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Chloë Grace Moretz has signed on to star in a live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid. In the past, Moretz (pictured, via) has taken on roles in several book-based projects including Dark Places, The 5th Wave, and If I Stay.

The Disney animated movie featured a story inspired by a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. Variety reports that “not much is known about how this version will compare to previous iterations of the Hans Christian Andersen story, which follows a mermaid who wished to become human after falling in love with a man she saved from drowning.”

At this point in time, no director has been secured to take the helm on this movie. Click here to watch a clip from the Disney film. (via The Wrap)

Jackie Morris lives in Pembrokeshire, Wales, with children, dogs and cats. Her latest book is the retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's The Wild Swans.

From the narrow twisting streets of the old town centre to the shady docklands, Copenhagen Tales captures the essence of Copenhagen and its many faces. Through seventeen tales by some of the very best of Denmark’s writers past and present, we travel the length and breadth of the Danish capital examining famous sights from unique perspectives. A guide book usefully informs a new visitor to Copenhagen but these stories allow the reader to experience the city and its history from the inside. Translator Lotte Shankland is a Copenhagener by birth who has lived many years in England. In the videos below she discusses the collection, decribing the richness of Danish literature, as well as the Scandinavian noir genre.

Lotte Shankland on the greater significance of short stories within Denmark:

Lotte Shankland discusses her favourite short story, ‘Nightingale’, by Meir Goldschmidt:

From Hans Christian Andersen to Søren Kierkegaard, Denmark has been home to some of the finest writers in Europe. In the National Museum in Copenhagen you will find stories from as early as 1500 BC, covering myth and magic. A walk through the city will most likely involve an encounter with the emblematic statue of the Little Mermaid from Hans Christian Andersen’s famous tale. The Danes continue to tell great stories, as evidenced by the hugely popular Danish TV series The Killing and the Sweedish co-production The Bridge. Copenhagen Tales offers a way to understand the heart and soul of this diverse city, through the literature and art it has generated.

Featured image credit: Copenhagen, Denmark. Public Domain via Pixabay.

The post Short stories from the Danish capital appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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I was trying to remember the last theater review I wrote for this site.  At first I thought it might be the review I did way way back in the day for the staged adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline where the main character was played by a heavyset middle aged woman (it worked quite well, thank you very much).  Then I remembered that I did write up the Matilda musical when Penguin was kind enough to offer tickets to local librarians.  Still, that was over a year ago and my theater going has shriveled in the wake of my increasing brood.  What would it take to get me back in the swing of things?  Good friends from my past, apparently.

The Snow Queen, which I have discussed here briefly before, came to NYC as part of the 2014 Musical Theatre Festival (spellcheck is questioning why I chose to spell it “theatre”, by the way). Having originated in the San Jose Repertory Theater the composer of the show is one Haddon Kime, a friend of mine from long back.  Indeed his wife Katie presided over my wedding and long ago he created the music for my very brief foray into podcasting.  He’s always been ridiculously talented but I confess that I’d never seen a show of his.  Until now.

For those of you unfamiliar with the plot of this Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, here’s the long and short of it. Two kids, Gerta and Kai, are best buddies.  Then one day two shards of a magic mirror enter Kai’s eye and heart, rendering him a cold-hearted bastard (which is to say, a teenager).  Along comes The Snow Queen who takes Kai away to her magic palace up North.  Rather than just mourn her friend, Gerta sets out to rescue him, encountering rivers, witches, crows, royalty, thieves, and more.  When she finds Kai he doesn’t exactly want to leave, so engaged is he in a puzzle The Snow Queen set up for him.  Fortunately love wins out, and the two kiddos go back home.

As the novel stands it is unlike most Andersen tales in that it has a metaphor so clear cut you’d swear it had been ghostwritten by Freud himself.  The shards of glass in Kai’s heart and eye are so clearly a stand-in for the changes adolescence that it’s scary.  Indeed, when Anne Ursu wrote the Snow Queen inspired novel Breadcrumbs, she made explicit what is only implied in the Andersen tale.  With that in mind, I was very curious how a staged production of the show would deal with some of these themes.

