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Friday, February 28, 2014

Timeless Ways to Say: Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Yesterday I looked at the copyright problems of celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday.  Today let's look at some fun ways that may avoid those problems.

If you want creative thinking, ask Storytellers.  On the international email list, Storytell, we heard the announcement of the Dr. Seuss exhibition, Hats Off to Dr. Seuss!, so we started getting a variety of suggestions and comments, starting with hats.
Yes, that's Dr. Seuss in one of his many hats!

  • "The Five Hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins" was inspired in part by Dr. Seuss's love of hats and his own collection, so you might start collecting hats in places missed by the exhibit. 
  • Hold a campaign to find 500 hats .. children can make hats;  children can make up stories about hats. 
  • People can send you hat recollections; Hat making tales; Myths about the origin of hats.
  • Papa Joe replied with the perfect counterpoint to Bartholomew Cubbins, the equally classic
    book by Esphyr Slobodkina, Caps for Sale, which Wikipedia tells us "sold more than two million copies and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Caps for Sale won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958."  Papa Joe admitted he " might only now own a half a dozen hats,but once sold caps. And yes, I wore them all on my head and walked around the grounds.  'Caps for Sale! Caps for Sale! Fifty Cents a Cap!' "



Talking about the visual importance of Dr. Seuss, both Papa Joe and Nick Smith felt the illustrations were necessary to their telling. 

I would like to suggest some other options beyond the "finger twister" of signing Green Eggs and Ham I  mentioned in the first part of my two looks at celebrating Dr. Seuss.
  • I especially love the collection of short stories, The Sneetches and Other Stories and, of course, Dr. Seuss's illustrations are a large part of the fun, but it's good for kids to make their own pictures in their minds, too.  For the title story, they can have stars in hand to go along with you as they "go on again, off again, through the machine they raced round and about again."  (Of course at some point -- you choose before or after -- it's good to picture the star on and the star off machines and also those "snooty old smarties.")  
  • Another story in that book I dearly love is "What Was I Scared Of?"  Ask the kids if they know Dr. Seuss once wrote a spooky story and how they can tell it, too.  Some stiff construction paper or, better yet, card stock can let them trace around their fingers to make their own spooky pants to tape on their fingers after you tell it to show what a great finger puppet it makes.
Of course the brainstorming doesn't stop there.
  • If storytellers want to live dangerously, Charles Kiernan suggested the perfect "nightcap", the Doctor's own prescription, The Sleep Book.  Charles promises "It works every time on stubborn-to-go-to-sleep children." 
At the risk of putting you to sleep, I found additional resources beyond storytellers
  •  
    has this article, "5 Ways to Celebrate Dr. Seuss's Birthday" -- that link is the one for teachers, but using the search Celebrate Dr. Seuss's Birthday  Scholastic claims to have 137! activities for librarians. It really is a broader search than just our topic, but it has a lot for the Seuss celebration.
  • Also aimed at teachers and homeschoolers is Apples for the Teacher's
    ( Apples for the Teacher)
    Dr. Seuss Day page of games and activities.




  • About.com's Parenting section includes Family Crafts and while "Celebrate Dr. Seuss' Birthday in March"  is geared to families, there's nothing to stop others from using the page full of ideas.  It also is just one in a series of craft ideas for holidays throughout the year.
  • Pinterest's bulletin board is also jam-packed with ideas . . . hmmmm "jam-packed" sounds like some of the recipes there!
While I was prowling around, Dr. Seuss Day helped me discover Daysoftheyear.com, a calendar to browse if you're looking to find events happening on a specific day or you can register and this "ultimate resource for worldwide events, festivals, funny, weird, and wonderful Days of the Year" promises you'll "never miss a day."  I could have used this rival of Chase's Calendar of Events back when planning library programs for specific dates.

I guess it's time to have Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, get my own wishes


After dying in 1991 at age 87, virtual greetings are in order for a truly Timeless author!

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

I sometimes do programs introducing people to the third most used language in the U.S.: American Sign Language.  Yesterday I did one at Warren Public Library and right behind their check-out desk is a giant poster of Green Eggs and Ham, the first story I ever signed.  I did it for my own first classes years ago in A.S.L.  There were other giant posters of Seuss books throughout the adult section and in the children's section a notice about their "Seussabration" on March 19.  Warren's Burnette branch will have a birthday party for Dr. Seuss on Saturday, March 1 since they're closed on Sunday, March 2, his actual birthday.

Throughout March, fortunately known as Reading Month, there will be celebrations
and the National Education Association has downloadables to help with the celebrating.  There's also Seussville, a partnership with his long-time publisher, Random House.  To add to your fun, Party City would be happy to sell you a wide variety of Cat in the Hat hats.

