Fantasy – Page 9 – katyandtheword

The Thing about Fairy Tales Is: Once Upon a Time, Happily Ever Afters and Meta

Ingredients of A Fairy Tale=

1 Upon a Time

4 or 5 Stereotypes

3 or 4 Stock Characters

1 simple plot

Good versus Evil

True Love Manifested (depressingly or not)

and possibly ending with Happily Ever After

Told and Retold, Reshaped and Reworked: I LOVE reading all of the versions of fairy tales!

But the thing about fairy tales is that that they are a collection of data on the human race. The more versions you read, the more insight you build about the human race, and the more you allow the stories to interact, the more you start to understand who we are, and how we work!

That’s what is amazing about fairy tales–the more they are stock the more true they are, the more versions exist, the more the human condition is explained…That is what is SO META about fairy tales!!!

Brokenness in t…

Brokenness in the Real World “When we fall, as we always do, we pick ourselves up and start again. And when our trust is betrayed the only response that is not destructive is to trust again. Not stupidly, you understand, but fully aware of the facts”

Madeline L’engle a quote of Grandpa Austin’s p. 144 of “The Young Unicorns”

Review: The Shakespeare Stealer series by Gary Blackwood

Found this at Good will for $3.00!!! Yay for cheap books, that is a dollar a book.

This story is really good for people who

a. like historical fiction

b. like theater

c. like medieval England

d. (and of course) love Shakespeare

Basically this book was good! It was pretty historically accurate, illuminating into how it felt to be an apprentice, an actor, a girl, an orphan or a playwright!

Here we follow the exploits of Widge, an apprentice who is able to write not only in English and Greek, but also in a shorthand of squiggles. Being able to read and write in such a time, he is sent to steal Shakespeare and accidentally joins the theater troupe instead–he then proceeds to stay with the troupe for three books!

I loved this book, I am a big medieval and Shakespeare lover, and to me this book was extraordinarily written, engaging for all ages (and educational but SHHH!!! don’t tell)

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Definitely recommend it!!!

Review: The Spy Princess by Sherwood Smith

The Spy Princess

I found this in the Elementary Readers section of the library, which is interesting, but I think a good fit. Crown Duel is often found in YA section and the main character didn’t really interest me. For those who don’t know the Crown Duel and Wren series are both in the same world as this book, but each stand so independent I don’t think it really matters–except that the Wren series is really good and the Crown Duel series is ok.

Lilah, though is back to Smith’s spunky women. A princess who wants to know what is going on in the kingdom disguises herself and through it gets to know her father, her uncle, her brother and herself much better.

I think Smith writes better characters when they aren’t concerned with love–both Wren and Lilah declare they are “too young to worry about love.” This has stuck with me: intrigue is definitely a strength of Smith’s writing, and I especially like how she handles the topics of revolution and war.

All in all not quite as good as Wren, but definitely better than Crown Duel for me.

Life, Fairy Tales, God, Children: How Katy Works

Why do I go to church?

You know, most people my age don’t go to church

Most of them don’t even believe in religion

They may believe in God, but if they do it tends not to be the “standard” version of God

These people are usually identified as “nones‘ (which is kind of a detrimental name, even though I know it isn’t meant that way…maybe we should be calling them/us something else) Something like 75% of people my age don’t affiliate in their religion

(for more about why I include myself, a pastor, in this at times, please read my post “I don’t Know What I believe”)

But I believe in God….Life is just too short to be meaningless…

Meaningless is just too hopeless to be believed

And people are just to wonderful to give up on….

And because of these truths, I believe in God….I know that not everyone believes what I believe, and I don’t mind (usually). As long as you aren’t preaching hate as gospel, I’m pretty ok with most beliefs…after all I’m not the one who is going to judge whether the fig tree is bearing fruit. That is up to the boss.

What I do worry about, is my generation in terms of willingness to try to religion. Have we given up? Do we truly think it has nothing to offer? Does the bad really outweigh the good? Do we think that we can only find our own spirituality outside of church? (What does that have to say about church, but what does that also have to say about us).

I recently learned that millenials are those of us born between 1980 and 2000. Here is what we have in common.

