By: Jerry Beck,
on 12/12/2016
Several songs from "Moana" can now be re-lived online, as part of the Disney's strategy to promote the film and boost visibility during awards season.
The post Music and Songs From ‘Moana’ Getting Heavy Push Online appeared first on Cartoon Brew.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 10/12/2016
Discover the art of Clio Chiang, Cartoon Brew's Artist of the Day.
The post Artist of the Day: Clio Chiang appeared first on Cartoon Brew.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 9/15/2016
A new Disney film...from the creators of "Frozen" and Zootopia"?
The post Disney Releases First Full ‘Moana’ Trailer appeared first on Cartoon Brew.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 3/5/2016
The fur-tastic fantasy is set to unseat "Frozen" for the best-ever opening weekend of a Disney film.
The post ‘Zootopia’ Headed For Disney Opening Weekend Record appeared first on Cartoon Brew.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 8/25/2015
The minions have passed "The Lion King" on the all-time list and has now set its sights on "Toy Story 3."
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 8/20/2015
By: Jerry Beck,
on 7/23/2015
"The Autobots" was a flop with Chinese audiences, but Disney lawyers are watching it closely.
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By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 6/26/2015
By: Nick Eskey
Hello again nerds and nerdettes, and welcome to another installment of San Diego Comic-Con Funko releases! You know Funko, the purveyors of the highly popular POP! series of collectible figurines, who also vow to “cover as many beloved licenses and characters as possible to remind every Comic-Con attendee why they fell in love with these stories in the first place. “
We have some exciting announcements this time, including an extremely limited edition POP! figurine. Reminder, this year Funko will not be doing any sort of pre-buying. The only way you can get this beauties is on site, so be sure to visit the booth. If you don’t have tickets to Comic-Con… well there’s always black magic?
Without any further distractions, let’s bring on the toys:
Pop! TV: Doctor Who – Eleventh Doctor holding Cyberman Head
Does the sight of a British police booth cause you to hyperventilate? This eleventh incarnation of Doctor Who holding a Cyberman head then is the right toy for you. Check him out with his chic purple jacket and debonair hair. *Swoon.*
Pop! Disney: Frozen – Barbershop Quartet Olaf
From Pixar’s “Frozen,” perpetuator of a few sickly cute and catchy songs, comes everyone’s favorite silly snowman Olaf. This Barbershop Quartet Olaf comes complete with a hat, cane, and similarly dressed seagull sidekick.
Pop! TV: The Flash – The Flash Unmasked
Fan’s of the series “Flash” should keep their eyes peeled for this POP! The Flash Unmasked. Be careful not to let this one slip by you.
Hikari: Star Wars – Darth Vader Matte Black
Another Star Wars collectible? No, never. Who could have predicted? Despite there already being a thousand other pieces of Star Wars merchandise however, this Darth Vader Matte Black figure by Hikari looks beautiful. It almost looks like if this famous Sith was made of copper. Better find some room on those already crowded shelves for this toy, which is limited to only 1200.
Hikari: Marvel – Frosted Groot
In this batch of announcements, Hikari will be also coming out with this Frosted Groot. Limited to 1000, it looks like this humanoid plant made out with Olaf. Oh the magic of warm hugs.
Dorbz: Batman – Thrillkill Batman
Nothing better strikes fear into the hearts of men more than a caped crusader in a mask. Well, maybe a caped crusader in full grin and an alternate costume. Dorbz’s Thrillkill Batman sports a red and black costume and a smiling face. A cute, yet disturbing addition to any collection.
Pop TV: Hannibal – Bryan Fulle
And rounding off our releases is this highly limited edition POP! It’s unfortunate that the show Hannibal was cancelled, but you can share the hurt with this Brian Fuller figure. Dressed to kill in his Hannibal like attire, the show’s creator also sports a pair of spectacles and a large kitchen knife. This bad boy comes in only 144 units and will be available during his signing at the Funko booth on Friday, July 10th at 2 p.m. The line for the signing won’t begin until 1p.m., so no early campers please. No other Funko items will be sold during this time.
We’re getting closer to Comic-Con, so stay tuned for more Funko exclusives!
By: Jerry Beck,
on 6/21/2015
By: Jerry Beck,
on 6/11/2015
CEO Bob Iger has driven the Disney Company to record profits. But how long will his strategy work?
Add a CommentClick below to read more on the world’s first symposium about one, totally awesome movie…
By: Jerry Beck,
on 4/22/2015
By: Hannah Paget,
on 3/19/2015
This story may or may not be a fairy tale, though there are certainly fairies in it. However, unlike any of his Victorian forebears or most of his contemporaries, Machen manages to achieve, only a few years before the comfortably kitsch flower fairies of Cicely Mary Barker, the singular feat of rendering fairies terrifying. With James Hogg’s 'Confessions of a Justified Sinner', Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Thrawn Janet’ and several of M. R. James’s marvellous ghost stories, ‘The White People’ is one of only a handful of literary texts that have genuinely unnerved me.
