is what convinced me to go ahead and post about the polishes, too, something I had been debating for a while.


This is clever. Very clever. Released this Friday by Urban Decay. I'm a sucker for pop-up books and this is tempting although I can't wear eye shadow due to several allergies, especially to nickel. But the box is so pretty...too bad there isn't chocolate inside instead!

And speaking of pop-ups, Robert Sabuda has OF COURSE interpreted both of these stories into pop-up books. See The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: A Commemorative Pop-up and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: A Pop-up Adaptation. I really wish he would do some fairy tales....

Food For Thought: Fantasy Worlds and Depression

On the slant, but this caught my eye this evening: Does Watching "Avatar" Lead to Depression? by Deborah Huso

Hundreds of fans of James Cameron's hit film "Avatar," which has raked in $1.4 billion, are reporting symptoms of depression as well as suicidal thoughts after seeing the movie. The film is set in the future when the Earth's resources have been depleted and a corporation is looking to mine the natural resources of a planet called, Pandora, which is portrayed as a world of beauty, with inhabitants that are close to nature and all creatures are connected. Many attribute their depression to the fact that the utopian world shown in the movie is unattainable here on earth and makes life seem meaningless.

and more...

Crazy as it may sound at first, feeling blue after engaging in some form of escapism, whether it's an especially touching movie or a great book, isn't unusual. But if it's impacting your ability to function, you could be taking escapism to the extreme. Escapism on that level can be a symptom of all kinds of problems from anxiety disorder to clinical depression.

“If a person has such an inordinate attraction to fantasy material and is prevented access to it, frustration, stress, anxiety or depression might possibly result,” said Frank Farley, Ph.D., a professor of educational psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia. “Modeling or identifying with media depictions is not unknown,” he added. “Yet most people make the distinction of reality versus fantasy.”

So does that make Avatar a new fairy tale in the pop culture sense, the one in which the label 'fairy tale' implies idyllic, perfect existence? Just do a news search to see how overused the term is in articles about romances and weddings, sports and politics.

Of course, except for the usual happy endings, we know that the real fairy tales are anything but idyllic, but rather violent and scary with only the hope of a happily ever after ending. It's always fun to compare the public perception versus the reality of what's in the tales, at least the earlier versions before they were made safer for the nursery.

Also applicable since so many of us fairy tale enthusiasts are also lovers of fantasy and science fiction in general. Although I admit I haven't seen Avatar yet and am not really very interested in it despite several rather enthusiastic endorsements from friends. My loss, I know, but I have become insanely picky about movies of late.

Edited: Noticed a few minutes after posting that this is my 350th post. Chugging right along...

Food For Thought: Fantasy Worlds and Depression

On the slant, but this caught my eye this evening: Does Watching "Avatar" Lead to Depression? by Deborah Huso

Hundreds of fans of James Cameron's hit film "Avatar," which has raked in $1.4 billion, are reporting symptoms of depression as well as suicidal thoughts after seeing the movie. The film is set in the future when the Earth's resources have been depleted and a corporation is looking to mine the natural resources of a planet called, Pandora, which is portrayed as a world of beauty, with inhabitants that are close to nature and all creatures are connected. Many attribute their depression to the fact that the utopian world shown in the movie is unattainable here on earth and makes life seem meaningless.

and more...

Crazy as it may sound at first, feeling blue after engaging in some form of escapism, whether it's an especially touching movie or a great book, isn't unusual. But if it's impacting your ability to function, you could be taking escapism to the extreme. Escapism on that level can be a symptom of all kinds of problems from anxiety disorder to clinical depression.

“If a person has such an inordinate attraction to fantasy material and is prevented access to it, frustration, stress, anxiety or depression might possibly result,” said Frank Farley, Ph.D., a professor of educational psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia. “Modeling or identifying with media depictions is not unknown,” he added. “Yet most people make the distinction of reality versus fantasy.”

So does that make Avatar a new fairy tale in the pop culture sense, the one in which the label 'fairy tale' implies idyllic, perfect existence? Just do a news search to see how overused the term is in articles about romances and weddings, sports and politics.

Of course, except for the usual happy endings, we know that the real fairy tales are anything but idyllic, but rather violent and scary with only the hope of a happily ever after ending. It's always fun to compare the public perception versus the reality of what's in the tales, at least the earlier versions before they were made safer for the nursery.

Also applicable since so many of us fairy tale enthusiasts are also lovers of fantasy and science fiction in general. Although I admit I haven't seen Avatar yet and am not really very interested in it despite several rather enthusiastic endorsements from friends. My loss, I know, but I have become insanely picky about movies of late.

Edited: Noticed a few minutes after posting that this is my 350th post. Chugging right along...

Arabian Nights and Marina Warner

I'm a few days behind on this--playing catch up after being sick--but here's Do the tales of the Arabian Nights have resonance for audiences today? Marina Warner warms to the RSC's production of Arabian Nights by Marina Warner, found at The Guardian. (The best newspaper for fairy tale related articles. Someone there shares our interests!)

Here's a passage from the article, but you have to click through to read it all:

The first translation of One Thousand and One Nights into English, under the title Arabian Nights' Entertainments, instantly sparked a craze when it appeared at the beginning of the 18th century, and set the tone for the stories' successful entrance into the history of drama and performance. The first Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp was performed at Drury Lane in London in the 1780s, with designs by Philippe de Loutherbourg, the artist who a few years before had created a fabulous Oriental mise-en-scène for William Beckford's 21st birthday party, which combined séance, orgy, gothic ruins and private theatricals. This inspired Beckford's original Arabian Nights fantasy, the novel Vathek, which is bathed, like the party, in what he recalled was "a strange, necromantic light". Since those days of heady dreams, shows such as Aladdin or Ali Baba have taken an ever more, and more rudely, comic turn. Their bawdy rough-and-tumble does reflect a strain of the multilayered Nights stories; but it's still the case that the traditional panto gives a false sense of the stories, missing the riches of their poetry, enchanted atmosphere, protean originality and endlessly ingenious narrative logic.

The book's earliest readers in France belonged to a courtly world that hardly distinguished between performance and ordinary round, so stylised and ornamented was the royal day at Versailles or in noblemen and women's hotels particuliers, where the first exclamations of delight greeted the fantastic tales of One Thousand and One Nights. But very quickly, the book's storytelling devices were taken over by other voices placed at different, dissenting angles to power: Elizabeth Inchbald and Frances Sheridan put on Oriental disguise to satirise sexual hypocrisy and social conventions; Voltaire, Addison and Swift also found they could use the mode to mock and attack their targets. In the theatre especially, the sheer abundance of the plots of the Nights opened up possibilities: the book presented magical twists and turns that intrinsically lent themselves to high-spirited performance and to technical experiment. The history of the Nights on the stage is consequently intertwined with some brilliant early stagecraft for transformation scenes, flying machines, conjuring illusions, innovatory limelight and other effects (in Islington in the 1890s, the genies in Aladdin were called after the new gases, Paraffin, Benzoline and Colza).

And once again, if you haven't read From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers by Marina Warner, well, you really must.

Arabian Nights and Marina Warner

I'm a few days behind on this--playing catch up after being sick--but here's Do the tales of the Arabian Nights have resonance for audiences today? Marina Warner warms to the RSC's production of Arabian Nights by Marina Warner, found at The Guardian. (The best newspaper for fairy tale related articles. Someone there shares our interests!)

Here's a passage from the article, but you have to click through to read it all:

The first translation of One Thousand and One Nights into English, under the title Arabian Nights' Entertainments, instantly sparked a craze when it appeared at the beginning of the 18th century, and set the tone for the stories' successful entrance into the history of drama and performance. The first Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp was performed at Drury Lane in London in the 1780s, with designs by Philippe de Loutherbourg, the artist who a few years before had created a fabulous Oriental mise-en-scène for William Beckford's 21st birthday party, which combined séance, orgy, gothic ruins and private theatricals. This inspired Beckford's original Arabian Nights fantasy, the novel Vathek, which is bathed, like the party, in what he recalled was "a strange, necromantic light". Since those days of heady dreams, shows such as Aladdin or Ali Baba have taken an ever more, and more rudely, comic turn. Their bawdy rough-and-tumble does reflect a strain of the multilayered Nights stories; but it's still the case that the traditional panto gives a false sense of the stories, missing the riches of their poetry, enchanted atmosphere, protean originality and endlessly ingenious narrative logic.

The book's earliest readers in France belonged to a courtly world that hardly distinguished between performance and ordinary round, so stylised and ornamented was the royal day at Versailles or in noblemen and women's hotels particuliers, where the first exclamations of delight greeted the fantastic tales of One Thousand and One Nights. But very quickly, the book's storytelling devices were taken over by other voices placed at different, dissenting angles to power: Elizabeth Inchbald and Frances Sheridan put on Oriental disguise to satirise sexual hypocrisy and social conventions; Voltaire, Addison and Swift also found they could use the mode to mock and attack their targets. In the theatre especially, the sheer abundance of the plots of the Nights opened up possibilities: the book presented magical twists and turns that intrinsically lent themselves to high-spirited performance and to technical experiment. The history of the Nights on the stage is consequently intertwined with some brilliant early stagecraft for transformation scenes, flying machines, conjuring illusions, innovatory limelight and other effects (in Islington in the 1890s, the genies in Aladdin were called after the new gases, Paraffin, Benzoline and Colza).

And once again, if you haven't read From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers by Marina Warner, well, you really must.

Hans Christian Andersen: An Outsider's Tale

Found a nice article about HCA which draws primarily from the biography Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storyteller by Jackie Wullschlager. (And in building this link I discovered that the paperback is currently 58% off cover price at $8.90 on Amazon. Don't know for how long, but that's a great price on a new book.)

Read the entire article at: Hans Christian Andersen: An outsider's tale by Bruce Emond.

The world's most famous storyteller - his fascinating tales were favorite bedtime reading for the children of his era in the 19th century, and more recently have been given the Disney treatment for millions more around the world - lived a life that was not so much a fairy-tale, replete with a neat, all-ends-tied-up ending, but a saga of struggles, loneliness and the quest to find himself.

Most of those who read his stories know little about Andersen the man, save for him being Danish (there was a schmaltzy Hollywood biopic many years ago starring Danny Kaye) or, perhaps, for the younger generation, the oft-repeated intriguing rumor that he had homosexual tendencies in a time when it was still a love that dared not speak its name.

There have been few biographies of Andersen written in English, the most comprehensive written by journalist Jackie Wullschlager in 2000. Drawing on Andersen's own memoirs, his personal papers and contemporary accounts from his lifetime, Wullschlager portrays a brilliant man who was driven to succeed despite being riddled by neurosis and a complicated array of emotions - oversensitive, proud and quick to take offense - that sometimes worked against him.

Hans Christian Andersen: An Outsider's Tale

Found a nice article about HCA which draws primarily from the biography Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storyteller by Jackie Wullschlager. (And in building this link I discovered that the paperback is currently 58% off cover price at $8.90 on Amazon. Don't know for how long, but that's a great price on a new book.)

Read the entire article at: Hans Christian Andersen: An outsider's tale by Bruce Emond.

The world's most famous storyteller - his fascinating tales were favorite bedtime reading for the children of his era in the 19th century, and more recently have been given the Disney treatment for millions more around the world - lived a life that was not so much a fairy-tale, replete with a neat, all-ends-tied-up ending, but a saga of struggles, loneliness and the quest to find himself.

Most of those who read his stories know little about Andersen the man, save for him being Danish (there was a schmaltzy Hollywood biopic many years ago starring Danny Kaye) or, perhaps, for the younger generation, the oft-repeated intriguing rumor that he had homosexual tendencies in a time when it was still a love that dared not speak its name.

There have been few biographies of Andersen written in English, the most comprehensive written by journalist Jackie Wullschlager in 2000. Drawing on Andersen's own memoirs, his personal papers and contemporary accounts from his lifetime, Wullschlager portrays a brilliant man who was driven to succeed despite being riddled by neurosis and a complicated array of emotions - oversensitive, proud and quick to take offense - that sometimes worked against him.

Paper Dolls: Rapunzel's Revenge and Calamity Jack

Nathan Hale has created a series of paper dolls to promote the release of Calamity Jack. (See last week's post about the book.) He had previously done this for Rapunzel's Revenge, too, so there are several wonderfully designed paper dolls available for FREE that make me want to print them and get out the colored pencils. If only I had the time...


Jack and Rapunzel are both provided with three costume changes each.



These are available in full size on Nathan Hale's blog. Also download Rapunzel's Revenge Paper Dolls for the previous versions. This is a pdf file.


These make a fun activity for the snowbound, too...


And can I just say I really love that this Rapunzel is a redhead?

Journals Week: Fabula

Fabula: Journal of Folktale Studies is somewhat less accessible for the armchair enthusiast and student when compared to Marvels & Tales because it publishes articles in several languages: German, English, and French. I read English and can read French pretty well, but my German is almost nonexistent (ironic considering my very German name, I know).

However, this is my second favorite journal for fairy tale specific studies after Marvels & Tales, thanks to content that focuses on the folklore of European and European influenced countries, my primary focus of study. They also on occasion have special issues, such as Dec 2008: Volume 49, Number 3-4, which was devoted to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Aims & Scope:

Fabula is a medium of discussion for issues of all kinds which are of interest to international folk narrative research. The journal contains eight divisions: Articles, Minor Contributions, Research Reports and Conference Reports, News, Projects and Queries, Reviews, Bibliographical Notes, and Books Received. Principal themes of the article section are the study of popular narrative traditions in their various forms (fairy tales, legends, jokes and anecdotes, exempla, fables, ballads, etc.), the interrelationship between oral and literary traditions as well as the contemporary genres. Interest focuses on Europe and overseas countries which are influenced by European civilization, but still, there is quite a number of contributions from other culture areas.

Founded by Kurt Ranke and first published in 1958, this journal has been around for several years and has printed several wonderful articles. The positive is that issues are available online for perusing. The negative is that they don't come free and are cost prohibitive to many students and armchair enthusiasts. You can access the articles online as PDFs for 24 hours for $40 each. Makes the annual subscription of about $250 for two issues sound like a bargain. (That price is approximate to the Euro conversion and the rates offered through Amazon subscriptions as of the writing of this post.)

Here is a list of the volumes with links to their tables of contents from Reference Global. So these are usually out of necessity limited to those with free access through academic institutions, something I myself don't have at this time. To help in research (or to torture those of us without further access) the site also has abstracts for the articles, available in all three languages regardless of the article's language.

The journal is also abstracted and indexed in Academic OneFile (Gale/Cengage Learning); Arts and Humanities Citation Index; and Current Contents / Arts and Humanities.

I myself wish I had the full Snow White issue as well as some articles from other volumes...

Reminder: Please read Call for Contributions: Graduate Programs Information and send me an email if you have a contribution.

Paper Dolls: Rapunzel's Revenge and Calamity Jack

Nathan Hale has created a series of paper dolls to promote the release of Calamity Jack. (See last week's post about the book.) He had previously done this for Rapunzel's Revenge, too, so there are several wonderfully designed paper dolls available for FREE that make me want to print them and get out the colored pencils. If only I had the time...


Jack and Rapunzel are both provided with three costume changes each.



These are available in full size on Nathan Hale's blog. Also download Rapunzel's Revenge Paper Dolls for the previous versions. This is a pdf file.


These make a fun activity for the snowbound, too...


And can I just say I really love that this Rapunzel is a redhead?

Journals Week: Fabula

Fabula: Journal of Folktale Studies is somewhat less accessible for the armchair enthusiast and student when compared to Marvels & Tales because it publishes articles in several languages: German, English, and French. I read English and can read French pretty well, but my German is almost nonexistent (ironic considering my very German name, I know).

However, this is my second favorite journal for fairy tale specific studies after Marvels & Tales, thanks to content that focuses on the folklore of European and European influenced countries, my primary focus of study. They also on occasion have special issues, such as Dec 2008: Volume 49, Number 3-4, which was devoted to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Aims & Scope:

Fabula is a medium of discussion for issues of all kinds which are of interest to international folk narrative research. The journal contains eight divisions: Articles, Minor Contributions, Research Reports and Conference Reports, News, Projects and Queries, Reviews, Bibliographical Notes, and Books Received. Principal themes of the article section are the study of popular narrative traditions in their various forms (fairy tales, legends, jokes and anecdotes, exempla, fables, ballads, etc.), the interrelationship between oral and literary traditions as well as the contemporary genres. Interest focuses on Europe and overseas countries which are influenced by European civilization, but still, there is quite a number of contributions from other culture areas.

Founded by Kurt Ranke and first published in 1958, this journal has been around for several years and has printed several wonderful articles. The positive is that issues are available online for perusing. The negative is that they don't come free and are cost prohibitive to many students and armchair enthusiasts. You can access the articles online as PDFs for 24 hours for $40 each. Makes the annual subscription of about $250 for two issues sound like a bargain. (That price is approximate to the Euro conversion and the rates offered through Amazon subscriptions as of the writing of this post.)

Here is a list of the volumes with links to their tables of contents from Reference Global. So these are usually out of necessity limited to those with free access through academic institutions, something I myself don't have at this time. To help in research (or to torture those of us without further access) the site also has abstracts for the articles, available in all three languages regardless of the article's language.

The journal is also abstracted and indexed in Academic OneFile (Gale/Cengage Learning); Arts and Humanities Citation Index; and Current Contents / Arts and Humanities.

I myself wish I had the full Snow White issue as well as some articles from other volumes...

Reminder: Please read Call for Contributions: Graduate Programs Information and send me an email if you have a contribution.

Video Games: Storybook Workshop

As happens too often around here, I'm a little late on this one since it was released this past November. However, here it is!

Storybook Workshop is a new game for the Wii aimed at the preschool set. First, here's a trailer from Konami, the maker:



And further product information from Amazon:

Synopsis

Including 16 famous children's fairy tales, Storybook Workshop offers plenty of make-believe fun. Reminisce on your own childhood story time as you read well-known favorites such as Little Red Riding Hood, The Ugly Duckling and The Golden Goose. Read in your own voice, or use the Magic Voice feature to change your voice to sound like characters from the stories. You can also sing along to four classic children's songs and record them, so boys and girls can listen to the performances on their own.

Key Game Features:

Features 16 children's fairy tales to listen to or perform, such as Little Red Riding Hood, The Ugly Duckling, The Town Musicians of Bremen, Be Kind to the Earth, The Boy Who Went to the North Wind, The Little Match Girl, The Happy Prince, The Giant Turnip, A Glove and Hats for the Jizos, Three Wishes, The Star Money, The Elves and the Shoemaker, and The Golden Goose

Serves as an interactive book with fairy tales from around the world written by Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, Aesop and other famous authors

Play mini games and sing along to four classic children's songs

Record readings as well as the songs you perform in Singalong mode

Change your voice to match that of a fairy tale character with the Magic Voice feature

Earn rewards the more you read, such as the ability to feature your Mii in select stories

Virtual sticker pad helps track progress

So far, the reviews are limited and mixed. I think, as always, this type of game depends on the players using it and what they expect from it. As a tool for interacting with children with stories, it should be somewhat satisfactory. (Although I prefer an actual book myself!) As a tool for teaching literacy, not so much, which some parents seemed to think it would do. After all, the game is actually aimed at the pre-reading set.

I find the game interesting and would love to try it with a child, but am not going to buy it to test it. I have some of my own ideas about what would make a great fairy tale video game after all of the reading I've done this past year. And I am not a gamer although I admit the Wii has gotten me to play more than any other previous system. Current favorites: Just Dance and Wii Sports Resort...

Journals Week: Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies

The past several weeks I have focused on many fun things, lighthearted posts on toys, puzzles, picture books and other fairy tale related items. However, school is resuming for several of you--and I still subconsciously block the calendar in semesters myself--so I also want to include the academic side of things in this blog.

This week I plan to highlight a few print journals that focus on fairy tales and folklore, great resources for student paper writing or just general interest reading if you happen to be me.

If your primary interest is specifically fairy tales, then Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies is the most important print journal for you to know about. Here's a description and history, lifted completely from the official website for the journal.

Marvels & Tales (ISSN: 1521-4281) was founded in 1987 by Jacques Barchilon at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Originally known as Merveilles & contes, the journal expressed its role as an international forum for folktale and fairy-tale scholarship through its various aliases: Wunder & Märchen, Maravillas & Cuentos, Meraviglie & Racconti, and Marvels & Tales. In 1997, the journal moved to Wayne State University Press and took the definitive title Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies.

From the start, Marvels & Tales has served as a central forum for the multidisciplinary study of fairy tales. In its pages, contributors from around the globe have published studies, texts, and translations of fairy-tales from Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa. The Editorial Policy of Marvels & Tales encourages scholarship that introduces new areas of fairy-tale scholarship, as well as research that considers the traditional fairy-tale canon from new perspectives.

The journal's special issues have been particularly popular and have focused on topics such as "Beauty and the Beast," "The Romantic Tale," "Charles Perrault," "Marriage Tests and Marriage Quest in African Oral Literature," "The Italian Tale," and "Angela Carter and the Literary Märchen."

The editorial board for Marvels & Tales is a veritable Who's Who in academic fairy tale studies, including Jack Zipes, Marina Warner, Maria Tatar, Donald Haase and many others. (If you do not recognize these names, you should also research their works, too.)

Each issue usually includes several articles, translations of tales, and reviews of recently published literature (nonfiction). While articles about European fairy tales are represented in most issues, the scope is worldwide and offers insight into more obscure tales from other parts of the globe, too. You can see the table of contents for a recent issue here.

The journal is published twice a year and the subscription rate is very reasonable for an academic journal, especially if you are a student.

Marvels & Tales is available on Project MUSE if you are affiliated with an institution that provides access.

Reminder: Please read Call for Contributions: Graduate Programs Information and send me an email if you have a contribution.

Video Games: Storybook Workshop

As happens too often around here, I'm a little late on this one since it was released this past November. However, here it is!

Storybook Workshop is a new game for the Wii aimed at the preschool set. First, here's a trailer from Konami, the maker:



And further product information from Amazon:

Synopsis

Including 16 famous children's fairy tales, Storybook Workshop offers plenty of make-believe fun. Reminisce on your own childhood story time as you read well-known favorites such as Little Red Riding Hood, The Ugly Duckling and The Golden Goose. Read in your own voice, or use the Magic Voice feature to change your voice to sound like characters from the stories. You can also sing along to four classic children's songs and record them, so boys and girls can listen to the performances on their own.

Key Game Features:

Features 16 children's fairy tales to listen to or perform, such as Little Red Riding Hood, The Ugly Duckling, The Town Musicians of Bremen, Be Kind to the Earth, The Boy Who Went to the North Wind, The Little Match Girl, The Happy Prince, The Giant Turnip, A Glove and Hats for the Jizos, Three Wishes, The Star Money, The Elves and the Shoemaker, and The Golden Goose

Serves as an interactive book with fairy tales from around the world written by Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, Aesop and other famous authors

Play mini games and sing along to four classic children's songs

Record readings as well as the songs you perform in Singalong mode

Change your voice to match that of a fairy tale character with the Magic Voice feature

Earn rewards the more you read, such as the ability to feature your Mii in select stories

Virtual sticker pad helps track progress

So far, the reviews are limited and mixed. I think, as always, this type of game depends on the players using it and what they expect from it. As a tool for interacting with children with stories, it should be somewhat satisfactory. (Although I prefer an actual book myself!) As a tool for teaching literacy, not so much, which some parents seemed to think it would do. After all, the game is actually aimed at the pre-reading set.

I find the game interesting and would love to try it with a child, but am not going to buy it to test it. I have some of my own ideas about what would make a great fairy tale video game after all of the reading I've done this past year. And I am not a gamer although I admit the Wii has gotten me to play more than any other previous system. Current favorites: Just Dance and Wii Sports Resort...

Journals Week: Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies

The past several weeks I have focused on many fun things, lighthearted posts on toys, puzzles, picture books and other fairy tale related items. However, school is resuming for several of you--and I still subconsciously block the calendar in semesters myself--so I also want to include the academic side of things in this blog.

This week I plan to highlight a few print journals that focus on fairy tales and folklore, great resources for student paper writing or just general interest reading if you happen to be me.

If your primary interest is specifically fairy tales, then Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies is the most important print journal for you to know about. Here's a description and history, lifted completely from the official website for the journal.

Marvels & Tales (ISSN: 1521-4281) was founded in 1987 by Jacques Barchilon at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Originally known as Merveilles & contes, the journal expressed its role as an international forum for folktale and fairy-tale scholarship through its various aliases: Wunder & Märchen, Maravillas & Cuentos, Meraviglie & Racconti, and Marvels & Tales. In 1997, the journal moved to Wayne State University Press and took the definitive title Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies.

From the start, Marvels & Tales has served as a central forum for the multidisciplinary study of fairy tales. In its pages, contributors from around the globe have published studies, texts, and translations of fairy-tales from Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa. The Editorial Policy of Marvels & Tales encourages scholarship that introduces new areas of fairy-tale scholarship, as well as research that considers the traditional fairy-tale canon from new perspectives.

The journal's special issues have been particularly popular and have focused on topics such as "Beauty and the Beast," "The Romantic Tale," "Charles Perrault," "Marriage Tests and Marriage Quest in African Oral Literature," "The Italian Tale," and "Angela Carter and the Literary Märchen."

The editorial board for Marvels & Tales is a veritable Who's Who in academic fairy tale studies, including Jack Zipes, Marina Warner, Maria Tatar, Donald Haase and many others. (If you do not recognize these names, you should also research their works, too.)

Each issue usually includes several articles, translations of tales, and reviews of recently published literature (nonfiction). While articles about European fairy tales are represented in most issues, the scope is worldwide and offers insight into more obscure tales from other parts of the globe, too. You can see the table of contents for a recent issue here.

The journal is published twice a year and the subscription rate is very reasonable for an academic journal, especially if you are a student.

Marvels & Tales is available on Project MUSE if you are affiliated with an institution that provides access.

Reminder: Please read Call for Contributions: Graduate Programs Information and send me an email if you have a contribution.

Call for Contributions: Graduate Programs Information

A frequently asked question I have received over the years--one of the top five actually--is assistance in seeking out graduate programs in fairy tale and folklore studies as well as children's literature for some others. Yes, I realize the two diverge more than they merge, but they often collide, too.

This has also always been one of the hardest questions for me to answer. While I have an advanced degree, it is in Information Science (think libraries and information organization, not programming). My B.A. is in English. During both degrees, I used all opportunities to pursue my love of children's literature as well as fairy tales and folklore. I had great professors who allowed me to stray sometimes from the given assignments into my interests and thoroughly enjoyed obtaining both degrees. I presented papers as an undergraduate at conferences and attended seminars, including one at Simmons College one summer. I was a precocious student. It helped that several professors on my university faculties were interested in children's literature, too. I also finished my last degree eleven years ago, so even those experiences are severely outdated.

Another problem is the relative popularity of folklore and children's literature in academia. They tend to be bastard stepchildren hidden in closets under the stairs of other larger departments on campuses. I learn about programs and then learn they have been changed or ended. I also look at many of the top names publishing in the field and see that their degrees are in other fields, especially foreign languages.

So this is a plea for help. I would like to spend a week highlighting several graduate programs and alternate ideas for those interested in earning higher degrees in these and other related fields. If you are a professor or a student, please feel free to share your experiences. Please send them to me directly by email and I will combine them--with full credit to you--for posts about various programs. Help me promote you. Help me help others learn how to follow their interests, to further their educations.

Share school and department information. Share your personal stories, failures and successes in following your dreams for higher education and even career choices afterwards. You can choose to be anonymous, too. I would simply like to offer the space for those seeking more information on the web. Google indexes very well here. It often refers seekers to archived strings of the SurLaLune Discussion Board where this has been addressed over and over and yet the information is only partially helpful or now even completely wrong. Or they find the woefully out-of-date page on SurLaLune: Graduate Studies in Folklore.

Send all information to me at heidi at surlalunefairytales dot com.

And thanks for your help. I hope to start sharing in a few weeks, so stay tuned.

Call for Contributions: Graduate Programs Information

A frequently asked question I have received over the years--one of the top five actually--is assistance in seeking out graduate programs in fairy tale and folklore studies as well as children's literature for some others. Yes, I realize the two diverge more than they merge, but they often collide, too.

This has also always been one of the hardest questions for me to answer. While I have an advanced degree, it is in Information Science (think libraries and information organization, not programming). My B.A. is in English. During both degrees, I used all opportunities to pursue my love of children's literature as well as fairy tales and folklore. I had great professors who allowed me to stray sometimes from the given assignments into my interests and thoroughly enjoyed obtaining both degrees. I presented papers as an undergraduate at conferences and attended seminars, including one at Simmons College one summer. I was a precocious student. It helped that several professors on my university faculties were interested in children's literature, too. I also finished my last degree eleven years ago, so even those experiences are severely outdated.

Another problem is the relative popularity of folklore and children's literature in academia. They tend to be bastard stepchildren hidden in closets under the stairs of other larger departments on campuses. I learn about programs and then learn they have been changed or ended. I also look at many of the top names publishing in the field and see that their degrees are in other fields, especially foreign languages.

So this is a plea for help. I would like to spend a week highlighting several graduate programs and alternate ideas for those interested in earning higher degrees in these and other related fields. If you are a professor or a student, please feel free to share your experiences. Please send them to me directly by email and I will combine them--with full credit to you--for posts about various programs. Help me promote you. Help me help others learn how to follow their interests, to further their educations.

Share school and department information. Share your personal stories, failures and successes in following your dreams for higher education and even career choices afterwards. You can choose to be anonymous, too. I would simply like to offer the space for those seeking more information on the web. Google indexes very well here. It often refers seekers to archived strings of the SurLaLune Discussion Board where this has been addressed over and over and yet the information is only partially helpful or now even completely wrong. Or they find the woefully out-of-date page on SurLaLune: Graduate Studies in Folklore.

Send all information to me at heidi at surlalunefairytales dot com.

And thanks for your help. I hope to start sharing in a few weeks, so stay tuned.

Fairy Tales Hidden Pictures

Found these earlier this week and thought they made nice distractions for any kids (or their grown-ups) suffering from January weekend doldrums, the first not connected to a holiday in a while. These are available for downloading and printing for free at Printables for Kids.

First the one I liked since I have a weakness for Princess and the Pea themed items: Princess and the Pea Hidden Picture Activity. I admit I really liked the illustration, hidden activity or not. I still say all those mattresses are a dream bed for me, forget the pea.

And for those who prefer Goldilocks: Goldilocks & The 3 Bears Hidden Picture Activity.

Fairy Tales Hidden Pictures

Found these earlier this week and thought they made nice distractions for any kids (or their grown-ups) suffering from January weekend doldrums, the first not connected to a holiday in a while. These are available for downloading and printing for free at Printables for Kids.

First the one I liked since I have a weakness for Princess and the Pea themed items: Princess and the Pea Hidden Picture Activity. I admit I really liked the illustration, hidden activity or not. I still say all those mattresses are a dream bed for me, forget the pea.

And for those who prefer Goldilocks: Goldilocks & The 3 Bears Hidden Picture Activity.

Finger Puppet Fun: Oriental Trading Company

Some of the following items are available on Amazon, but they are Oriental Trading Company items and are best bought through that source. (SurLaLune is not an Oriental Trading Company affiliate either. Links to OTC are purely for your convenience.)

These were more finger puppets to share for this week's unofficial theme, albeit mostly generic fairy tale figures, but still cute. Especially the Frog Prince.


Fairy Tale Finger Puppets: Create a magical puppet show with these vinyl puppets! Featuring frog princes, kings, knights, wizards and other fantasy story favorites, your fingers will love these mythical little characters!

And while we're here, I will share a few more items on OTC:


Fairy Tale Rubber Duckies: Fairy Tale Rubber Duckies. Tell tall tales with these vinyl duckies! Dressed like kings, queens, knights, horses and other fantasy characters, these duckies are great for pretend play! (I love the Fairy Godmother Duck best. And I own these and they are just as cute in person.)


Fairy Tale Fantasy Enamel Charms: Make the bracelet of your dreams! Includes queens, frogs, kings, castles, dragons and crowns. (I really would have loved these when I was six years old.)


Fairy Tale Fantasy Stencils: Write and illustrate your own story with characters straight from classic fairy tales. (This set has a lot more flexibility and more recognizable fairy tales in it, especially Cinderella and Frog Prince. I think these might be snuck onto my next Oriental Trading order...)

And now I'm imagining a fairy tale themed birthday party...

Finger Puppet Fun: Oriental Trading Company

Some of the following items are available on Amazon, but they are Oriental Trading Company items and are best bought through that source. (SurLaLune is not an Oriental Trading Company affiliate either. Links to OTC are purely for your convenience.)

These were more finger puppets to share for this week's unofficial theme, albeit mostly generic fairy tale figures, but still cute. Especially the Frog Prince.


Fairy Tale Finger Puppets: Create a magical puppet show with these vinyl puppets! Featuring frog princes, kings, knights, wizards and other fantasy story favorites, your fingers will love these mythical little characters!

And while we're here, I will share a few more items on OTC:


Fairy Tale Rubber Duckies: Fairy Tale Rubber Duckies. Tell tall tales with these vinyl duckies! Dressed like kings, queens, knights, horses and other fantasy characters, these duckies are great for pretend play! (I love the Fairy Godmother Duck best. And I own these and they are just as cute in person.)


Fairy Tale Fantasy Enamel Charms: Make the bracelet of your dreams! Includes queens, frogs, kings, castles, dragons and crowns. (I really would have loved these when I was six years old.)


Fairy Tale Fantasy Stencils: Write and illustrate your own story with characters straight from classic fairy tales. (This set has a lot more flexibility and more recognizable fairy tales in it, especially Cinderella and Frog Prince. I think these might be snuck onto my next Oriental Trading order...)

And now I'm imagining a fairy tale themed birthday party...

Red Riding Hood Restroom Signage

For your Friday amusement: Red Riding Hood Restroom Signage.

Yes, you can buy this on Etsy from bathroomsigns. Beware that the other signs are of varying taste levels and are not fairy tale themed. But this was too good not to share...

Red Riding Hood Restroom Signage

For your Friday amusement: Red Riding Hood Restroom Signage.

Yes, you can buy this on Etsy from bathroomsigns. Beware that the other signs are of varying taste levels and are not fairy tale themed. But this was too good not to share...

New Poll, Same Question

In updating the sidebars on this blog--mostly with fun Amazon widgets of new releases coming out in 2010--I've also expanded and started anew the poll at the bottom of the page: What is your favorite fairy tale(s)?

I am keeping it open for all of 2010, but results are limited to one voting per IP address or computer--haven't looked closely but I know I can only vote once--so the results aren't skewed too much.

This is one of those questions that appears periodically from students and others on the SurLaLune Discussion Board. The poll is not rigid, but it is a little more scientific. I always enjoy seeing the results myself. And then I compare them with the traffic stats I have to various tales on SurLaLune--they rarely match up. Which means most of my readers here are lovers of tales.

New Poll, Same Question

In updating the sidebars on this blog--mostly with fun Amazon widgets of new releases coming out in 2010--I've also expanded and started anew the poll at the bottom of the page: What is your favorite fairy tale(s)?

I am keeping it open for all of 2010, but results are limited to one voting per IP address or computer--haven't looked closely but I know I can only vote once--so the results aren't skewed too much.

This is one of those questions that appears periodically from students and others on the SurLaLune Discussion Board. The poll is not rigid, but it is a little more scientific. I always enjoy seeing the results myself. And then I compare them with the traffic stats I have to various tales on SurLaLune--they rarely match up. Which means most of my readers here are lovers of tales.

Storytelling with Elaine Muray

I've been having a tempermental internet connection all week, so if you have sent an email, I have hopefully received it and will reply in the next few days. Never hurts to try to send it to me again either.

Today I share an article about a storyteller in Ventura County, California: A tale to tell Local performance artist is building a community one story at a time by Michel Cicero. Primarily about Elaine Muray and her Ventura Village Voices Adult Storytelling Series, I am quoting the passages about story and narrative that are well-shared in the middle of the article. I used to live near the edge of Ventura County and this is one of those opportunities that makes me wistful about living there. Although I really can't complain since I'm just a few hours away from the National Storytelling Festival.

Scientific studies have confirmed what lovers of storytelling have always known: The human brain utilizes information more effectively when it’s received in narrative form. Much the same way it’s easier to remember information in verse, story form allows for better retention and comprehension. Muray even uses it as a trick to help with mundane tasks like remembering a day’s worth of errands. “I make a little story out of it, and I remember it all.” She says.

“People connect more to narrative than facts. We are hardwired for it.”

In some ways storytelling is as unlikely as likely a pursuit for Muray given the complete absence of it from her childhood — she wasn’t read to as a child. “A lot of storytellers have a vast foundation in stories that I didn’t have so I have to spend time at the library.” One such visit, she had a half hour to kill so she picked up a Chinese folk tale about a girl that was so small her father never noticed her. “I started to get teary eyed,” she recalled. “That simple folk tale resonated with me and my life, so sometimes people can’t hear when they are given facts . . . Grimm’s fairy tales are all about teaching safety.”

While she works with children and believes strongly in the benefits of narrative for learning comprehension and appreciation for reading, she says it’s the adults who must pave the way. “A lot of people think of storytelling as being for kids, but some of the best I’ve heard is geared toward adults. I think adults have to catch the fire in order to take their kids to events,” she says.

I always enjoy hearing stories of which tales resonate with readers and listeners and why, if they are able to explain why.