We grew up in a boom, but came into maturity in a economic downturn/depression

We are the children of baby boomers

We tend to be called hipsters

We don’t have a lot of life opportunities: jobs, marriages, having children–>we have to put these things off

We were all born in a pre 9/11 reality

We grew up with Harry Potter

We like individuality–but tend not to rebel, but instead go off our own way

We are thought of as ungrateful and lazy

We don’t have a strong religiousity

Yet here I am: mother, fairy tale enthusiast and pastor. Here I am, trying to figure out if I have a strong enough call to conduct a ministry via sci-fi and fantasy that I need to invent something to do this.

In a lot of ways I am “old-fashioned” for my age. I am young, married, have three children and an “old-fashioned” kind of job that carries with it healthcare and a pension (at least for now). And yet, I feel the pain of those around me. I too am physically weighed dow

n by student debt that I’m terrified I’ll never get rid of, I too understand that completeness and fulfillment will not fully come from my employment (hmm…that should be on the list above).

So I guess I’ll keep at it, hang onto the understanding th

at my concept of religion and my relationship with God is helpful to some of the people in my life, and that people will or won’t join churches on their own, and its not my responsibility.

Still–and take this for what its worth–I like church and I believe in God…

Katy likes it! Hopefully if/when you are interested you can find a place that fits you too!

Project Fairy Tale: Snow White and Rose Red

One of my favorite authors/books

Fairy Tale Addendum

Books with Good Movie Adaptations

The Princess Bride by William Goldman: Comic Fairy Tale (same tone as the movie, with more plot) same writer as the movie. (actually thought S. Morgenstern wrote this growing up)

Stardust by Neil Gaiman: A star fell to earth, a man vows to retrieve her to win his bride. Stars, Lovers, Quests. Read it in story or comic form (another good movie adaptation)–oh and it has been filed as a kids, young adult, fantasy and adult book, hows that for the power of a fairy tale!!

The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien: Way more a fairy tale than Lord of the Rings, yay quests!

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle: The Last unicorn goes on an adventure to try to find her kind and save the world

Children’s Fairy Stories (which are even better when you are an adult)

The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame and Earnest H. Shepard (Illustrator): Dragons and Knights don’t quite fight, and its awesome (and the cartoon is fun if you skip the live action stuff)

The Ordinary Princess by M. M. Kaye Princess Amy is gifted with ordinariness–and finds her own way to special happiness

(totally think Enchanted Forest series is a brilliant combo of The Reluctant Dragon & Ordinary Princess)

The Little White Horse: by Elizabeth Goudge and Walter Hodges (Illustrator) Maria Merryweather comes as a orphan and finds the Moon Princess, and a way to help the entire Valley (an inspirational story for most fantasy writers today)

The Light Princess & Other Fairy Stories and The Golden Key and Other Stories by George MacDonald: a favorite of C. S. Lewis. Longer than Grimm’s fairy tales the characters are SO engaging and very traditional fairy tales!

The thing about committees is…

I know a lot of pastors who are trying to redo their committees, but the truth is I just don’t have any at my church.

Well I have two the deacons (our hospitality and care ministry) and facilities (the same four guys who have been taking care of the church for decades)……and that is about all we can support.

So when I want to have an Easter Program, do Christian Ed, Run a Farmer’s Market (which we did last summer and will again this summer), or do a play of Charlie Brown Christmas, run a breakfast/dinner, etc. The buck stops with me not a committee.

The session (my governing board) is 6 people, usually I have about 5 devoted people and 1 person who is too busy with “life” to be able to put a lot of time in. The session makes lots of decisions, but they also end up leading (almost) everything that isn’t already designated to the other two committees.

We only have 30-40 adults participating in church so about 6 who are too elderly (too being a relative term our facilities committee as a 70-something year old on it) and unable to do things. 6 people on session, 4 on facilities, 6 on deacons, plus 5 or 6 people who attend but aren’t really members (for whatever reason, probably so they don’t have to be on session, although technically these people could do committee work, but you don’t want to overwork the newcomer right)

((Too often we focus more on the structure of the church than the welcome for our new membership……))

Somehow the buck always stops with me. The session makes a decision, and often it reads as “we will support you as you do that” instead of “how can we build a team to do that”

I am not casting blame here. The church is only 30-40 people, some of whom are too infirm to take up the mantel of leadership, some of whom lead in spite of their age, some of whom attend but aren’t members, and the rest serve, and serve and serve…

So the question is, is there a way to do this without committees? How do we do all the “work” of the church that needs to get done? How do we streamline? How do we garner support? How do we get the community on board?