Right from the start the show casts Kai and Gerda as adults playing children.  This is a clever way of dealing with adolescence in a theatrical setting.  Years ago the remarkable staged adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials saga cast two adults as Lyra and Will, allowing them to learn and grow throughout the show.  And since Kai spends a fair amount of time in this show begging a grown woman in a white garter belt to kiss him, this was a wise choice.

I suppose you could say they decided to give the show a Steampunk feel.  There were a fair number of corsets and goggles, but it wasn’t overwhelming.  When I saw a Steampunk version of The Pirates of Penzance a couple years ago the effect was overdone.  Here it was subtle, more evident in the clothing than anything else.  Each character was outfitted in a simple but effective manner, none so effective as The Snow Queen herself.  Played to the hilt by the commanding Jane Pfitsch, she’s a photo negative of The Phantom of the Opera, bedecked all in white, luring a boy through a window (as opposed to the Phantom bedecked all in black, luring a girl through a mirror).  Admittedly her very cool costume resembled that of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” outfit from the MTV Music Video Awards, but there’s no crime in that.  Her blond bob stood in stark contrast to the elaborate headwear of Elsa in the Disney Snow Queen adaptation Frozen.  But it was her singing voice and violin playing that gave her true power.  A very strong soprano, you can actually see her right now in the current revival of Cabaret as Rosie.  As for the violin playing, this show followed the current trend of having the performers play instruments on the stage, but her violin contained not a jot of fly-by-night fakery.  This girl could play!  I was impressed.

Other strong performances included Eryn Murman as Gerda, Reggie D. White as a Troll, a Hyacinth, a Prince, and a Reindeer respectively, and Jason Hite as an oddly sexy River, Crow, and Italian (for no particular reason) Daisy.  But the strongest actress, aside from The Snow Queen herself, was clearly Lauren Cipoletti.  There is much to be said for performers that have fun with their roles.  Cipoletti, by all appearances, seemed to be having a blast.  First she was a rosebush, and though all she does is preen in a manner best befitting The Rose of The Little Prince, you are entranced.  Later she came on as an adorable nerdgirl princess, pulling off the cheery “Never Give Up” song that might have wilted in a lesser performer’s mouth.  Best, however, was last since her most memorable role was the psychotic Little Robber Girl.  Singing “I Want That”, a ballad worthy of Veruca Salt herself, Cipoletti let her freak flag fly.  She was punk one minute and a cabaret singer the next.  She was Amanda Palmer and Courtney Love and a whole host of other wild women.  You didn’t trust her not to slit your throat while cooing sweet nothings in your ears all the while.  I’ve always loved the Little Robber Girl.  Now I adore her.

The music?  Superb.  Catchy.  Hummable.  I have actually been humming the song “Flying” ever since I saw it online, actually.  See, here’s a taste.

New York News

Neat, right? The show is jam-packed with music, making it almost more operetta than musical.  Haddon mixes up the styles, creating punk rock anthems and Southern bluegrass and Irish ballads depending on what fits best.  Should the show ever get picked up it could, of course, be cut down.  Some songs were lovely but easy to do away with.  In fact the song “Gone” was probably the loveliest of the batch, but superfluous in terms of plot.

As I exited the theater during intermission I saw a small girl wearing a Frozen t-shirt.  Since it was a 9 p.m. performance she was the only one of her kind to do so, but I like to think that there were other kids in the audience in a similar state of mind.  Kids entranced by Frozen who have an interest in the original source material.  My husband has always said that Frozen feels more like a prequel to The Snow Queen than anything else.  A cool thought (no pun intended).  However you look at it,

The show ended its run July 20th and one can only hope and pray that it gets picked up here in the city in some manner.  For another opinion check out the New York Times review A Fairy-Tale That Rocks in which reviewer Anita Gates calls parts of the show “evocatively effective”.  Also check out the TheaterMania review which calls Haddon’s score, “an endlessly listenable pastiche with elements of bluegrass, punk rock, and symphonic metal.”

Interested in reading the original story?  For the best round-up of Snow Queen works, go to the SurLaLune Fairy Tales site containing Modern Interpretations of The Snow Queen.  There you will find a list that is jaw-dropping in its content. It really is a remarkable collection.

From the wee folk of long ago (fairies, leprechauns, pixies…) to Hans Christian Andersen’s Thumbelina, and to Mary Norton’s The Borrowers, sentient beings of very small size have fascinated, delighted, and horrified us, but they never fail to capture our attention. In writing this piece I discovered there are far more books about wee folk […]

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sofia Coppola (pictured, via) may direct a live-action movie of The Little Mermaid. The screenplay is based on the famous Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale.

Here’s more from Deadline: “Caroline Thompson of Edward Scissorhands fame is rewriting the script, about the mermaid willing to make a Faustian bargain to live on land after she falls in love. Previous drafts were done by Fifty Shades Of Grey scribe Kelly Marcel and Shame scribe Abi Morgan, and Joe Wright was at one time eyeing this to direct.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Shout-out to my buddy Haddon Kime.  The man wrote the music and lyrics for a new musical version of The Snow Queen now playing at the San Jose Repertory Theatre with dreams of Broadway.  Years ago he created the opening music and words for my now long dead podcast.  It’s great seeing his star on the rise.  This past Christmas we discussed various children’s versions of the Hans Christian Andersen tale, including this year’s by Bagram Ibatoulline (which he hadn’t seen) and Breadcrumbs (which he thinks is brilliant).  This is a tiny look at the production but I do love that in this Steampunky SQ the little robber girl gets to sing a punk rock song.  Awesome.  She has always been my favorite character anyway.

Small children standing on chairs.  If book trailers need anything more than this, I don’t want to hear about it.  Here we have fantastic MG author N.D. Wilson’s daughter reading his self-published (and, if I hear correctly, soon to be professionally published) picture book Hello, Ninja.

Of course I can’t link to a video by N.D. Wilson without thinking of that AMAZING one he created years ago for the first Ashtown Burials book.  I was reminded of that video when I saw this recent one for Cragbridge Hall: The Inventor’s Secret by Chad Morris.  Many of us only DREAM of having a trailer of this caliber for our own titles:

With the advent of Saving Mr. Banks, some of you may be curious about the real P.L. Travers.  Fortunately it looks as if the documentary P.L. Travers: The Real Mary Poppins is available through YouTube.  Here’s the first part:

And for today’s off-topic video, special thanks to Gregory K for this one. It looks like the world’s most ambitious flashmob. It’s not. The amount of attention paid to facial hair should have given that much away.

Loved the live chicken.

The high is 82 degrees today in New York City, and yet it’s already time to talk holiday books! I’m soaking up this warm weather, because Winter will make its appearance the way it always does: abruptly and with no mercy… but when it does, books that evoke feelings like these–nostalgia, gratitude, love for family and friends, the magic of the holiday season– are what make it all worthwhile.

Check out new sure-to-be classics from the HarperCollins Children’s Books list:

THANKSGIVING DAY THANKS
by Laura Malone Elliot, illustrated by Lynn Munsinger
ISBN: 9780060002367, $17.99
On sale now!

Thanksgiving is almost here and Sam’s class is excited for their Thanksgiving feast! Mary Ann is going to dress up like Squanto. Winston’s building a popsicle-stick Mayflower. Jeffrey’s organizing a pumpkin pie-making contest. Everyone already knows the one special thing they are thankful for—everyone but Sam, that is. When something goes wrong with Sam’s surprise project, will the class be able to save it? Will Sam discover what he’s thankful for?  From the author/illustrator combination of A STRING OF HEARTS.

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS
written and illustrated by Susan Jeffers
ISBN: 9780062066152, $17.99
On sale now!

Splendidly rendered in Susan Jeffers’s breathtaking panoramic spreads, this jovial interpretation of a holiday classic will have readers of all ages singing their way through the holidays.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, SPLAT!
by Rob Scotton
ISBN: 9780062124500 $9.99
On sale now!

It’s the night before Christmas and Splat wonders if he’s been a good enough cat this year to deserve a really big present. Just to make sure, Splat offers some last-minute help to his mom—but messes up completely! That night Splat stays awake hoping to see Santa Claus, only to miss him. Splat is sure his Christmas is ruined along with his hopes for a really big present. It turns out that Splat may have been on the nice list after all!

SANTA CLAUS AND THE THREE BEARS
by Maria Modugno, illustrated by Jane Dyer and Brooke Dyer
ISBN: 9780061700231 $17.99
On sale now!

One snowy night, Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear decide to go for a winter stroll while their Christmas pudding cools. Unbeknownst to them, a white-bearded, black-booted, jolly interloper happens upon their cottage. When the bears return, they are shocked to find their pudding eaten, their chairs broken, and their cozy beds slept in! And it looks like he’s still there! Clad in a bright red jacket and completely covered in soot, there’s something awfully familiar about this guy…. Who could he be?

THE SNOW QUEEN
by Hans Christian Anderson, illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline
ISBN: 9780062209504 $17.99
On sale 10/8/13

Bagram Ibatoulline illustrates a storybook version of the classic tale about an evil queen and the ordinary girl who triumphs over her.

CHRISTMAS MOUSE
written and illustrated by Anne Mortimer
ISBN: 9780062089281 $12.99
On sale now!

It’s Christmastime and Mouse has lots to do! The tree needs decorating, lights need hanging, and carols must be sung. There are presents to leave for special friends, treats to nibble on, and stockings to hang by the fire. When everything is ready, Mouse makes a Christmas wish before snuggling down to sleep. A final spread shows a very happy (and very full) Mouse lounging near his Christmas wish come true—a giant piece of cheese all his own. Anne Mortimer’s cozy story celebrates the little things we do that make Christmas a magical time for all.

By Jessica Harris

This month our Oxford World’s Classics reading list is on folk and fairy tales. Many of these stories pre-date the printing press, and most will no doubt continue to be told for hundreds of years to come. How many of these have you heard of, and have we missed out your favourite? Let us know in the comments.

Beowulf

No list on folklore would be complete without Beowulf: probably the most famous English folk tale and a great story. This half-historical, half-legendary epic poem written by an unknown poet between the 8th and 11th century tells the story of the majestic hero Beowulf, who saves Hrothgar, the Danish king, from monstrous and terrifying enemies before eventually being slain. Through this tale of swashbuckling adventure we also see the power struggles and brutality of medieval politics.

Selected Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

In 1812 the Brothers Grimm took contemporary German folk tales and shaped them in their own bloodthirsty way, and in doing so captivated and horrified children for years to come. There are no morals here; no happy endings – the antagonists such as the evil stepmother won’t just steal your sweets but would kill you without a second thought. Here we have, for example, the original Snow White, with the Witch forced to dance in red-hot shoes until her death.

Le Morte Darthur by Thomas Malory

This text, written by Sir Thomas Malory in 1470, provides us with the definitive version of many of the King Arthur stories: the Knights of the Round Table, Sir Lancelot’s betrayal, and the Quest for the Holy Grail. Here we see the Round Table full of warring factions; we see Arthur the King discredited by Lancelot, who begins an affair with his wife, Guinevere, and we see Arthur’s supporters’ revenge that Arthur is powerless to prevent. The book shows how Arthur and his court lived and felt – and it’s no wonder the legend is such a fundamental part of British culture.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

When the mysterious Green Knight turns up at King Arthur’s court and challenges anyone to strike him with his axe and accept a return blow in a year and a day, Sir Gawain, the youngest Knight in Sir Arthur’s court, decides to prove his mettle by accepting the challenge. However, when he strikes the Green Knight and beheads him, the man laughs, picks up his head and tells Gawain he has a year and a day to live. Despite being written in the fourteenth century, this poem’s main theme – proving yourself – makes it instantly relatable and compelling.

Statue of Hans Christian Andersen reading The Ugly Duckling, in Central Park, New York City

This collection of fairy tales is a world away from Grimm’s violent and sinister collection – this Danish author was the creator of charming, accessible stories such as The Ugly Duckling and the Emperor’s New Clothes. Despite being poorly received when they were first published in 1936 because of their informality and focus on being amusing rather than educational, these stories have entertained generations of children. Christian Andersen invented the “fairy tale” as we know it today – simple, timeless stories that explore universal themes and end happily.

Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas

This saga was originally told orally around 1000 CE and was written down in the thirteenth or fourteenth century and is a major landmark in Icelandic folk literature. It tells the story of Eirik’s exile for murder, the same fate as his father, and his discovery and settlement in “Vinland”, a lush, plentiful country. It is believed to describe one of the first discoveries of North America, five hundred years before Captain Cook.

