Wake Up Rip Van WInkle

Rip Van Winkle/Wake Up, Rip Van Winkle is another book in Steck-Vaughn's Point of View Series.

One side of the book tells an abbreviated version of the Rip Van Winkle Story. While I am not a huge fan of abbreviated classics it is always possible to skip this version and have students or your child read the classic instead. The other side is of more interest to me. When you flip the book up side down, the other side of the story is presented.

In the classic tale, Rip Van Winkle is married with children and while he will help the neighbors with chores never does any work for his own family. His wife grows frustrated with his failure to provide and Rip spends more time away from home telling stories to the local villagers. One day he leaves home and encounters some creatures in the wood who give him some drinks, which make him tired. He falls asleep. When he wakes he finds his gun is rusted and his beard long. He arrives home to find his wife dead and that he has missed the American Revolution.

In the alternate version, Rip’s daughter tells the tale. She is very protective of her mother and wants the world to know her mother is no shrew. She believes her mother was supportive of her father's storytelling and that it was her father who started the stories of her mother's nagging to cover up his own embarrassment. The daughter claims Rip Van Winkle's manipulation of the villager's opinions made life very difficult for her patient mother. In fact, any attempts to persuade him to come home and help reinforced the rumors he had started about her being a shrew. The daughter believes her mother ultimately died of a broken heart, not of anger as the cruel villagers implied.

This is one of the stronger entries in the series. Since both characters are flawed, there is a case to be made for both sides and the author has done a good job of using the daughter as a character witness for the mother.

The Rough Faced Girl

The Rough-Face Girlis an Algonquin Native American Cinderella Story.

The Rough Faced Girl is very similar and based on the same traditional tales as the Ojibwa tale, SootfaceI reviewed earlier.

This story takes place near Lake Ontario. The prince in this version is also an invisible warrior who will only marry the woman who can see him. A poor man in the village has three daughters. The youngest has become scarred from tending the fires and they cruelly taunt her calling her the roughed faced girl. The two oldest sisters demand their father make them presentable so they can take the sister's test to marry her invisible brother. He does so and both fail, as they are unable to see the warrior.

The Rough Faced Girl approaches her father for help in taking the test, but he has little left to offer after his older two have cleaned him out. She takes what he offers and heads off with a birch dress to meet the invisible warrior. The villagers are cruel, but beyond the village, she encounters great beauty. She is able to pass the sister's tests and is welcomed into the family. As with Sootface, she gains a sister along with a husband.

Marlborough Friends of the Library Book Sale

The Marlborough Friends of the Library will be having their fall book sale this Saturday October 27 from 9-4 in the lower library.

The Libray is located at 35 West Main Street in Marlborough, MA.

For those of you looking to increase your children's library this is a great opportunity. The books are sorted by by genre and and there are board books, picture books,leveled early reader books, chapter books and non-fiction.

Adult books are priced at $.50 for paperbacks and $1.00 for hardcover.

Children's books are priced $.25 for paperbacks and $.50 for hardcover and paperbacks. There are a couple of sets and special items marked with sale prices including a LeapPad with a couple of books/discs that was donated for the sale.

For those of you in the area who can not make the sale the Friends of the Library has an ongoing booksale in the Children's area which the Friends try to keep stocked with a range of picture, chapter and non-fiction books. The prices are the same. That should resume in a few weeks as the Children's library just installed a new rug and the sale had to stop the until they were finished. Please check out our cart near the checkout desk in the library.

Hope to see you there.

Legally Correct Fairy Tales

Imagine what would happen if Nursery Rhyme and Fairy Tale characters got access to legal counsel and the court system and you have the basis for David Fisher's Legally Correct Fairy Tales an amusing collection of cases.

In the first case, a lawyer is civil court suing on behalf of Jack and Jill for defective pails that caused them to fall while acquiring water. With the current awards for people spilling hot coffee on themselves, the outcome of this case is not hard to predict.

The second case finds us again in civil court with a tailor suing the Emperor for payment of clothing delivered. Considering the power of the Emperor and his humiliation suffered at the hands of the boy, I was amused, but not surprised by the outcome.

The third story covers a hearing to determine the sanity of Hansel and Gretel to determine if they can be considered guilty of the crime of murder in killing the alleged witch that threatened to eat Hansel. The outcome of this case was touch and go.

The next story is a petition for guardianship of Sleeping Beauty that would award the sole survivor of her family the right to prevent anyone from waking her up and thus total control of her estate. This one is left without resolution.

Next, we discover Snow White is being sued by the EEOC for discrimination because she only hires the dwarves to work in her mining and food service industries. Again, no resolution to this case just an announcement of pending actions.

In the next story, Mr. Wolf is brought to court to give a deposition under the RICO act as a member of an organized crime family the Wolves. The lawyers grill him about various activities of his family including Red Riding Hood, Peter and the Wolf, and specific to him the incident with the three pigs.

Humpty is next on the docket as he is lodging a complaint against King's hospital for negligence and malpractice.

The Old Lady in the Shoe dies without a will leaving a lower court to rule that her eldest son inherits all. In the next case, the children appeal the ruling.

The courts are next presented with a custody battle over Pinocchio between an Oak Tree and Gepetto. While Gepetto admits he found him in the forest, he says the boy was neglected and in need of care. The court psychologist expresses concern over Pinocchio's delusions about nose growth. Eventually the judge decides drug treatment is required before any custody choices can be made.

The author also covers cases involving Cinderella's Prince Charming, Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, the Frog Prince, and Goldilocks. Some are stronger than others.

My suggestion is to read the stories before sharing them with children. Some are more appropriate for certain age groups than others. Prince Charming's foot fetish is not something I would want to explain to children.