BUT there's a problem for storytellers who aren't telling inside their own classes or telling as librarians representing their library employer.  Storytellers outside that Fair Use coverage from copyright are being told they can't tell anything by Dr. Seuss.  I know of at least one storyteller who was sent a Cease-and-Desist order for some Seuss allusions and imagery (maybe a red and white striped hat?).  This is even though another storyteller figured "If Ted Cruz can (badly) perform Green Eggs and Ham very publicly from the Senate floor, while being paid then there should be no restrictions on that work."  All across America people are indeed reading the good Doctor's work and some are being paid to do it.  I'm sure the challenges come, not from the N.E.A., but from his publisher.

This reminds me of something that happened while I was still a librarian.  I was putting together a list of authors of easy reading beginner books.  No graphic except the Cat in the Hat worked.  Random House didn't want to give permission, but I later learned they didn't hold the right to the illustration.  I called the agency handling the late Dr. Seuss's rights and permissions and wasn't given a hopeful response.  Later they got back to me after, I suspect talking with his widow, and agreed as long as we gave full credit.  Well of course we did!  


Frankly I wish the showing of the books and mentioning the publisher resolved this problem for anyone wanting to celebrate Dr. Seuss, his work, and the important contribution he made to help beginning readers.  As Time's NewsFeed says:
Geisel considered his greatest achievement to be killing off the Dick and Jane books, which he said weren’t challenging enough for children, and were boring. Dr. Seuss’ books became the new standard in children’s publishing—expanding the imagination through brilliant illustration, social issues, and clever rhymes and vocabulary.

Be sure to read their article for what they correctly call "9 Facts to know about the famed author."  It might even more correctly be called "9 Facts you probably didn't know about the famed author."  There were many things in the private life of Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss.  For a longer, more detailed look at his life, Wikipedia gives a surprisingly detailed account -- Warts and All -- that may be more than you want.

This discussion of the copyright problems of telling Dr. Seuss also may be more than you want.  Tomorrow we'll look at ideas and resources for the celebration.

In the meantime, storytelling friend in Iowa, Gail Froyen,shared this bit of news:  I just read a post from NPR about a exhibition of hats collected over the years by Dr. Seuss.  Evidently "The Five Hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins" was inspired in part by his love of hats and his own collection.  It was and remains one of my favorite Seuss books along with Yertle the Turtle and others of the pre Cat in the Hat style of writing.  This year is the 75 anniversary of Five Hundred Hats.  The exhibition is traveling. Check out the sites at http://www.drseussart.com/hatsoff/dates.html. Unfortunately none of them is near Iowa.
Gail

That sparked a variety of suggestions from fellow storytellers, so be sure to come back tomorrow for timeless ways to say: Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Tell a Fairy Tale Day is February 26th!

The annual "Tell a Fairy Tale Day" is fast approaching.  Of course today's post includes a story to tell. Sara Cone Bryant has had two earlier posts in the Keeping the Public in Public Domain stories.  She was such an important part of the storytelling movement in the early 20th century that she deserves attention on a day dedicated to storytelling.

There's a listing about her on the Online Books Page listing her works available online, including a very cursory Wikipedia article, but neither show her and maybe there's a reason for that. 

She looks like somebody we might rule out as too old-fashioned to be relevant.  

Don't be fooled.  

I'm going to give a story that meets a difficult topic sometimes wanted by teachers and parents: cleanliness, neatness, or tidiness -- call it what you will, it's a subject needed for preschool and primary grades.  Bryant had a timeless understanding of what my Australian storytelling friends so aptly call "The Littlies."  In How to Tell Stories to Children and Some Stories to Tell she has three age groups of "Stories Selected and Adapted for Telling."  This is in the Kindergarten and Grade 1 section, but most preschool classes could handle it, too.  

(Looking at later in life, just the other day at rehearsal, cast members were comparing notes on "personal hygiene" and mentioned a talented actor or two who could have used this story, a shower, and some deodorant.  We might have wished this story had been one of those stories told back when those fellows were "Littlies" in case it made a difference!  Stories do have a way of staying in our minds and that is why they can be a gentle but powerful way to teach.)

Because Bryant is quick to point out that stories need adaptation, don't feel a change or two is out of line.  Boys no longer wear pinafores, so just change it to clothes.  If you want this to be a fairy tale, there's no problem with the boy meeting a "Tidy Angel", but it could just as easily be the "Tidy Fairy" or . . .  By all means, however, keep this light.  

Yet another personal side note here, I remember being shocked to hear my mother reading Cat in the Hat to my two daughters like it was a Greek Tragedy!  Not only that, she wasn't fooling when she saw the mess Thing 1 and Thing 2 made!  This story from Laura E. Richards' classic 1903 book, The Golden Windows, should be done with a sense of fun and even sly cheek-in-your-tongue.

 
 I hope you let the parting grumble by the pig be at least somewhat exaggerated.

