Things: a list

[ladyofastolat]

A Thing that has outraged me: Othello retold for young beginner readers, in a series aimed at children aged 6 to 8 or thereabouts. Othello? WHY? Cue my long and oft-repeated rant that delayed my book selection by a considerable time.

A Thing that has interested me: As soon as the 2 minute silence finished, and the sound of the maroon had faded away, I scurried to the dictionary to find the link between the colour and the distress signal. Apparently they come from the same word: the French for "chestnut." The colour is chestnut-coloured, while the firework pops like a chestnut roasting on an open fire. The verb "to maroon" comes from a different root, though: the Spanish for "wild." So now you know.

A Thing that has bemused me: I stumbled upon an old episode of Buffy on the SyFy channel mid-afternoon on Saturday. "The following programme contained paranormal practices," it said (or words to that effect), "and is intended for entertainment purposes only." I've never heard such a warning before, even in the days when Buffy was shown on BBC2 at tea-time, and then cut so badly that some episodes were incomprehensible. But what other purposes would anyone put Buffy to? A how-to manual?

Another Thing that has interested me: I'm reading a book on the history of the Tower of London menagerie at the moment, and it's full of interesting snippets. In the 12th century, Londoners were commanded to pay for a chain and muzzle so the King's polar bear could fish for its own dinner in the Thames. In the 15th century, the menagerie was opened to select public, who either had to pay an admission fee, or bring along a cat or a dog which could be fed to the lions. I wonder what delights later centuries will bring?

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Thing 1: Allan Sherman's 1964 comic song "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" was printed as a children's book, with illustrations, and one couplet was left out: "And the head coach wants no sissies / So he reads to us from something called Ulysses."

Thing 3: Denunciations of, e.g. Harry Potter for teaching dangerous paranormal practices are common. Actually, all that Harry Potter will teach you if you try that is dog-Latin.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I've heard that Harry Potter is sometimes denounced in some countries, but have never come across it over here. Even the church schools I go into are entirely happy to have it in their libraries. I've never heard such a disclaimer before Buffy or similar shows before (the BBC used to cut Buffy heavily when showing it at tea-time, but for violence, not paranormal activity.) Maybe it was because this was at 2pm on a Saturday, when it could be expected that a lot of children were watching?

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

Diane Duane is currently having a half-price ebook sale to celebrate the fact that (at least one of) her "Young Wizards" series is currently banned by one of the Texas school boards. Not because it contains magic, mind; they're complaining about the "violence and horror"....

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Wasn't Diane Duane also one of the first YA fantasy authors to treat homosexuality in a casual, matter-of-fact manner? They could get her for that, too.

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

Yes, her "Tale of the Five" series features characters with a wide range of sexualities, living in a society that accepts and supports them all. There's a delightful scene in the third[1] featuring the polygamous wedding of (IIRC) seven people, which is delightful partly just because the only reason it's considered worthy of note is that some of those people are famous.

[1]and last published, so far; I wish she'd get on with the next - allegedly final - one :)

Of course, the main protagonist of the "Young Wizards" series is one Juanita Callahan (with the ethnicity that implies), which was/is itself shocking to certain (primarily USAian) audiences....

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

They could at least have provided a pointer to more reliable sources for occult ritual if they were going to put in that warning.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Othello for beginners ??? WHY? NO! STOP!

I share your outrage.

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm loving the bizarreness of Othello for early readers. I trust they had Hamlet too? I may have to order them. - N

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

They did indeed have Hamlet. :-) When I looked it up, I saw that several other publishers also do Hamlet in their "short chapter books" series aimed at children aged around 6 or 7. Although nothing is quite as bizarre as Wuthering Heights for babies and toddlers (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Little-Miss-Bronte-Wuthering-Heights/dp/1423631730), and all the others in that series.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

If you haven't seen the series of books for, I think, all of Shakespeare's plays, at least the well-known ones, that have the text on one page and a "translation" into modern, casual English on the facing page, avoid the mere sight of them.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

That Caesar book is in the same series as the Othello one I saw. Although I guess that the appeal of Horrible Histories shows that children - some children, anyway - love history when it's full of gore and violence and crucified pirates.

And now I'm happily wallowing in nostalgia for the Ladybird Books of yore. I definitely had one about Julius Caesar and Roman Britain, full of clean-cut young Romans with clean, shiny knees.

; '

[pigshitpoet.livejournal.com]

90 more days to valentine..