Besty Byars Biography

Betsy Byars has written over sixty books for young people. Her first published in 1962 and since then she has published regularly. Her books have been translated into nineteen languages and she gets thousands of letters from readers in the United States and from all over the world.

She has won many awards. Among them are the Newbery Medal in 1971 for her novel The Summer of the Swans, the American Book Award in 1981 for The Night Swimmers, The Edgar (for the best mystery for young people) in 1992 for Wanted..Mud Blossom and the Regina Medal by the Catholic Library Association for the body of her work. She especially values her many state awards which were voted on by the readers of the state.

Betsy attended public schools in North Carolina and graduated from Queens College in Charlotte, NC with a major in English. She began her writing career five years after her graduation by publishing short magazine articles. As she began to read to her children, her interest in writing for young people began.

Betsy lives with her husband Ed on an air strip in South Carolina. They are both pilots, and the bottom floor of their house is a hangar so they can taxi out and take off, almost from their front yard. The top floor of the house? Betsy's studio!

http://www.betsybyars.com/index.html

Hooray for the Golly Sisters

**This small chapter book is one laugh after another for a little kid while also teaching them how to read. Fun and learning are not two words a child normally hears in a sentence together. May-May and Rose, the singing dancing Golly Sisters, have adventures as they travel west in their covered wagon, entertaining people along the way.

First their wagon got stuck in a big river while crossing to a town waitng for them, then May-May's magic act with pigs got screwed up and they are boo-ed out of town. The Golly sister's day did not start out great as you can tell. As May-May and her sister, Rose, begin traveling again they come upon a swamp and are scared out of their wits. But instead of turning this into a frightening situation they take turns naming things in a swamp that are nice.



In another town, the sister's decide to do a high-wire waltz with Rose on the wire. After a failed attempt, May-May suggests they just draw a line and Rose can pretend to walk a high-wire. Later, May-May wishes for something and Rose has an idea. "Hooray for the Golly Sisters!"



After their show that night, the sisters excuse themselves from the stage and disappear behind the audience and begin to yell, "Hooray for the Golly Sisters!" As if on cue the whole audience started slapping louder and yelling "Hooray for the Golly Sisters!", too.



May-May and Rose's wish was that at least one time someone would yell, "Hooray for the Golly Sisters!" And with a little sneakery they got it.

Hans Christian Anderson biography

April 2nd 1805 - August 4th 1875

Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark, the son of a poor shoemaker and a washerwoman. As a young teenager, he became quite well known in Odense as a reciter of drama, and as a singer. When he was 14, he set off for the capital, Copenhagen, determined to become a national success on the stage. He failed miserably, but made some influential friends in the capital, who got him into school to remedy his lack of proper education. He hated school: aged 17, he was in a class of 12-year-olds and was constantly mocked by them and by the teachers.

In 1829 his first book - an account of a walking trip - was published. After that, books came out at regular intervals. At first, he considered his adult books more important than his fantasies. In later life, however, he began to see that these apparently trivial stories could vividly portray constant features of human life and character, in a charming manner. There were two consequences of this. First, he stopped regarding his stories as trifles written solely for children; second, he began to write more original stories, rather than retelling traditional tales.

He once said that ideas for stories 'lie in my mind like seeds and only need the kiss of a sunbeam or a drop of malice to flower'. He would often thinly disguise people he liked or disliked as characters in his stories: a woman who failed to return his love becomes the foolish prince in I 'The Little Mermaid'; his own ugliness and humiliation, or his father's daydream of being descended from a rich and powerful family, are reflected in 'The Ugly Duckling'.

Hans Andersen's stories began to be translated into English as early as 1846. Since then, numerous editions, and more recently Hollywood songs and a Disney cartoon, have helped to ensure the continuing popularity of the stories in the English-speaking world.

from:: http://www.fairytalescollection.com/Hans_Christian_Anderson

written 2002

The Brothers Grimm

Have you ever heard of the Brothers Grimm? Do you really know who they are? Well, according to their self-titled movie, starring Matt Damon and the late Heath Ledger as Will and Jake Grimm, they were a more complex version of travelling con-artists. They are called to "exorcise" the force at work. When this happens, Jake writes down every detail of their stories in his book of fairy tales. The brothers and their team set staged ghouls, ghosts and beasts to dupe townspeople out of their money in order to get rid of whatever it was that was bothering them. When they are arrested for this trickery they strike a bargain with a French general to find missing children, from a German town, they were mysteriously disappearing. This may sound like their normal con, but no, this is a real fairy tale. A mysterious force kidnapped 11 little girls for their youth and need one more, but once Angelicka, the woman Jake has fallen in love with, is grabbed to be the 12th they do everything possible to save them. All the while an evil witch from 5oo years ago is locked in a Rapunzel-type tower tricking men into doing her will waiting for the eclipse to bring her back to full beauty as "the fairest of them all".

