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From:
Date: 01 Jul 2004
Time: 03:08:02 -0500
Remote Name: 216.192.3.8
I actually have Brunos book, but have not had a chance to crack her open yest. Next to it is the one book salvaged from my childhood (actually my only childrens book) - a 2 inch red spinetingling collection of The Worlds Best Fairy Tales by Readers Digest. [Gosh, what would summers have been like without readers digest books when bookworms ravenously devored everything in the house and were limited to twice weekly trips to the library. (I have to laugh now that the most trouble I caused growing up was pestering too often be driven to the local library. You can definitely tell you have misspent your youth when your parents are more thrilled than you are when you get your drivers license because it means they have freed themselves from ever having to take you to the library again. lol) I still remember the day I was sprung lose years early from the childrens section and the best thing was I could finally check out more books than both my Mom and I could carry. Oh . . . and of course discovering Elery Queen - a tall geeky guy who lived with his dad and solved these unsolvable riddles. Of course it helped that there were so many books in the series it took months to read them all . . ***** Ok, so much for the trip down memeory lane . . . I agree the grim stories are scary and I think it is a good thing. How else do you tell kids about the unspeakable evils that lurk behind the everyday world than with meta4s about wolves in sheep clothing?. How else can you tell them without scaring them to death that innocence can get eaten by the seemingly kindliest of grandmothers, that red shoes can land you up crippled for life through karma you do not recognize, that pied pipers easily lead children astray right under their parents noses? I just wish that parents would talk more about how these characters are reflected in the real world. That the pied piper who is leading you to hell is the local drug dealer. That con men and women put on the trappings of those we trust most. . . .Do not even get me started aobut how much we need a way to harvest the wisdom that lies in all the worlds fairy tales and foklore and how much parents need a resource to help them do more than just turn off the light after reading a story . . that they need a way to relate the stories to current events that recur over and over, and ways to find the stories they need to share with their kids to help them deal with whatever is coming up for them in their lives. Who ever sits their kid down and has a serious talk about the fact that a lot of life lessons of hardship lay before them and that knowing and being able to name the danger or problem is 3-/-4 ths of the battle? That growing up means learning the difference between true friends and false - and betrayl is only one of many forms this lesson will take? That jealousy and envy grow wild in untamed hearts? That bullies are inverted inferior complexes walking around? There is so much to be done on teaching about both the dark and the light sides of life when it can have the most impact - in childhood when children are sponges soaking up the way the world works around them. And there are so many stories that children can now best tell to other children about life and death - if they can be given the chance to share the wisdom they have acquired in just a few short years. Opps - I am off on a rant of sorts. Time to pull out of this orbit while halo jumping still has some glamour - Al