Having talked so much about Sara Cone Bryant and the book where she explains storytelling, here's a bonus, her Table of Contents to show you why you might want to download your own copy.  If you look on the list of stories at Grades 2 and 3 you will see "The Burning of the Rice Fields."  The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami shows that not all stories are fairy tales and they do indeed have a value 100 years later.
******************
This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories. 

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my normal monthly posting of a research project here.  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my monthly postings as often as I can manage it.   






Sunday, February 16, 2014

Ransome - Frost - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

It's no secret, I'm a Russophile. The Olympics in Sochi have done a good job of spotlighting the host country.  Russian literature, music, folklore, dance, history, and even the language have long fascinated me.  It definitely has nothing to do with politics.  My self-taught reading knowledge of Russian has faded considerably, but the label, Russian folklore here has not.  My bibliography here from July 7 of 2013 shows Russian folklore has many items on my groaning bookshelves. 

You may have noticed my Keeping the Public in Public Domain selections have been working their way through the alphabet . . . or as I like to put it: The alphabet is a tool; Use it!

Yet another alphabet appears at the 2014 Olympics.

The Sochi Olympics opening ceremony presented a long segment using the Cyrillic alphabet to focus on Russia's history and culture.  I'm sure it puzzled many, but I hope eventually it appears in its entirety on YouTube as it's worth preserving.  Students of the language, history or culture of Russia would find it a worthwhile introduction.  So far I'm only seeing moments from it along with a focus on the 5th Olympic ring that never transformed from a snowflake.  How shallow that seems as a review of what was presented.  I guess we can chalk it up to the English-speaking world once again unable to make the adjustment to Cyrillic.  I once heard it described as looking as if you were seeing the letters reflected upside down in the water.  How sad that we have a lack of flexibility in seeing through the eyes of the largest country on earth.

For today I won't attempt to ask readers to manage Cyrillic, but I do want to leave our own ABC order and jump to my favorite Russian story in the version I like best.  If you've never read Old Peter's Russian Tales by Arthur Ransome, you're missing a treat.  Today's story can be found in several other anthologies of Russian folklore, but I knew when I was selecting from Afanas'ev, Bain, and Blumenthal earlier that Ransome's version of Frost was the one I wanted to present.

Whenever possible I try to give further links to information on the author or anthologizer.  There's even The Arthur Ransome Society (TARS) His name seems made for anagrams as there's also the Arthur Ransome Trust (ART).  They each have quite detailed biographical information beyond the far briefer standard Wikipedia article.  Did you know he was a British spy with the code name S76?  Did you know he ran afoul of what was then known as MI1c?  You may want to know more about that and also how his Russian wife, Evgenia, who was Leon Trotsky's personal secretary when he met her, may have been involved in smuggling diamonds to the west to fund the Soviet cause.  That's discussed in a 2009 book, by Roland Chambers in The last Englishman: the double life of Arthur Ransome, but certainly not in Ransome's own autobiography.

While each society focuses on Ransome's Swallows and Amazons and his related books and life, my love of his work goes back to his initial visits to Russia and his version of standard Russian folktales in Old Peter's Russian Tales.  There are various editions differing only in the artwork accompanying it.  It's also on various websites.  The link I gave is to Project Gutenberg since it offers multiple formats.

Here's the story minus the "frame" of Old Peter telling the story to some children.  You may find it too close to this winter's weather.  It also fits some very traditional tale types and motifs.  None of that negates Ransome's powerful retelling, so don't assume this children's version is childish. 










If today's tale is chillier than the slopes of Sochi, you can always return to it in summer.  It certainly is as durable as the permafrost in giving a view into Russian folklore.
*******************
This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories. 

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my normal monthly posting of a research project here.  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my monthly postings as often as I can manage it.   



Sunday, February 9, 2014

Curry/Clippinger (Horace E. Scudder) - Boyhood of Washington - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

What is the current text for Children's Literature classes?  Mine was by May Hill Arbuthnot.  For years she was the introduction to the subject and she was already long dead by the time I took "Kiddie Lit" as it's so often called.  My instructor was a children's librarian with a good respect for Arbuthnot.  Her books went through many editions.  I believe I lost that textbook, Children and Books, over the years, but I've saved three anthologies by her that are more valuable to me: Time for Fairy Tales Old and New, Time for New Magic, Time for Old Magic.

Prior to Ms. Arbuthnot, who was later joined by and succeeded by co-author Zena Sutherland, the earlier introduction to children's literature for parents and teachers was from Erle Elsworth Clippinger and Charles Madison Curry starting in 1920.  By that time even rural schoolteachers for one-room schools were receiving more training, including this excellent exposure to the best literature for their young students.  On the title page, the subtitle gives a view into the editors rationale:

The Used Book copy I have said "A Great Resource!" next to the bookseller's price and I definitely agree.   Just the bibliographies throughout the book would be "A Great Resource!", but like the television commercials of today: Wait there's more!!!  The first section, the Preface and General Introduction, might be something you skip.  Don't.  It includes something storytellers and others often wonder about, the grade level most likely to be interested in what material.  Curry/Clippinger provide interest levels from first through eighth grades. 