Of course in the end all the girls are saved and as is the last line in the movie "they lived happily ever after ... maybe not". Even though I consider this movie a total disappointment and hard to follow, I have to give the creators props for giving it all the elements of a fairy tale. True love's kiss, evil queen locked in a tower, enchanted forest and girls in glass slippers getting locked in crypts.

Toad Flies High

This picture book has characters from Walt Disney's The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad which fist came out as a movie in 1949. That movie was adapted from Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. In this book Toad almost hurts his friends Ratty, Badger and Mole each time he tried to drive something with a motor. The first time was a motorboat, which he sank. Then, he crashed his car into a tree. The last time happened when he almost flew into them with his airplane. Each time he missed them and each time he ruined their picnic. Toad then promised to stay away from anything with a motor for "a year and a day". On the fourth try for a picnic, they have a run in with a bull and were saved by Toad, who was in a hot air balloon. No matter how much you annoy your friends they know you'll always be there when they need you and vice-versa.

Dr. Seuss' life

Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to the world as the beloved Dr. Seuss, was born in 1904 on Howard Street in Springfield, Massachusetts. Ted's father, Theodor Robert, and grandfather were brewmasters in the city. His mother, Henrietta Seuss Geisel, often soothed her children to sleep by "chanting" rhymes remembered from her youth. Ted credited his mother with both his ability and desire to create the rhymes for which he became so well known.

Although the Geisels enjoyed great financial success for many years, the onset of World War I and Prohibition presented both financial and social challenges for the German immigrants. Nonetheless, the family persevered and again prospered, providing Ted and his sister, Marnie, with happy childhoods.

The influence of Ted's memories of Springfield can be seen throughout his work. Drawings of Horton the Elephant meandering along streams in the Jungle of Nool, for example, mirror the watercourses in Springfield's Forest Park from the period. The fanciful truck driven by Sylvester McMonkey McBean in The Sneetches could well be the Knox tractor that young Ted saw on the streets of Springfield. In addition to its name, Ted's first children's book, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, is filled with Springfield imagery, including a look-alike of Mayor Fordis Parker on the reviewing stand, and police officers riding red motorcycles, the traditional color of Springfield's famed Indian Motocycles.

Ted left Springfield as a teenager to attend Dartmouth College, where he became editor-in-chief of the Jack-O-Lantern, Dartmouth's humor magazine. Although his tenure as editor ended prematurely when Ted and his friends were caught throwing a drinking party, which was against the prohibition laws and school policy, he continued to contribute to the magazine, signing his work "Seuss." This is the first record of the "Seuss" pseudonym, which was both Ted's middle name and his mother's maiden name.

To please his father, who wanted him to be a college professor, Ted went on to Oxford University in England after graduation. However, his academic studies bored him, and he decided to tour Europe instead. Oxford did provide him the opportunity to meet a classmate, Helen Palmer, who not only became his first wife, but also a children's author and book editor.

After returning to the United States, Ted began to pursue a career as a cartoonist. The Saturday Evening Post and other publications published some of his early pieces, but the bulk of Ted's activity during his early career was devoted to creating advertising campaigns for Standard Oil, which he did for more than 15 years.

As World War II approached, Ted's focus shifted, and he began contributing weekly political cartoons to PM magazine, a liberal publication. Too old for the draft, but wanting to contribute to the war effort, Ted served with Frank Capra's Signal Corps (U.S. Army) making training movies. It was here that he was introduced to the art of animation and developed a series of animated training films featuring a trainee called Private Snafu.

While Ted was continuing to contribute to Life, Vanity Fair, Judge and other magazines, Viking Press offered him a contract to illustrate a collection of children's sayings called Boners. Although the book was not a commercial success, the illustrations received great reviews, providing Ted with his first "big break" into children's literature. Getting the first book that he both wrote and illustrated, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, published, however, required a great degree of persistence - it was rejected 27 times before being published by Vanguard Press.