The Nibelungenlied

This epic comes from Medieval Germany and is a masterpiece of fantasy storytelling. Written in 1200 but rediscovered in the 1700s, it has since become the German national epic – on a par with the Iliad or the Ramayana. This story has it all: dragons, invisibility cloaks, fortune telling, and hoards of treasure guarded by dwarves and giants. We see love, jealousy and conflict, and the story ends with awful slaughter. The story has inspired a number of adaptations, including Wagner’s Ring cycle.

The Mabinogion

The Mabinogion is a collection of eleven medieval Welsh stories which combine Arthurian legend, Celtic myth and social narrative to create an epic series – its importance as a record of the history of culture and mythology in Wales is enormous. The stories are fantastical: the Four Branches of the Mabinogi are tales about British pagan gods recreated as human heroes, and sociological: The Dream of Macsen Wledig is an exaggerated story about the Roman Emperor Magnus Maximus.

Jessica Harris graduated from Warwick University with a degree in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics and has been working as an intern in the Online Product Marketing department in the Oxford office of Oxford University Press.

For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. You can follow Oxford World’s Classics on Twitter, Facebook, or here on the OUPblog.

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Image credit: Statue of Hans Christian Andersen reading The Ugly Duckling, in Central Park, New York City. By Dismas (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The post A folklore and fairy tales reading list from Oxford World’s Classics appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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Awards, translations, migrations and a mix of people from 52 countries, were all part of the hectic week-end that comprised the International IBBY Conference hosted by IBBY UK here in London at the end of August.

There were too many absolutely brilliant workshops and talks to identify individually. UK authors and illustrators - Michael Rosen, Marcus Sedgewick, Michael Morourgo, Aiden Chambers and Anthony Browne were there but into the mix came other heady spice, texture and flavour from international experts in children’s literature and luminaries such as Shaun Tan, Peter Sis, Bart Moeyaert and Kitty Crowther, winner of the Astrid Lingen Award for Illustration.

Highlight of the week-end had to be the Hans Christian Andersen Ceremony with the Author award going to María Teresa Andruetto from Argentina and Illustrator award going to Peter Sis from the Czech Republic. I couldn’t help feeling that the venue of the Science Museum at night with its surreal spotlights was the perfect setting for Peter Sis’s drawings. The machines seem to take on a life of their own...

Some of the work of the short-listed illustrators and some IBBY Honour titles are shown below - exciting, unusual, different.  For more events and people see Candy Gourlay’s blog. The fine linear work of Roger Mello from Brazil who was short-listed...,

The childhood thrill of make believe looms large for Dublin-based artist P.J. Lynch, 2X winner of England’s Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration. He may not come out and say this. But you can’t not feel it in his illustrations and murals, his YouTube videos and his lectures about art and painting in Ireland and the U.S. He puts [...]

As it happens, I spent much of the weekend being a princess.

M and J too – although, perhaps technically that meant that I was the queen?

Either way we’ve been living it up like only princesses do, testing our sensitivity by sleeping on mattresses and quilts piled almost as high as the ceiling.

In fact we had 4 mattresses, 6 quilts and (because we’re modern princesses) 5 duvets. Oh, and 1 pea.

Our royal highnesses can thoroughly recommend trying out a towering bed like ours. It was the source of much mirth and merriment (you’ll never hear this in the stories, but such beds are very, VERY wobbly), even though we have all ended up black and blue with bruises all over because of that pernicious pea.

You see, (if you wish to believe it) The Princess and the Pea by Hans Christian Andersen and Maja Dusikova tells the truth: You really can tell who is of royal blood, and who is not, by placing one small, green, sweet seed of Pisum sativum under a mountain of mattresses. We scientifically investigated this and Andersen has been proved correct.

Should you not be in a position to carry out rigorous research yourself, then have no fear; this version of The Princess and the Pea, published by Floris Books, has everything, absolutely everything you could wish for.

The well-known story is told eloquently and magically, with no post modern twists, just classical elegance. But it is Maja Dusikova’s illustrations which make this a book sing. Beautiful, graceful, delicate, detailed, soft and luxurious, Dusikova’s illustrations have tip-top fairy tale quality. Imagine a rainbow coloured incarnation of Hans Christian Andersen Award winning Lisbeth Zwerger and you’ll get some sense of Dusikova’s style.

An utterly delightful book, I don’t know of any more charming version of this tale, traditionally told.

Whilst playing at being a princess we listened to: