My favorite finds from around the web:
10 reasons why kids need to read non-Disney fairy tales. “Remember the line from The Princess Bride: I do not think it means what you think it means? Many of the moral lessons in the original stories are quite different from the Disney versions.”
Friendship in the ’90s versus friendship today. Funny, and a little painful.
8 reasons why authors are assholes. This is really good.
Copy editors tell us their pet peeves. Although personally, I love the Oxford comma, forever and ever.
What’s on my nightstand:
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. This qualifies as a genre I don’t typically read, but I’m loving it.
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. Finally! I thought I knew what this was about, but it’s very different from what I expected.
On the blog:
You will stumble. “A large part of my own growing up has been to learn that failure isn’t necessarily bad and success isn’t necessarily good.”
11 books that are better in the spring. “I wasn’t thinking of a good book you could stuff in your beach bag for spring break (although you could certainly do that with most of these). Instead, I had in mind themes that coincide with earth’s bursting to life after a long, cold winter: books about renewal and rebirth, about second chances and making things new.”
Favorite childhood books you should totally read again. Seven of my actual childhood favorites—the books I read and loved as a kid.
Have a great weekend!
11 comments
I am interested to hear what you think about The Red Tent…
I was once a copy editor, and I love the Oxford comma, too. Shhh! 🙂
The authors-assholes one is really great. Reminding us that even authors are completely human. I went to a book signing for Kate from the show Jon & Kate + 8 and she was a bit stand-offish. It all made sense when the next day a photo of my friends from the book signing appeared in US Magazine from the same book signing and it came out that Jon & Kate were most likely splitting up over allegations of cheating. Poor lady was probably as nice as she could be amidst a terribly complicates real life situation in which she still had to go do book signings
That’s a great story, and wow, what horrible timing for poor Kate! I’m sure I’ve personally been too hard on authors I’ve met in person, who came off all wrong but who probably were just having bad days. It never occurred to me that they were people, too, and of course that happened from time to time. Sigh. I’m learning …
The Red Tent has also been on my list! Anxious to hear what you think
The article about non-Disney fairytales is very much in line with what Joseph Campbell writes about shared mythology and why we need it.
Loved that link about friendship. How times change.
Have a great weekend! I need to decide what my next read is. Which usually is not on my nightstand, unless the iPad is sitting there, LOL.
The Fairy tale article is great. When I taught second grade and we did a fairy tale unit, i had to keep telling the children that the Disney versions were not the “real” ones. That’s how they referred to them. Once we started reading original stories and then different versions of tales from around the world they began to appreciate the richness of the stories versus the happily ever after sanitized ones. There are so many wonderful variations of Red Riding Hood and Cinderella for example. We did lots of comparing and contrasting them and then the children would choose a version ( not Disney-fied) and write a persuasive essay about why it was better than the others. Reading folk and fairy tales from other countries is a great introduction to other cultures. The Anansi stories are some of my favorites.
I just finished Ready Player One last night for my genre part of the challenge too. Most of the game references were over my head, but I still enjoyed the book.
I LOVE The Red Tent. It’s one of the few books that I re-read. I don’t know why it’s captured me so- perhaps the subject matter and the intent focus on women and relationships. I always end up recommending it. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts.