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Classically Challenged: Wind in the Willows

Wind In the Willows by Kennith Greene

Sylvie Larsen: Nothing made me more desperate for summer than reading THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS.  Kennith Greene’s pastoral novel about anthropomorphic animals “messing about in boats” and running around in the woods made me long for that idea of summer, friendships and adventure.  It also made me long to see an otter consulting a pocket watch, but I just don’t live in Greene’s world; and I have to come to terms with that.

Rather than one cohesive story the book is composed of several snippets from the lives of some of the creatures who live in this forest/river area.  Mostly we follow Mole, Water Rat, and Toad as they go through their cute little days doing cute little things. They have picnics and spring cleaning days; they go off to visit friends and have adventures.  One such adventure leads them to discover the god Pan hanging out on an island, and it blows their tiny little minds.  Pan knows this, of course (he’s a god), and so erases it from their memories.  The book is filled with these, “Wait...what?” moments, such as Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, which while the inspiration for a fun ride at Disney, leads to a rather bleak jail sentence for the guy.  

I will say that there were moments where I was a bit confused about the rules of this little forest world, such as how anyone makes money or how a frog can borrow clothes from a human (are they the same size?), but of course, when reading a book like this it is best to suspend one’s disbelief and just go with it.  For example, while Mole, Rat and Toad are venturing out for a picnic, Mole chooses to walk with the horse, as the horse had complained of feeling “frightfully left out,” but later on another horse isn’t able to speak at all!  

Aside from those little issues with “rules,” THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS would make an excellent bedtime book as the chapters are mostly self-contained stories. I will say it might be a bit tough for a young reader, as there are lots of British-isms and long words that may need to be clarified, but that is not always a bad thing!

Classically Challenged: MATILDA!

Matilda - Roald Dahl

Marirosa Mia: Once again please welcome the lovely Sylvie Larsen in another edition of Classically Challenged!

Sylvie: MATILDA, by Roald Dahl is a book for bookish children.  An ode to the bookworm.  It’s a treat for those of us who love to read and see that as something that sets us apart from the rest of the herd.  The story is about a small girl who love, love, loves to read.  Her family, unfortunately, loves to do droll things like watch TV, swindle people and play bingo.  They hate reading; they don’t particularly like Matilda either.  And as dumb as her family is, so Matilda is prodigiously smart.  She is tackling Dickens, Faulkner, and Wells and she’s not even 5 years old.  Already, there is a hint of magic in that.  In addition to her terrible family, Matilda has to compete with her school’s demonic headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, who is, frankly, psychotic.  It’s not a surprise that Matilda lashes out at authority; whenever they do something rotten to her, she does something even more rotten to them. Her punishments are all fun and games until Matilda discovers she’s kinda telekinetic.  

Matilda is not the contrary, outcast character you would expect from this kind of story.  Sure, she’s brilliant and cunning, but she’s also just a little girl.  As soon as she gets to school, she makes friends with the other students.  They are her allies in the battle between headmistress and students.  Their teacher, Miss Honey, also sees the injustice of the headmistress and acts as the caring mother-figure Matilda has always wanted.  

I loved this book.  The story is whimsical and pretty darn heartwarming.  Reading it as an adult has been a treat; I wish I had read it as a bookish child.  The illustrations by Quentin Blake are adorable.  I really like his cute little Matilda line drawings; she makes a great companion throughout the story. I hope that she inspires young readers to keep challenging their minds.  

Since its 25 years out in the world, MATILDA has inspired a movie, a radio play, and now a musical on Broadway! With all these new ways to experience MATILDA I hope the message of challenging oneself will reach a wider audience.

Classically Challenged: Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde

Sylvie Larsen: Did you know Oscar Wilde wrote fairy tales? I didn’t.  It’s an interesting peek into Wilde, since most people only know DORIAN GREY or THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST.  There are nine “children’s” stories published in two volumes.  I put children’s in quotes since I doubt most children know words like anodyne, even with a fancy British education.  

For this article, I read a little of both volumes for the sake of comparison. From The Happy Prince and Other Stories (1888), I read “The Happy Prince,” “The Nightingale and the Rose,” and “The Selfish Giant.  From The House of Pomegranates (1891), I read “The Young King” and “Birthday of the Infanta.”  I found the stories unexpectedly religious and a bit sad, but Oscar sure can turn a phrase.  

I like fairy tales, and I love fairy tales that haven’t been completely co-opted by Disney.  These stories are a great addition to the canon of fairy tales, and I think they should be read alongside Grimm and Aesop.  The power of most fairy tales lies in the their morals and characters’ actions, but the power of Wilde’s stories lies in the writing.  For instance, a character in “The Birthday of the Infanta” walks through a castle, and it’s one of the best descriptions of walking through a castle I’ve ever read.  

These stories feature all the usual components of fairy tales:  There are princes and princesses, talking flowers and birds, giants and dwarves.  But the places in the stories aren’t usual.  And the tales are sadder than our stereotype, at least, of the genre:  The love stories don’t work themselves out in the end; sacrifices are made to no effect; and great changes are not always for the best.  

Like true fairy tales, the stories have morals to be learned by the reader.  They focus on such aspects of life as compassion, self-sacrifice, faith, and a message of anti-vanity mixed with the appreciation of aesthetic and natural beauty.  

I don’t know why I was so surprised to find so much religion in these stories.  Jesus is a character in “The Selfish Giant,” where faith is represented by a garden.  The themes of “The Birthday of the Infanta” and “The Nightingale and the Rose” are a bit harder to pin down.  There are issues of nature and beauty mixed with issues of class and disappointment.  I would have loved to rip both apart for a college essay, but this blog post is the closest I’ll get.  

While I wouldn’t recommend these stories for a young child looking for a nice bedtime story, I think they would be appropriate for older kids looking for something darker to read.

Classically Challenged: Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

Marirosa Mia: Once again the lovely Sylvie Larsen joins us for another edition of Classically Challenged, in which Sylvie dives into classic children’s books that she’s never read before!

Sylvie: This month, I read Anne of Green Gables, by L. M. Montgomery.  I got to know the story of Anne from a mini-series that aired on the Disney Channel in the early 90s, but I had never read the book until now.  I was not surprised by how much I enjoyed it, as I was an overly dramatic youth.  So Anne remains a character close to my heart.   

The story takes place in about 1910 or so, when the book was written.  Anne Shirley is a red-headed orphan who is adopted accidentally (they ordered a boy from the orphanage) by an elderly brother and sister, the Cuthberts.  She goes to live with them on their farm in rural Prince Edward Island, on the east coast of Canada.  The Cuthberts are pretty run-of-the-mill folks, but Anne is a dreamer.  She doesn’t really understand the social norms of her new life because she had always lived inside her own head.  One of the sadder things about reading this book as an adult was realizing that Anne is such a dreamer because of her pretty terrible childhood.  She moved around to several different foster homes before ending up in the orphanage, and she describes a few of her situations rather bleakly in the book.  But once she gets to Green Gables (which is the name of the house she lives in with the Cuthberts), Anne proves to be a light in the lives of her elderly caretakers.  Mischief ensues and old hearts are opened to the young.  

The narrative moves quickly, sometimes skipping months at a time without much mention of what occurred.  Also, the chapters seem a bit like episodes, each covering one or two of Anne’s misadventures.  She’s always finding trouble when she just wants to do good!  Like any true heroine in a children’s book, however, Anne learns from her mistakes; and the reader watches her grow as a person by the end of the book.  One of my favorite quotes appears early in the book:  “You’d find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair. ... People who haven’t red hair don’t know what trouble is.”  Although my hair is only auburn, I concur.  
If you know any little girls who wander around the woods talking to fairies or reciting poetry, or if you were one yourself, this is the book for you!  Plus, it’s only the first in a series of Anne books that follow her life through adulthood, so if you love Anne as much as I do you don’t have to leave her after only one book.

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Classically Challenged: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Classically Challenged: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Marirosa Mia: In a new segment I’m going to call “Classically Challenged,” I’ve brought along my lovely librarian friend Sylvie Larsen, who each month will talk about a classic children’s book she’s never read—until now. This month it’s THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ, by L. Frank Baum.

But before we get started, I asked Sylvie to write a little bio for herself so you could get to know her a bit. Here’s what she sent me: “Sylvie grew up running wild in the woods of New England, reading books whilst sitting in trees.  Now a New Yorker, she earned her Master's in Library and Information Science and has yet to find the perfect climbing tree in the city.”

And now, Sylvie:

Sylvie Larsen: This post is as good a place as any to admit that I was never all that into THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ as a child. Sure, I watched the movie, but it’s not something that was a big part of my life, as it was for some people.  That being said, you can’t really UNSEE the movie, so it is pretty impossible to read the book without some sort of comparison to the iconic film.  While it’s interesting to see what parts they chose to put in the movie and where the songs would go, it’s far more interesting to discover what didn’t make it into the film.  I found the book to be a better story than the movie.     

First, let me put this book into some historical perspective.  To say that this was a time of great change in America is an understatement.  Phones, cars, moving pictures and early aviation were all becoming parts of regular life.  Every day, more and more immigrants were coming to America.  So, the idea that a little girl was suddenly picked up and dropped into a new land is not too far from what some new Americans were experiencing.  It was an exciting time to be a child, and I think this book captures that well.

The story is as fast paced as you’d expect a bedtime story to be. Dorothy leads a dull life before she is whisked away by a tornado to the magical land of Oz.  She picks up a few travel companions on her way to ask the wise Wizard to help her get back to Kansas.  Quite a lot happens to our heroes on their travels and some of it is pretty dark.  I recently read the following synopsis of the movie: “Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.” Sure, Dorothy arrives safely in Oz, but she inadvertently murders someone upon landing.  Even though everyone tells her she’s done a great thing, Dorothy is obviously upset about the whole thing...well, as upset as one can be and still steal the corpse’s shoes from her feet (which are silver and not ruby, interestingly enough).  

In general, I wanted to know a little more about what was going on in the characters’ heads.  There is no backstory or character development, just a girl and a dog right from the get-go.  It is really just like her trip down the road of yellow bricks, a succession of things that happen.  Even when things get pretty scary for Dorothy on her travels through Oz, she keeps an impressively level head throughout...or her emotions are not really covered in the story. The moral of the story, if there really is one, comes from the purpose of the mission.  The characters are on their way to visit the Wizard to get what they believe they need to be better, but while they are being placed in these impossible situations along the way, the Cowardly Lion acts pretty darn brave, the Scarecrow comes up with some pretty cunning plans for someone who doesn’t have a brain, and the Tin Man is a total sweetie for someone who doesn’t have a heart.  I guess they had what they needed all along, they just needed Dorothy to come along and give them the chance to prove themselves.

I wish I could have read this before seeing the movie.  Fortunately, there are 13 more books in the series that haven’t been turned into movies, so I can discover more of Oz without always having to imagine Judy Garland.