Think it's only true for children, especially middle school students, in the early 20th century?  There's a reminder of the continued importance of teachers reading to their students to develop an appreciation of the best in literature even though their students can read and "the teacher's work is mainly one of guidance and direction in getting the children and the right books in contact.  Children at this period are likely to be omnivorous readers, ready for any book that comes their way, and the job of keeping them supplied with titles of enough available good books for their needs is indeed one to tax all a teacher's knowledge and experience."

If that's not enough to match present day 7th and 8th graders, they continue, "The demand for highly sensational stories on the part of pupils in the upper grades is so insistent that it constitutes a special problem for the teacher."  The popularity of the dystopian Hunger Games and Twilight Saga fantasies seem to prove it's still true even if they were talking about 'dime novels' of their day.

Beyond that first section are eleven other sections: Mother Goose Jingles and Nursery Rhymes (31 pages); Fairy Stories--Traditional Tales (113 pages); Fairy Stories--Modern Fantastic Tales (75 pages); Fables and Symbolic Stories (37 pages); Myths (58 pages); Poetry (69 pages); Realistic Stories (63 pages); Nature Literature (56 pages); Romance Cycles and Legend (52 pages); Biography and Hero Stories (39 pages); Home Reading List and General Index (14 pages). 

Each section opens with a page of bibliography for that section.  I included the number of pages as that shows the amount of attention given a topic.  A few additional brief comments seem needed.  "Fairy Stories--Modern Fantastic Tales", in 1920 meant Hans Christian Andersen, Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince", Frank Stockton, and James Ruskin's "King of the Golden River" among others we would now consider "Traditional" or at least far from "Modern."   Myths are Greek, Roman, and Norse.  I fondly remember as a children's librarian hearing middle school students discussing them with as much interest as if they were soap operas!  Clearly their teacher made them as relevant as they deserve to be.  Realistic Stories are probably the most dated section with Goody Two-Shoes turning me off, but O.Henry's "The Gift of the Magi" still relevant. The Legends touch the Arabian Nights, French Reynard the Fox, Arthurian tales, Don Quixote, Robin Hood, and another tale by today's author, Horace Scudder, I don't recognize.

Those biographies are the source of today's tale in this month when we celebrate President's Day.  It also includes something that is a more believable look at young George Washington's honesty than the proverbial chopping down of the cherry tree.

 




































My scanner lets me crop in a limited way, but you can see the next biography comes from Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography.  To have your own copy of this "Great Resource!" go to that wonderful way of Keeping the Public in Public Domain, Project Gutenberg.

The final 12th section, "Home Reading List and General Index", again is graded and also would be excellent for home school families.  As a former indexer, I can also rate the index positively.  I find it's often hard to move from an index to the exact page for eBooks and online reading, so I value my actual book.

However you view the Curry/Clippinger anthology, enjoy both President's Day and Keeping the Public in Public Domain. 
****************
This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, "Keeping the Public in Public Domain."  The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated.  I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20th century.  My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them.  I hope you enjoy discovering new stories. 

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my normal monthly posting of a research project here.  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my monthly postings as often as I can manage it.   

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Queen Victoria's Valentine?

Who would expect a song about Christmas would be a lovely Valentine?  
At Christmas time I love doing a program as The Hired Girl to present a look at Victorian Christmas.

Queen Victoria's Valentine, however, was her love for Prince Albert.  Go to the video of Tree of Love by Sabrina and Craig for a beautiful song about that love; views of the young Victoria -- so rarely seen in pictures of this long reigning monarch; also pictures of Prince Albert; and how they popularized the Christmas tree as we know it.

The song and pictures captures their young love so well.  The song simplifies the facts, as if the tree was new to Victoria, but on Sabrina and Craig's website their article notes, while still a princess, her German grandmother brought the Christmas tree to the palace; yet it was indeed the young family of Victoria and Albert that popularized it beyond the palace.

Victorian mourning outfits came from the Queen's decision to wear a black mourning outfit for the remaining 40 years of her life after Prince Albert died. 

As the chorus in Sabrina and Craig's song, "Tree of Love" puts it so well
Their days of walking hand in hand came swiftly to an end
As fate stepped in between and stole away her truest friend
His heart he left behind him   
With one who always knew its worth
Forever with his sweetheart
His treasure here upon the earth
She in turn did share it
With all the world you see                  
Love that shines eternal
Through every Christmas tree.

To my way of thinking, such a lovely song is as appropriate for Valentine's Day as it is for Christmas.