The Raven Steals the Light is a collection of stories by Bill Reid and Robert Bringhurst. There are ten stories all about ravens. I have never really read raven myths before, but I found them to be pretty interesting. Ravens and crows are generally seen as pests in our society. They are a little scary looking and loud. They have also been known to kill weak lambs on farms. In mythology they are often seen as “harbingers of doom or death, because of their dark plumage, unnerving calls, and tendency to eat carrion.” (wikipedia) However, they are often portrayed as quite intelligent. They calls and communication has not been very thoroughly studied, but when they are, is bound to lead to some interesting finds. Another aspect of the stories that I found interesting was the transformations that crows are able to do. Transformation seems to be a common idea in old children’s stories.
Bill Reid was born in 1920 in Victoria British Columbia. He studied jewelry making and developed an interest in Haida sculpture while in Toronto. He was half First Nation Indian, a status he claimed later in life when Canadian law allowed him to. He created many beautiful sculptures and his work can be seen on a 20 dollar note in Canada. Reid died of Parkinson’s disease in 1998.
Of the stories in Struwwelpeier, I think that Struwwelpeier itself was my favorite. It was short and sweet. I was immediately struck by the peculiarity of the illustration of the cover because I couldn’t tell if he was electrocuted or if his fingers were growing (both turned out to be wrong). I also think it is a great introduction to the stories to come. It sort of puts you in the correct mindset to finish the book. My favorites were The Dreadful Story of Harriet and the Matches and The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb. I liked the latter because of how absurd the pictures. It shows Harriet surrounded by cats lighting the matches then setting herself on fire and finally just her ashes. I think they are very funny and well done. The story also reminds me of a time that my brother and his friend lit matches and stuck them in the carpet at my old house (nothing happened my mom found them). I like the Suck-A-Thumb story because I used to suck my thumb and my parents tried just about anything to get me to stop, but I don’t remember them ever saying a tailor was going to come and cut them off with scissors. It is such an extreme. Overall I really enjoyed this book.
Heinrich Hoffman seems like a really interesting man. He was born in 1809 in Frankfurt Am Main. He had a normal childhood and succeeded in school thanks to his father’s discipline, then went on to the medical field becoming a doctor. In 1851, Hoffman became the doctor at the insane asylum where he learned much in the field of psychiatry. He wrote Struwwelpeier in 1845 for his son as a Christmas present. Hoffman died in 1894.
I read several of the Grimm fairy tales from their collection. I found it interesting to read these classic stories that I only knew from Disney movies. I liked seeing the darker side to the fairy tales that are often left out in the movies or more popularized versions of the stories. For instance, in the first tale in their collection The Frog Prince, the frog does not transform until the princess throws him against the wall in raged. In the popular version of this story the princess kisses him. Another popular one is Snow White, which originally ends with this line about the evil step mother, “She is then forced to step into the iron shoes and dance until she falls down dead.” I can’t imagine seeing something like that in a Disney movie! Also it is believed that originally the Grimm brother’s had the step mother being Snow White’s actual mother, but it was later changed so it wasn’t so…grim.
I read a few others that I was familiar with to see the differences. Some of these included:
Thumbling
The Theif and His Master
Little Red Riding Hood
Sleeping Beauty
The Gold Children
Twelve Brothers
Cinderella
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born in Hanau in 1875 and 1876 respectively. His father, who was educated in law and served as a town clerk, died when Jacob was young. With financial help of Dorothea’s sister, Jacob and Wilhelm were sent to Kasel to attend the Lyzeum. After studying law at Marburg, Wilhelm worked as a secretary at Kassel, where Jacob was a librarian. In 1812, the year their fairy tales were published, the Grimms were surviving on barely any money at all. Between 1821 and 1822 the brothers raised extra money by collecting three volumes of folktales.
In 1829 the brothers moved to Göttingen, where Wilhelm was an assistant librarian and Jacob a librarian. In 1835 Wilhelm was appointed professor, but they were asked to leave 2 years later for protesting against the king. In 1840 the brothers accepted an invitation from the king of Prussia, Frederick William IV, to go to Berlin. In 1841 they became professors at the University of Berlin, and worked with their most ambitious enterprise, the Deutsches Worterbuch, a large German dictionary. Its first volume appeared in the 1850s. The dictionary ended up being 33 volumes and was finished in the 1960s. Jacob died in 1963 and Wilhelm died in 1859.
I read/looked through the book The Art of Eric Carle written and put together by Carle himself. The book is full of writings from other people, including his German and American editors. Perhaps the most interesting part was the photo essay of his process while doing collages. His most famous work is The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which has been translated into over 47 languages. His style is colorful, bold and at the same time simple.
Eric Carle was born in Syracuse, N.Y., but moved to Germany when he was four when his mother moved the family back to Struttgart. During WWII, when he was fifteen, Carle was constrcipted by the German army to dig trenches on the Siegfried line. In 1952, he returned to New York as a graphic designer for The New York Times, but his dream career started with the publication of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” in 1969. Before that was published he was drafted into the US army during the Korean War, where he was stationed in Germany as a mail clerk. Carle has written or illustrated more than 70 books, endearing himself to generations of children world-wide. He now lives in Florida and North Carolina.
Edward St. John Gorey was born on February 22, 1925 in Chicago, Illinois. After spending a couple of years in the army, Gorey enrolled at Harvard University where he studied French and was roommates with poet Frank O’Hare. After graduating, he worked as an illustrator for Doubleday Publishing in New York City. Known for his dark and sometimes morbid illustrations, Gorey worked on anything from Bram Stoker’s Dracula to H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds.
Gorey published his first work, The Unstrung Harp, in 1953. He put out more than 100 books, a lot of which did not have words. Many of his books were published under pseudonyms.
Gorey also wrote screenplays, even some using papier-mâché puppets in his home. His macabre sensibility, wit and imaginative themes earned Gorey a cult following. His work is a mix of cartoon, illustration, art and imagination. All of his works that I saw were beautifully detailed pen and ink drawings.
Gorey lived a somewhat solitary life in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. He called his house there the Elephant House, which is now a gallery. He died on April 15, 2000.
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster is one of my all time favorite books. It follows the adventures of Milo, a young boy who is bored with his life. When he is going to school, he wants to be going home, when he is going home, he wants to be going to school. Then one day he goes into his room to find a curious phone booth with a rule book and map. He takes his toy car and journeys to a far off land. His first adventure is in the Dulldrums, a place that you get to when you stop thinking. However, with the help of a watch dog, Tock, he gets out and finds his way to Dictionopolis where words are bought and sold. He meets king Azaz and learns of the two princesses Rhyme and Reason who were banished to the Castle in the Air in the Land of Ignorance. With them gone, the kingdom has been in ruins because King Azaz cannot agree on anything with his brother the Mathematician of Digitopolis. Milo sets out on a journey with Tock and Humbug to rescue the princesses and bring back Rhyme and Reason to the kingdom, Wisdom. He meets many characters along the way like Alec Bings, who grows towards the ground and Chroma who is the conductor of everything. Milo even conducts a sun rise. In Digitopolis he eats subtraction stew, which makes him hungrier and hungrier and he climbs the stairs to infinity. In the Mountains of Ignorance, Milo and his friends encounter many demons, including Terrible Trivium and Senses Taker. Milo has to use his wits to outsmart them. Finally he makes it to the Castle in the Air and rescues Rhyme and Reason. After his long journey Milo returns home to find that only a few moments have passed. Full of new wisdom, Milo has a new appreciation for everything in life.
This wonderful novel seems quite advanced for children, but having read it when I was younger and then reading it again now, I noticed that I actually did understand a lot of the jokes. It was not as over my head as I would have though.
The book was illustrated by Jules Feiffer is a comic strip artist and author. He was an assistant for Will Eisner in the 40’s, working with him on The Spirit. His simple drawings in The Phantom Tollbooth are really great. I was really impressed with the amount of emotion he could get across in just a few ink lines. Feiffer has won countless awards, including an Oscar in 1961 for his short animation Munro.
Norton Juster was born June 2, 1929. When he wrote The Phantom Tollbooth he was studying to be an architect in Brooklyn, NY. Even after finishing the book, his architecture remained his main focus. Both the Phantom Tollbooth and The Dot and The Line, another story he wrote, where adapted to animated filme by Chuck Jones.
The Graveyard Book, written by Neil Gaiman, follows the story of Nobody Owens who became an orphan when his parents were murdered. Luckily he escaped to the safety of the graveyard. The ghosts grant him Freedom of the Graveyard, which comes with a certain amount of protection from the ghosts and from his guardian Silas. The book focuses on his upbringing in the graveyard, his first adventures into the world outside the graveyard, and finally Bod faces the man who killed his family. He also leaves the graveyard for good to enter the world of the living. This novel was a beautifully crafted piece of literature with realistic characters appealing to both adults and children. The illustrations in the beginning of each chapter, done by Dave Mckean add the mystery of the book.
Neil Gaiman was born on November 10, 1960. He has written both literature and comics. Gaiman’s first novel was published in 1984 and was a biography about Duran Duran.
The Invention of Hugo Cabret, written and illustrated by Brian Selznick, follows the story of orphan, thief, and clock keeper Hugo Cabret. Hugo is the time keeper at a Paris train station; he takes up the position after his uncle disappears. Hugo spends his days fixing up an old automaton his father had been working on before he died. He followed the plans in his father’s old journal and took parts from a toy store across the street. However, when he is caught by the owner of the store, he loses his precious journal and must learn how to fix the automaton himself. Using all that he has learned he finally gets it working and with a special key from the god daughter of the toy store owner the automaton reveals a magical secret. The old man is the great movie maker Georges Melies (he made A Trip to the Moon in 1902). Reminding the old toy keeper of his incredible past, Hugo is taken in and becomes part of their family.
Selznick does a wonderful job holding together a 500 page mystery while seamlessly weaving in illustrations and allusions to 1930’s Partis and classic films of the time. The illustrations are precise yet gentle almost mimicking the main character Hugo. Along with the illustrations are movie stills which make the book more like the silent films it is about than a regular children’s book. Everything about the novel is beautiful.
Selznick was born July 14 in 1966. He graduated from RISD and has won a number of awards for his work.