The post Between terror and kitsch: fairies in fairy tales appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Jerry Beck,
on 3/12/2015
By: Dianna Dilworth,
on 3/5/2015
Today is World Book Day in the UK and Ireland, a day in which kids were encouraged to dress up as their favorite book character.
The most popular costume this year? Elsa from Frozen, who is technically not a book character (though the Disney franchise has released a ton of Frozen books based on the movie). Twitter users are not amused. The Telegraph has the scoop:
On social media, annoyance over Disney’s all-conquering film Frozentaking over World Book Day is threatening to trump the irritation over children dressed as comic book characters.
ADDitude Magazine provides “strategies and support for ADHD and LD.” They reprinted my Huffington Post essay about my daughter’s struggle with Tourette Syndrome. The magazine is a wonderful resource, and I hope you’ll pass it along to anyone you know who could benefit from it. Thank you! Move Therapy: How Frozen Gave My Daughter Hope
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/4/2015
I went through the old mailbag and found some newsy bits I had previously missed.
§ IDW’s CEO/Publisher Ted Adams is joining the Board of Directors for Traveling Stories, a San Diego based non profit that builds libraries in poor cities around the world and provides story coaching at travelling story tents. Okay does it get better than that? you can find out more and how to help here.
“I’ve always been an avid reader, even when I was little. As a publisher, I’m excited to give kids in underprivileged areas around the world the same literary experience I was lucky enough to have,” Adams stated.
With this development, Adams has a platform for sharing his lifelong passion for reading on a global scale and further expanding IDW’s reach in the book-loving community.
If you want to join Adams in supporting Traveling Stories, visit www.travelingstories.org to sign up for updates about the organization and initiatives he is working on. You can also join him in becoming a Reading Warrior and donating $10 per month so Traveling Stories can continue to give children access to books. For a limited time, those who become a Reading Warrior will receive a free Traveling Stories t-shirt of their choice and a free IDW book.
§ Michael Golden is creating limited edition variant covers for The Walking Dead #1 which are available at various Wizard Worlds. Here’s the latest, for Wizard World Comic Con Indianapolis, February 13-15. Everyone gets one FREE (While supplies last). VIP attendees will receive an additional black & white sketch version of the comic.
§ Visionary Comics is running a kickstarter for a comic book called The Cackler. It’s amazing that no one came up with that name before. The world needs a Cackler. (And it’s already been funded.)
§ Viz has announced a new Hello Kitty original graphic novel HELLO KITTY: IT’S ABOUT TIME, with art by Jacob Chabot, Ian McGinty, Jorge Monlongo, and Giovanni Castro, and special guest artist Erica Salcedo. “Past, present or future, Hello Kitty and her friends are having a blast!”
§ Artist Paul Rivoche dropped us a line to let us know he won both the Gold and Silver medals in the “Graphic Novels/Comic Books category of the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles (SILA) Illustration West 53 competition. (All winners shown here.)
The Gold award is for the cover to my graphic novel collaboration with Amity Shlaes and Chuck Dixon, “The Forgotten Man Graphic Edition”, adapting her bestseller of the same name. The other, Silver award, is for my two-page comic contribution titled “Little Nemo In Planeland”, which I wrote and drew for “Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream”, published by Locust Moon Press.
§ Toy Fair is coming!!! Oh boy. Dark Horse will debut a new bust of Criminal Macabre’s Cal McDonald there. It’s designed by William Paquet. Cal MacDonald was created by Steve Niles and he’s a hardboiled supernatural investigator type.
The bust measures a big 14 inches tall. Packaged in a full-color box, with a certificate of authenticity signed by both Niles and Paquet, this hand-painted, numbered piece is limited to only 375 copies. Available August 2015 for $149.99.
The prototype will be revealed at the Dark Horse booth, #4837, at Toy Fair 2015, held February 14–17 at Jacob Javits Center in New York City.
Additionally, Dark Horse will produce a special rare winged Cal McDonald variant bust.
§ A lot more Toy Fair news and previews can be found at the Idle Hands blog.
§ FROZEN…one of the most successful and beloved movies of all time, #5 on the ALL TIME WORLDWIDE BOF OFFICE LIST. And of course, there will be more Forozen, starting with with short “Frozen Fever,” in which Anna’s birthday is threatened by a COLD, which sends her powers into sneeze mode. Can Elsa and Kristoff makes sure it’s jjsut a big party? (Maybe they should call Hello Kitty.) Here’s some stills and a featurette. The short debuts on March 13th in front of Cinderella, and the gang is all back: Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff and Josh Gad and directors Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee.
I laughed when I opened this, but it’s brilliant. Thanks for not giving them to us at ComicsPRO @ValiantComics pic.twitter.com/59ZLcQ8Y7p
— Pittsburgh Comics (@PghComics) February 3, 2015
§ Finally: ComicsPRO the annual retailer meeting is also coming, and Valiant came up with perhaps the best promotion evah: Ninjak boxcutters. Might be tought to fly with those, so be sure to put them in CHCKED BAGGAGE.
By: Jerry Beck,
on 12/29/2014
For the first time in 17 years, no animated feature earned enough global box office dollars to rank among the top ten-grossing worldwide theatrical releases.
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By: PennyF,
on 12/28/2014
Movie producers have altered the way fairy tales are told, but in what ways have they been able to present an illusion that once existed only in the pages of a story? Below is an excerpt from Marina Warner’s Once Upon a Time that explores the magic that movies bring to the tales:
From the earliest experiments by George Meliès in Paris in the 1890s to the present day dominion of Disney Productions and Pixar, fairy tales have been told in the cinema. The concept of illusion carries two distinct, profound, and contradictory meanings in the medium of film: first, the film itself is an illusion, and, bar a few initiates screaming at the appearance of a moving train in the medium’s earliest viewings, everyone in the cinema knows they are being stunned by wonders wrought by science. All appearances in the cinema are conjured by shadow play and artifice, and technologies ever more skilled at illusion: CGI produces living breathing simulacra—of velociraptors (Jurassic Park), elvish castles (Lord of the Rings), soaring bionicmonsters (Avatar), grotesque and terrifying monsters (the Alien series), while the modern Rapunzel wields her mane like a lasso and a whip, or deploys it to make a footbridge. Such visualizations are designed to stun us, and they succeed: so much is being done for us by animators and filmmakers, there is no room for personal imaginings. The wicked queen in Snow White (1937) has become imprinted, and she keeps those exact features when we return to the story; Ariel, Disney’s flame-haired Little Mermaid, has eclipsed her wispy and poignant predecessors, conjured chiefly by the words of Andersen’s story
A counterpoised form of illusion, however, now flourishes rampantly at the core of fairytale films, and has become central to the realization on screen of the stories, especially in entertainment which aims at a crossover or child audience. Contemporary commercial cinema has continued the Victorian shift from irresponsible amusement to responsible instruction, and kept faith with fairy tales’ protest against existing injustices. Many current family films posit spirited, hopeful alternatives (in Shrek Princess Fiona is podgy, liverish, ugly, and delightful; in Tangled, Rapunzel is a super heroine, brainy and brawny; in the hugely successful Disney film Frozen (2013), inspired by The Snow Queen, the younger sister Anna overcomes ice storms, avalanches, and eternal winter to save Elsa, her elder). Screenwriters display iconoclastic verve, but they are working from the premise that screen illusions have power to become fact. ‘Wishing on a star’ is the ideology of the dreamfactory, and has given rise to indignant critique, that fairy tales peddle empty consumerism and wishful thinking. The writer Terri Windling, who specializes in the genre of teen fantasy, deplores the once prevailing tendency towards positive thinking and sunny success:
The fairy tale journey may look like an outward trek across plains and mountains, through castles and forests, but the actual movement is inward, into the lands of the soul. The dark path of the fairytale forest lies in the shadows of our imagination, the depths of our unconscious. To travel to the wood, to face its dangers, is to emerge transformed by this experience. Particularly for children whose world does not resemble the simplified world of television sit-coms . . . this ability to travel inward, to face fear and transform it, is a skill they will use all their lives. We do children—and ourselves—a grave disservice by censoring the old tales, glossing over the darker passages and ambiguities
Fairy tale and film enjoy a profound affinity because the cinema animates phenomena, no matter how inert; made of light and motion, its illusions match the enchanted animism of fairy tale: animals speak, carpets fly, objects move and act of their own accord. One of the darker forerunners of Mozart’s flute is an uncanny instrument that plays in several ballads and stories: a bone that bears witness to a murder. In the Grimms’ tale, ‘The Singing Bone’, the shepherd who finds it doesn’t react in terror and run, but thinks to himself, ‘What a strange little horn, singing of its own accord like that. I must take it to the king.’ The bone sings out the truth of what happened, and the whole skeleton of the victim is dug up, and his murderer—his elder brother and rival in love—is unmasked, sewn into a sack, and drowned.
This version is less than two pages long: a tiny, supersaturated solution of the Grimms: grotesque and macabre detail, uncanny dynamics of life-in-death, moral piety, and rough justice. But the story also presents a vivid metaphor for film itself: singing bones. (It’s therefore apt, if a little eerie, that the celluloid from which film stock was first made was itself composed of rendered-down bones.)
Early animators’ choice of themes reveals how they responded to a deeply laid sympathy between their medium of film and the uncanny vitality of inert things. Lotte Reiniger, the writer-director of the first full-length animated feature (The Adventures of Prince Achmed), made dazzling ‘shadow puppet’ cartoons inspired by the fairy tales of Grimm, Andersen, and Wilhelm Hauff; she continued making films for over a thirty-year period, first in her native Berlin and later in London, for children’s television. Her Cinderella (1922) is a comic—and grisly— masterpiece.
Early Disney films, made by the man himself, reflect traditional fables’ personification of animals—mice and ducks and cats and foxes; in this century, by contrast, things come to life, no matter how inert they are: computerization observes no boundaries to generating lifelike, kinetic, cybernetic, and virtual reality.
Featured image credit: “Dca animation building” by Carterhawk – Own work. Licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
The post Techno-magic: Cinema and fairy tale appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Jerry Beck,
on 12/12/2014
Roger Allers opens up about his struggles to make a feature film at Disney after directing "The Lion King."
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By: Raquel Fernandes,
on 12/11/2014
There are plenty of operas about teenage girls—love-sick, obsessed, hysterical teenage girls who dance, scheme, and murder in a frenzy of musical passion. Disney Princess films are also about teenage girls—lonely, skinny, logical teenage girls who follow their hearts because the plot gives them no other option. The music Disney Princesses sing can be divided into three periods that correspond to distinct animation styles:
Onto these three periods we can map the themes of the princess anthems, the single song for which each princess is remembered:
The relative lack of variance in these songs tells us something important—while animation styles have changed, the aspirations of girlhood have not been radically altered.
But then there’s Frozen.
Elsa’s anthem, “Let It Go,” combines aspects from all three periods: Frozen is a computer animated film, Idina Menzel is a Tony Award-winning singer, and, most importantly, the song and the Snow Queen who sings it have an operatic legacy rooted in representations of madness and infirmity. “Let It Go” is a tribute to passion, spontaneity, and instinct—elements celebrated by both the opera (which nevertheless punishes the bearer severely) and the Disney film (which channels them into heterosexual romance). Frozen does neither.
Unlike the songs of longing for belonging that came before it, “Let It Go” insists that being like everyone else is bound to fail. It’s a coming out song often read as a queer anthem and easily interpreted to account for a number of stigmatized identities. As such, Elsa is a screen onto which may be projected our fantasies and fears. While her transformation into a shapely princess swaying in a sparkly gown with wispy blond hair may be familiar, the scene where this takes place, the way she looks back at the viewer, and the music she sings define Elsa as more ambiguous than she appears. Is Elsa sick, is she mentally ill, is she asexual, is she gay? What is Elsa and why does she resonate so strongly with young girls?
Elsa is like the women of 19th-century opera in her exclusion from the world the other characters comfortably occupy. Marred by magical ability, Elsa must isolate herself if she does not want to scar those she loves—or so the dialogue tells us. The imagery suggests an illness; Elsa behaves as if she were contagious. Indeed, she is consumptive like Mimi, but she is also betrayed like Tosca and scandalous like The Queen of the Night. As Catherine Clément says of women in the opera: “they suffer, they cry, they die…Glowing with tears, their decolletés cut to the heart, they expose themselves to the gaze of those who come to take pleasure in their pretend agonies.” Operatic women express their hysteria skillfully. At the pinnacle of her agony, Elsa builds a magnificent castle while singing her most beautiful song, a song that has itself become infectious. In its final moments, she exposes herself, only to slam the door on viewers who would like nothing more than to gawk at the excess.
Most princess anthems end satisfactorily on the tonic chord, their musical conclusions coinciding with lyrical expectations that assure the story will fulfill the princesses’ desires. For example, when Ariel wishes she could be “part of that world”, she sings a high F, which a trombone echoes an octave lower, reinforcing the song’s key and suggesting the narrative’s interest in giving Ariel what she wants. In “Someday My Prince Will Come,” Snow White’s final line repeats the home pitch no less than six times as if to insist the screenwriters pay attention. “Let It Go,” on the other hand, ends unresolved. The score establishes a sharp distinction between the assertive melodic phrase sung by Elsa, “The cold never bothered me anyway,” and the harmonic manifestation of the accompaniment. Elsa turns her back to the camera after singing the downward moving line, which ends rather abruptly on the tonic, while the chord that ought to have shifted with Elsa’s exit lingers in the icy upper register of the strings, as if refusing to acknowledge the message. Is the music condemning the singer’s difference by suggesting that her immunity to the elements is indicative of a physical or psychic malady?
Unlike Donizetti’s operatic heroine, Lucia, whose infamous “mad scene” prompts the chorus to weep for her, Elsa stares into the camera, eyebrow raised, as if daring the spectators to pity her. This is the look of a woman who refuses to capitulate to patriarchy. And with our endless covers and video parodies of “Let It Go” we have rallied to her defense. Rather than constrain her by Frozen’s story, “Let It Go” lets Elsa escape again into possibility. The new princess message, “Leave Me Alone,” is echoed by little girls everywhere.
Peter Conrad says of opera, “It is the song of our irrationality, of the instinctual savagery which our jobs and routines and our nonsinging voices belie, or the music our bodies make. It is an art devoted to love and death (and especially to the cryptic alliance between them); to the definition and the interchangeability of the sexes; to madness and devilment…” Such is also a fair description of Frozen, for what are its final moments than an act of love to stave off death, what is Elsa but a mad and devilish woman who revels in the impermanence of sexuality, what is a fairytale but a story full of savage beasts that prey on our emotions. “Let It Go” releases an archetype from the hollows of diva history into the digital world of children’s animation.
Headline Image: Disney’s Frozen. DVD screenshot via Jennfier Fleeger.
The post Frozen and the Disney Princess Song appeared first on OUPblog.
Best Wishes To All
Holiday Dogs, Biscuit and Gravy, are courtesy of Richard Bradley's website, A Rock In My SHoe
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Holiday Turning Point...
It was Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol that transformed Christmas, first in Victorian England as the industrial age was barreling ahead, and then throughout Europe. Dicken's notion that the true Christmas spirit embodied caring and generouisity -- especially for those less fortunate -- influenced the thinking of multitudes and transformed the holiday.
The ancient orgins of Christmas and of Santa Claus have been traced to many cultures including Scandanavian (especially Danish), Germanic, Dutch and British.
The legend of Santa Claus, himself, was greatly enhanced by the poem A Visit from St Nicholas, written for his children, by the American, Clement Clarke Moore, in 1823.
Images by some of the great illustrators have deeply influenced perceptions of Santa and Chistmas. This is especially true for children. However, significant impressions in the minds of adults were also made by the Dicken's illustrations of John Leech (and later by Arthur Rackham) in Great Britain, and the yearly illustrations by Thomas Nast of A Visit From St Nicholas in the USA.
With the passing of time, the spirit of Christmas has changed. The idea of gifts for children, and then others, has evolved with stories, TV, films, merchants, and ceaseless marketing into an often overwhelming distortion of the original spirit of A Christmas Carol. But the spirit does live on.
A Christmas Carol
"Few works in the history of popular culture have had as much pronounced effect as Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, first published in 1843. While Christmas Day had always been a sacred, solemn feast day within the Christian faith (just as the Winter Solstice had been in many pagan cultures before it), it wasn’t until the middle part of the 1800s that many began to see it less as a site of religious devotion than as a holiday to be celebrated, and to be celebrated most specifically through the act of giving. While A Christmas Carol didn’t spawn this tradition itself, it, more than any other force, popularized it throughout the western world. Through its powerful, secular story of redemption through charity and love, Dickens imparted to all that Christmas was a time to celebrate all that was worthwhile about the human race, most specifically our love for one another, and our compassion for those less fortunate."...
To read the rest of this excellent article by Jonathan Morris, the Antiscribe, follow this link It will take you to his comprehensive and instghtful article on the significance and lasting
impact of Charles Dicken's and A Christmas Carol. Morris also provides, in this article, informed reviews of multiple film and TV versions of A Christmas Carol through the years; he includes photos and video links.
This link will enable you to download/read the original version of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens"
This link will take you to the 1971 Annimated version of A Christmas Carol produced by Chuck Jones, directed by Richard Williams, and with the voice of Alister Sim as Ebeneezer Scrooge. This is a classic and a favorite of Jonathan Morris: Annimated Christmas Carol
The top two illustrations on the left are by John leech. The illustration, on the right, is by Thomas Nast. The illustrator of the bottom left Christmas scene is unknown.
Happy Holidays!
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"I don't know what to do.' cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoon of himself with his stockings. `I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody. A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo here. Whoop. Hallo.' "--
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
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A Foxwoods Holiday Celebration
This wonderful illustration is by Brian Fox-Patterson for a series of children's books by Brian and his wife, Cynthia. To see more of his delightful illustrations, visit Foxwood Tales Illustrations.
"Their first story was published in 1985, and seven more followed.
Since then the series of eight children's books have become modern classics. Over 1.3 million copies have been sold across 18 countries." (Wikipedia)
For summaries of six of the books, visit loveReading4Kids. A compilation of four of the Tales can be found in the book, A Foxwood Treasury.
I discovered the Foxwood Tales through the illustrations. I haven't read the books, but I wanted to share the superb illustrations.
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Kwanzaa- A Holiday Celebration
"The year 2014 will see the 48th annual Kwanzaa, the African American holiday celebrated from December 26 to January 1. It is estimated that some 18 million African Americans take part in Kwanzaa.
Kwanzaa is not a religious holiday, nor is it meant to replace Christmas. It was created by Dr. Maulana "Ron" Karenga, a professor of Black Studies, in 1966. At this time of great social change for African Americans, Karenga sought to design a celebration that would honor the values of ancient African cultures and inspire African Americans who were working for progress.
Kwanzaa is based on the year-end harvest festivals that have taken place throughout Africa for thousands of years."...Kwanzaa ends with a feast and gift giving... Holidays are forever
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“One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore. "Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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The Spirit of Christmas Embodied in a Therapy Dog
This is about Susan and Rose. That's Rose in the photos. It is also about the thousands of therapy dogs bringing unconditional love to young and old. Susan Purser is a retired teacher and has been working for several years with Rose in schools , hospitals, nursing homes and hospices. These are Susan's comments about working with Rose.
“No matter who you are or why you do pet therapy, it is the dog that opens the door…doors that would otherwise be closed to a well meaning human...
“I consider myself a facilitator…if my dog could drive, she would not need me. Rose seems to enjoy seeing people multiple times and developing a relationship with the people… She is a working dog by nature and she just loves these jobs. I am constantly amazed at the doors that Rose opens…she goes to places I could never get without her…reaches beyond my reach, touches a person deeper than my touch. The restless or agitated patient who is calmed by Rose’s touch...the child in the classroom who won’t settle down and get to work but when Rose sits by them, they quiet right down and the hyperactivity seems to dissipate. The child getting excited about reading to Rose every week; they wouldn’t do that for me, but they do it for Rose...
It is their touch or look that gives people that inner peace when their world is shrinking or spinning so fast they have lost control. When doors begin the final closing, there is that one last smile, nod, a hand that reaches for a dog that allows some of them to say good bye and close their eyes in peace.”
The photos of Rose are courtesy of Susan Purser.
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The Gift of Reading from LitWorld
Here is a joyous video from Litworld, celebrating the joy of reading, the joy of being somebody, the joy of hope. LitWorld gives the gift of reading to disadvantaged and at-risk children around the world...and they do this not only during the Christmas season, but throughout the year!
LitWorld supports hopes, possibilities and lives in fourteen countries around the world! This link will take you to an interactive map of where Litworld works, from Columbia to India and from Kosovo to California. Interactive Map.
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Interview With Santa
This interview was conducted as part of a program to determine the truth behind the incredible story of The Snow Valley Heroes....
Interviewer: Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions and clarifying things.
Santa: I’m happy that the story is finally coming out.
Interviewer: Is it a true story?
Santa: Absolutely.
Interviewer: Why haven’t we known about it before?
Santa: I think it was lost in the mists of time…It took place hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
Interviewer: Is it true that there was to be no more Christmas?
Santa: I’m sorry to say that it’s true. Until the dogs arrived.
Interviewer: The dogs?
Santa: It was a surprise to all of us in Santa Claus village. None of us, and that includes all the elves,had even heard of dogs.
Interviewer: Is that because you were so far North and rather isolated?
Santa: Well, that and the fact that dogs has just started arriving on planet earth. Prior to that time, there had been no dogs on Earth.
Interviewer: Really! Where did they come from? And how did they find you?
Santa: They had started coming down from their own planet – the Planet of the Dogs. They came down to help people. Somehow, they had heard we were in trouble, and one day, there they were, just like that...
To read all of the Interview With Santa, click this link: Interview with Santa
The illustrations from Snow Valley Heroes, A Christmas Tale, are by Stella Mustanoja McCarty
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Free copies of Snow Valley Heroes, a Christmas Tale; Planet Of The Dogs; and Castle In The Mist are available for therapy dog owners and organizations, as well as librarians and teachers with therapy reading dog programs. Simply email us at [email protected] with your postal address.
All of the Planet Of The Dogs series of books are available through your favorite independent bookstore and online through Barnes&Noble, Amazon, and many other sources.
Here is a link to sample chapters of Snow Valley Heroes
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We're on Holiday...The Beagle Freedom Project found us a new home after life in a cage as a test animal....wow!
"The Beagle Freedom Project is a mission to rescue beagles used in animal experimentation in research laboratories and give them a chance at life in a loving forever home."
This wonderful organization has several excellent, touching, videos and clear, basic information: The Beagle Freedom project
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"Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"
―Dr Seuss, How The Grinch Stole Christmas
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Finding Fido for Doglovers
"Finding Fido is a book that we believe each and every PetParent should not only read, but own. Finding Fido is a PetParent’s guide to: preventing the loss of their pets in the first place & also serves as a guide to PetParents for essential steps to recovering their pets if they ever are lost. If you’re a first time Pet Parent or a long time, seasoned Pet Parent, there are tips and tricks in here that will be helpful to you!...
As great as this book truly is, we’ve got one detail to share that completely sweetens the pot…the cherry on top if you will. All proceeds from the sale of Finding Fido are donated toward the Beagle Freedom Project " Kaitlin Jenkins- PetParent The cover design and content are by author and dog advocate C.A. Wulff
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Holiday Season at the Movies
Fun stories.fantasy and imaginative annimation characterize the holiday movies for children...while dystopia, conflict and bloodshed continue to pour out of YA films.
My hope is that children will see the films intended for them, and stay away from the violence of current YA movies, designed, as Christopher Tolkien says below, as action movies for young people 15 to 25.
Chriestopher Tolkien
JRR Tolkien's son, Christopher, believes that the quest for commercial success by Peter Jackson and the movie industry has destoyed the essence of what his father wrote about the world of Middle Earth in the Hobbit books. Here are excerpts from a post regarding Christopher Tolkien's deep disappointment that appeared on Worldcrunch. The quotes by Tolkien are from an interview he gave to le Monde.
"Invited to meet Peter Jackson, the Tolkien family preferred not to. Why? 'They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25,' Christopher says regretfully. 'And it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film.'..
This divorce has been systematically driven by the logic of Hollywood. 'Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time,' Christopher Tolkien observes sadly. 'The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing' "....
Read the full article on Worldcrunch: My Father's "Eviscerated" Work - Son Of Hobbit Scribe J.R.R. Tolkien Finally Speaks Out
The illustration,"Bilbo comes to the Huts of the Raftelves, is by JRR Tolkien.
The Hobbit, Battle of the Five Armies, opens Dec 17. Here is a link to the trailer: Five Armies:
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The Hunger Games: Mockingjay1
The story of the Hunger Games continues through the Holiday Season and beyond, with Mockingjay 1. It opened in late November and is off to becoming another huge financial success. Audiences seem to like the film despite the fact that many critics were dissapointed.
Here is an excerpt from the review in the Atlantic by Christopher Orr entitled, Hunger Games: Mockingjay1, Darker, More Relentles than Ever.
"Is the film a bit baggy in places? Sure. Might it have been better if they’d squeezed the whole book into one movie? Probably. Nonetheless, Mockingjay Part 1 is a fine entertainment, shot through with moments of surprising emotional impact."
Here is a link to the Mockingjay1 trailer.
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The Dystopian Formula
The dystopian story appears to be a theme for success in today's YA film market. In reviewing The Maze Runner, Jack Cole wrote that The Maze Runner doesn't separate itself from its YA dystopian bretheren. Here is the headline and an excerpt from Cole's insightful review:In 'The Maze Runner,' the maze itself is a letdown and the film presents boring explanations to the plot's mysteries. By Jake Coyle, Associated Press.
Has a cottage industry ever sprung up as fast as the YA land rush brought on by "Twilight" and "The Hunger Games"? I'd like to use a mortal instrument to put an ender to this game. Please, giver me a break.
But to be fair, there isn't anything inherently wrong with "The Maze Runner," directed by special effects-veteran Wes Ball. It's just that it does so little to find its own path separate from its dystopia brethren. All of the recent young-adult formulas are adhered to here: the teenage rebellion against tradition, the coming-of-age metaphors, the heavy sequel-baiting.
Here is a link to the trailer for The Maze Runner. The film has grossed over one hundred million dollars and continues to play. It was not expensive to produce. There will be a sequel.
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Movie Violence and Children...
I believe that films with relentless violence, surround sound, fearful images and often in 3-D, will disturb children. How many children, twelve and under, are seeing the current crop of violent dyustopian films?
I presume the producers of these films, and to a lesser extent, the writers of the book series on which they are based, see violence as an important aspect of marketing and audience appeal.
Perhaps, many young adult viewers, after watching the Hunger Games, are more appreciative of the world they live in and of the fact that they are not one of the 25 million refugee children across the world.
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The Giver
After reading Jerry Griswold's enthusiastic comments about The Giver in the Unjournal of Children's Literature, I decided to research the movie and write about it. The film was based on a controversial, but well received book by Lois Lowry.The book was published in 1993 and the movie was released in July, 2014. The Giver had a different take on dystopia and the use of violence.
I have now decided to see the movie before writing further about The Giver. To be continued...
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Into The Woods
Into the Woods, which seems to be a Disney family film for children, YA, and parents, is now opening on Christmas Day, 2014. The film's slogan, "Be careful what you wish for", relates to the witch, a central character, played by Meryl Streep. Music by Stephen Sondheim, adds to the story, as it did in the original long running Broadway production.
In the story, the witch uses her magical powers to teach lessons in living to Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Rapunzel and Jack and the Beanstalk. The original production was a big hit with audiences.
Here is a link to the trailer for Into the Woods.
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Annie
Opens Dec 18... Annie, a family movie, is based on the hit Broadway musical. The cast includes Jamie Fox, Quvenzhane Wallis and Cameron Diaz...Here is a summary from IMDB where you will also find more information, photos and trailers.
Annie looks joyous and entertaining in the trailer preview.
"Annie is a young, happy foster kid who's also tough enough to make her way on the streets of New York in 2014. Originally left by her parents as a baby with the promise that they'd be back for her someday, it's been a hard knock life ever since with her mean foster mom Miss Hannigan. But everything's about to change..."
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Holiday Children's Movies Galore
Here are three more kid's films that look good in their trailers and have been generally well received by reviewers. I have previously posted good notices for the following recently opened movies: Box Trolls, Book of Life, and Hero of Color City --
Big Hero 6
Critics Consensus from Rotten Tomatoes : "Agreeably entertaining and brilliantly animated, Big Hero 6 is briskly-paced, action-packed, and often touching." In 3D. Now Playing. Box office: 200 million thus far. Here is the trailer for Big Hero 6 ...Looks like fun.
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Paddington
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Christmas Lights Moving Through the Hills
A Holiday treat, and a wonder to behold, the moving lights are on hundreds of sheep, running in the darkness, guided by sheepdogs...this is a classic video...Moving Lights
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From Rescue to Reading...A Holiday Salute
We Salute the Planet Dog Foundation for their years of support for "the exemplary work of non-profit organizations training and placing dogs working to help people in need all over the country."
Through the years, they have given over one million dollars; in 2014, alone, they have given over one hundred thousand dollars.
For more information, here is a link to the Planet Dog website
The photo is from Brigadoon Youth and Service Dog Programs in Bellingham,WA
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Circling The Waggins at Christmas
Here is an an excerpt from the doglover's book, Circling the Waggins, by CA Wulff. The dogs seen in the ebook cover (below) are the current residents of the cabin in the woods wherein this saga of a life with rescued dogs takes place.
"I feel like we are haunted by the ghost dog of Christmas past. The season brings a million reminders of our Troll, a dog who had loved Christmas more than any other time of year. He would get excited at the first signs of holiday decorations, and his eyes would shine with a child’s wonder. On Christmas morning, he would race to be the first dog under the tree, to tear at the packages full of biscuits and rawhides. Each of the dogs would tear at a package, but Troll unwrapped with such gusto and fervor, that they would all abandon their presents to stand back and watch him, and then make off with whatever treats he had revealed."
CA Wullf also created the cover for her book.
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Way Cool Dogs On Finding a Puppy That's Good for Kids
Choosing the right puppy is a critical decision...here is an excerpt from a helpful article on Way Cool Dogs.
"How do you choose a puppy that is good for your children? It is a question every parent should ask before deciding to adopt one of the small puppy breeds for their child. Toy puppies can make great companions for kids if they are chosen properly, and the child is trained to handle small puppies properly. And to be fair, a child is the only one who can keep up with the boost of energy that puppies seem to be born with!
The good news is that you have a variety of small puppy breeds to choose from: mini Yorkies, Maltese, Havanese, Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and many others. Smaller dogs seem to be less intimidating around children. If the puppies are small, it doesn’t mean that they can’t be aggressive with children. You just need to be careful when choosing a perfect small puppy for your home...
The illustration, from Planet Of The Dogs, is by Stella Mustanoja McCarty
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Sunbear Squad guides good hearted people like those who sent Sunbear this post....
Are you ready for a sweet Christmas story about a little lost doggy? We were walking our two dogs a few days ago and saw a little scared pup that looked like a Shitzu/Llasa Apso mix. He was limping, his hair was shaved, he had no collar. We scooped the little guy up and brought him home with us. We drove to Petco and Petsmart to ask if they recognized him. No one did. So we had him scanned to see if he was microchipped. He wasn't. So we listed the little fella on Craigslist and a lost and found pup website also. No luck. We called around to a few vet clinics in our area ... to no avail. So we took care of this little lost boy in our home for a few days.
We named the little guy Buddy. He was so sweet. He stayed with us and my two little dogs who played and slept and ate along with him. He seemed to limp a little less as the days went by. We wondered how his life was before he met us. We wondered if he was limping because he may have been a caged dog used for breeding because he was not neutered. We wondered if he came from a loving home or an abusive home. We were getting worried after our fourth day of loving on the little guy...
Here is the link to read the complete post on Sunbear Christmas Rescue.
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"Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart." -Washington Irving
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 12/3/2014
The animated short "Frozen Fever" will open in theaters on March 13, 2015, in front of Disney’s live-action Cinderella.
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By: Chris Barton,
on 12/2/2014
…I think this Barnes & Noble has the right idea:
Attack! Boss! Cheat Code! + LEGO + Minecraft? Sure — I’m OK with that.
Oh, and + Frozen? That looks pretty good, too.
By: Jerry Beck,
on 11/20/2014
We often hold up box office numbers as proof of a movie's success or failure, but even for "Frozen," which is the highest-grossing animated movie of all time, its box office gross is a fraction of the merchandising revenue it has generated for the Walt Disney Company.
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As excited as I am for the new “Frozen” short next month (hey, I have a six year old daughter!), couldn’t Disney have spared an extra light or two for that video? I mean, just put an iPad underneath Jennifer Lee’s face or something. That might have been enough light so we could see her talk…. backlighting is great and dramatic, but you still need a ratio of light from the front so we can see the people talking!
End of rant. Thanks.
They’re doing Walking Dead #1 variants still? Wow.