The Cat in the Hat, perhaps the defining book of Ted's career, developed as part of a unique joint venture between Houghton Mifflin (Vanguard Press) and Random House. Houghton Mifflin asked Ted to write and illustrate a children's primer using only 225 "new-reader" vocabulary words. Because he was under contract to Random House, Random House obtained the trade publication rights, and Houghton Mifflin kept the school rights. With the release of The Cat in the Hat, Ted became the definitive children's book author and illustrator.

After Ted's first wife died in 1967, Ted married an old friend, Audrey Stone Geisel, who not only influenced his later books, but now guards his legacy as the president of Dr. Seuss Enterprises.

At the time of his death on September 24, 1991, Ted had written and illustrated 44 children's books, including such all-time favorites as Green Eggs and Ham, Oh, the Places You'll Go, Fox in Socks, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. His books had been translated into more than 15 languages. Over 200 million copies had found their way into homes and hearts around the world.

Besides the books, his works have provided the source for eleven children's television specials, a Broadway musical and a feature-length motion picture. Other major motion pictures are on the way.

His honors included two Academy awards, two Emmy awards, a Peabody award and the Pulitzer Prize

I got this info from:
http://www.catinthehat.org/history.htm

TM & © 2002-2004 Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. All Rights Reserved.

Ever After overview

Check out this link to a very well done music montage of Ever After:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=iRodNml83iM&feature=related



Ever After is not your typical fairytale, and Danielle De Barbarac is not your typical Cinderella. This movie is set in the Renaissance period of France and she brings the voice of humanism to that world. Danielle presents Prince Henry with a theory of people's worth. As in the gypsies, theives and servants and how the government turned them into what they are then tries to punish them for that.

At first, Henry doesn't want to be the future king and tries his hardest to run away, but Danielle, in essence teaches him how to be king. The only woman the prince was able to save in the movie was the Mona Lisa because Danielle was either saving herself or him. She saved him from the gypsies and her self from Pierre Le Pieu. She fights for what she wants and knows how to get out of any situation. Andy Tennant, the director, presents Danielle as more of a role model cinderella than a damsel-in-distress. He says that he wanted something for his 2 daughter to look at.

I think Henry fell in love with her passion first. She had a real passion for reading, in life, her world and enjoyed intellectual engagements. Danielle can read, write and enjoy life and that inspires Henry to go to his father with the idea for a university.

Leonardo Da Vinci should never have known Prince Henry because he died before he was born, but that didn't stop this driven director. Tennant shows Da Vinci in the fairy godmother role, well godfather. Leo uses his mind for science, logica and art to help poor Danielle when she needs it most. He made her wings for the ball and got her out of the cellar by unhinging the door.

There is also a real sense of family in this story. Henry fights with his father, but the king comes around when he finds his son is in no way going to marry the princess of Spain. They reconcile their difference and helps him find another bride. Danielle shares a strong bond with her father, Auguste, who unfortunately died in the very beginning just shortly after marrying the Baroness. He used to read to his daughter every night he was there and always brought her a new book. She looks after her step-family in the end keeping them from a horrible fate, except for the good sister, Jacqueline, who helped this Cinderella out after she was whipped.

Danielle also considers the servants that work around her as her family, which leads her to pretend to be a courtier to rescue Maurice from a ship bound for the Americas. That actually is what made the prince believe she was a courtier in the first place which I'm not at all sure whether that was a good or bad thing. He would never have met he if she was just a servant, but he fell in love with her as a courtier.

The end shows the great-great granddaughter, dying Queen of France, telling the Brothers Grimm that it wasn't that Danielle and Henry live happly ever after, but that they really lived. That this was the true story of Cinderella.

Henry and the Great Flood

As a zoo keeper, Gary Richmond (the author) learned a lot about God's wonderful animals and in the process learned a lot about God. In this book he tells the reader of a particular grumpy old bear named Henry. Henry was a 200 pound, bushy, black and white sloth bear. He was an unforgettable bear. Henry often threw temper tantrums and anything from not getting a treat to flies buzzing around him would set him off. Well, one day after getting fed and off to bed, it started raining and the water pumps around his cave stopped working and the water in his cage started rising fast. The bear was doing everything possible to keep his head above water all the while throwing a first-class fit.

Henry waited all night for his keep, George to come back, but the zoo didn't open until 8:30am. George came in the morning and became frightened when he saw that it was still raining and Henry's cave was almost filled all the way up. George immediately found a phone and called security for help and had them bring every water pump they could get their hands on. George started praying for Henry's safety. Then the bear's nose disappeared under the water and George knew he had to do something to save the beloved sloth bear. After what seemed like forever, Henry popped out from under the water next to the front of the cave. He had been looking for higher ground and made it.

"Sometimes it seems as if everything is going wrong, doesn't it? It might even seem as if you're alone and no one cares about you. You may feel just as Henry did. Still, Henry kept looking for George to come help him. He never gave up. HEj just kept holding on to keep his nose above water. And that's what you have to do, too, when times are tough. Like George helped Henry, God will help you. Just keep asking him to and never stop hoping. You see, just like Georeg, God may sometimes seem slow, but he's never too late to save you. Isn't that great news?"---- Gary Richmond

----That is the moral at the end of the story. Here's mine: "Henry's adventure shows us not to give up hope. God may seem slow in coming, but he's never too late to help." It's everything the above portion just said, only shorter.

Biography of Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll is the pseudonym of the English writer and mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, b. Jan. 27, 1832, d. Jan. 14, 1898, known especially for ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND (1865) and THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (1872), children's books that are also distinguished as satire and as examples of verbal wit. Carroll invented his pen name by translating his first two names into the Latin "Carolus Lodovicus" and then anglicizing it into "Lewis Carroll."

The son of a clergyman and the firstborn of 11 children, Carroll began at an early age to entertain himself and his family with magic tricks, marionette shows, and poems written for homemade newspapers. From 1846 to 1850 he attended Rugby School; he graduated from Christ Church College, Oxford, in 1854. Carroll remained there, lecturing on mathematics and writing treatises and guides for students. Although he took deacon's orders in 1861, Carroll was never ordained a priest, partly because he was afflicted with a stammer that made preaching difficult and partly, perhaps, because he had discovered other interests.

Among Carroll's avocations was photography, at which he became proficient. He excelled especially at photographing children. Alice Liddell, one of the three daughters of Henry George Liddell, the dean of Christ Church, was one of his photographic subjects and the model for the fictional Alice.

Carroll's comic and children's works also include The Hunting of the Snark (1876), two collections of humorous verse, and the two parts of Sylvie and Bruno (1889, 1893), unsuccessful attempts to re-create the Alice fantasies.

As a mathematician, Carroll was conservative and derivative. As a logician, he was more interested in logic as a game than as an instrument for testing reason. In his diversions as a photographer and author of comic fantasy, he is most memorable and original--the man who, for example, contributed, in "Jabberwocky," the word chortle, a portmanteau word that combines "snort" and "chuckle," to the English language. DONALD J. GRAY

**http://www.insite.com.br/rodrigo/text/lewis_carroll.html, Rodrigo A. Siqueira, Universidade de São Paulo

Cinderella in another view... a song.

Many people have started to have their own takes on fairy tales, from new books, movies and even to songs. There is one song in particular that I know for a fact isn't a children's song, but it is a new path that some singers have taken. This song is called It's Midnight Cinderella by Garth Brooks. I remember listening to this song when I was little and loving it, but as a child I didn't understand some of the meanings, I just associated it with the common Cinderella fairy tale. My mom was a big fan of Garth Brooks as I was growing up, which made me one, so when it came on the radio we would all sing it. I think that behind everything written for children there are hidden meanings and jokes for adults, but in the ones written for adults some of the jokes are right up from for children.

p.s. I couldn't find the video, but when I find it I'll be sure to add it.

The Poky Little Puppy

I just couldn't resist this book when I found it in the top of my closet at grandparent's house and few weeks ago. I remember reading this story when I was little. Most of the books they use to buy my brother and I were meant to develope language and reading skills, but this was always my favorite. It's the story of 5 little puppies who dig a hole under a fence to explore the world, but end up going on a quest for the rice pudding that they smell. When they got home their mother was displeased and sent the four that came home to bed without any pudding, but the fifth came home late and ate it all. The next day they did it all over again, but this time they were sent to bed without any chocolate custard, and what happened? The first four got in trouble and the fifth ate it all when they went to bed. They did it again the next day, this time it was strawberry shortcake. The mother was so happy the four listened to her when they went to bed, she gave to shortcake and fifth came home late again and got nothing. This story always made me think that if I got home in time for dinner I'd get some kind of yummy dessert, but not always. The poky little puppy was always poking his little puppy nose where it didn't belong and in the end it got the best of him. If he had actually listened to his mother he would have gotten to share the shortcake with his brothers and sisters. Now I ask you a question, why are many of the books that we read when we were little mostly about obeying your parents for a special treat? I did when I could and never got any strawberry shortcake, he he.

Gail Carson Levine biography

Gail Carson Levine was born September 17, 1947 in New York, New York. This American born writer's first published novel was Ella Enchanted in 1997, which is now a major motion picture. Levine’s hallmark was telling fairy tales with a twist. For example her Princess Tales was set in the Kingdom of Biddle, which is a collection of stories about light-heart and sassy heroines. She based her story Dave At Night on her father, David. David owned a commercial art studio and her mother, Sylvia, was a teacher who wrote plays for her students to perform. Her sister, Rani, teaches painting and exhibits her art in the US and in Jamaica. Levine used to love to draw and paint, but once she took a course on writing, she found that it was her true passion. She once said, "I had always been the hardest on myself when I drew and painted. I am not hard on myself when I write. I like what I write, so it is a much happier process."

Disney's Cinderella - the movie

Well, I just finished downloading and watching Cinderella, the Disney version. It was exactly like I remembered it, but not really anything like any of the stories. In the beginning it said that it was adapted from Charles Perrault. There was only one ball and it never made any mention of the biological mother. The father dies within the first minute of the movie, too. The step-mother, though, totally looked the part of evil and the step-sisters were extremely dense. This version also shows the fairy godmother and all her magic.

Either I wasn't paying attention or I just missed it, but none of the stories make mention of the glass slipper, that is until you read the online readings with George Cruikshank's Cinderella and the Glass Slipper. The grand duke, durng the ball, made mention of how them at the ball was "real life" and that the prince finding and falling in love with one of the girls was a "fairy tale". It was kinda like they knew they were in one. I think the addition of the animals, the music and the real fairy godmother with her wand, was Disney's idea, to make it a little more, oh I don't know, disneyish, lol.

Hiawatha the Brave Hunter

My second book was a story that my grandmother used to read my older brother and I all the time. It was his favorite. It's Hiawatha the Brave Hunter. Hiawatha's grandmother used to teach him about the nature, how to find the north star and that you should always be kind to the animals, but Hiawatha always dream of becoming a hunter. One day an old brave gave him a bow and arrow that he had made him. Hiawatha took it and showed it to his animal pals who grew frightened, but he promised he would never shoot them, for they were his friends.

Well, a few days later Hiawatha wanted to try out his new bow and arrow on the little island in the middle of the lake. His animal friends tried to warn him not to go because it was too dangerous, but he didn't listen. He sped up his canoe, again against the advice of the animals followiung him, he promptly slammed into the bank and fell out. Everone laughed except Hiawatha. It didn't take too long before he found some strange tracks that he decided to follow. It turned out to be a giant grasshopper, who jumped, startled him and caused him to fall into a thron berry bush. His friends laughed again, but this time he chased after the rabbit who laughed the hardest. He ran after him all over the island until they reached the bank where the rabbit apologized and Hiawatha forgave him. He then broke his bow and arrow and decided to become a scout.

As he started to scout the island, he came upon some small tracks and started to follow them until they came to a little cave where he saw a littlebear cub go in. Hiawatha tried to coax the cub back out, but ended being chased by the cub's father. Hiawatha and his little animal friends ran all across the island trying to get away from the monstrous papa bear. They ran past two beavers who detoured him so they could gnaw on tree until it fel crashing down on the bears head. They had all gotten away, but not too far, because Hiawatha couldn't find his canoe on the bank. It had floated away. The beavers again helped by retrieving it and once everyone was in the canoe, they paddled it back home.

When they reached shore, they were greetedby his grandmother. Hiawatha told her of his many adventures that day and that he had decided to become a scout instead of a mighty hunter.. She was happy for him and lulled him to sleep in his hammok as he dreamed of all his adventures that day.