Committees are out, I’m ready for a new way to plan!

Various Book Reviews or My Hero(ine)

Note the riveting chart of young adult heroines below–what do they have in common (getting over the fact that Hermione was NEVER part of a love triangle)–they are all young fighting women white (sad-day), virgins (probably) with low self-esteem (except Julie from Warm Bodies) and are shy/quiet. Most of them have brown hair, protectors (male of course).

First I need to note the GROSS (and probably sexist) oversight, that Intelligence or smartness was not a factor–whereas I bet if it was about males it would have been!!!!!

That’s it next novel I write (i.e. if I ever get around to writing) it should have a nonwhite (although I am white, maybe I could do a Korean-American girl…I have some cultural experience there), assertive (not quite, even if she likes books…I’m bookish and I am SO not quite), with no Protector (LIKE CIMORENE), who is SMART, has good Self-Esteem, No love Triangle (ugh), don’t know about the virginity thing–I think young heroines tend to be virgins on principle (unless abuse is involved), with black hair (which the Korean thing would totally take care of). Hmmm….Who’s up for cooler Heroines…I think my favorites of the list below are Katniss and Hermione, I have even cooler ones following the chart. YAHeroineInfographic-650dpiWidth4

original article here

Cool Heroines not included here are Robin McKinley’s heroines (yes all of the them-I’m not going to list them), All of Tamora Pierce and Kristen Cashore (DITTO) Patricia C. Wrede’s Cimorene, Dave Duncan’s Inos, Harry Potter Hermione (who is not a title character, but deserves a better rep then what we have here), Scott Westerfield’s Tally Youngblood, Madeline L”Engle (who was so ahead of the time her feminist characters sound forward thinking even today 30years later), Anne of Green Gables, etc. for more see my fairy tale lists–my classic and my alternative (not well-known) list.

The 10 Most Badass Cartoon Heroines of the â80s

Review “A Wrinkle in Time: the Graphic Novel” Adapted & Illustrated by Hope Larson (and written by Madeline L’Engle)

I am a total fangirl of Madeline L’Engle, she is most likely my favorite self-named Christian Fantasy author (as opposed to Lewis or Tolkien or the like)…so A Wrinkle in Time I bought with my oft hoarded holiday gift cards.

so when my 4 and a 1/2 year old son saw The Invention of Hugo Cabret on the floor and was fascinated by the fact that grownup books can have pictures. Immediately I t

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old him some adult books are entirely pictures, they are called graphic novels, and I showed him A Wrinkle in Time. He then asked if we could read it.

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I’m a “Why not?” parent, and said “well we can try…” uncertain of its quality, his interest and our schedule (reading a chapter a night is a big commitment)

Bulletpoints of A Wrinkle in Time

1. The pictures were totally used to “fill in” the story. I have an ongoing theory that all remakes of classics (Oz, Narnia, Lord of the Rings) tend to be better if they were done by children who grew up with the tale, because reading things as adults–we just don’t connect the same way, and we tend to put our own values and systems on instead of exploring the world that is presented (Harry Potter comes to mind, the first movie the director said re: Dumbledore’s Office “what was fun was we could do whatever we wanted, and create it from scratch…um…excuse me isn’t there a perfectly perfect BOOK to refer to argh, a guess that’s another post for another day.) Hope Larson definitely got the world, genre, passion and feel for L’engle’s tale

2. This is what I always pictured a “graphic novel” to be, its a real novel, told in graphics (comic books are great, but they always sound shorter to me). At 383 pages and multiple panels a page (1-10panels) the story is given the breadth, width and depth to be a deep telling of the truth that is in the books

3. She gets stars: Stars are a L’Engle thing, Larson, totally uses it, bonus points galore.

4. My four and a half year old was entranced, wondering when they would finally get to rescue first Meg’s father and then Charles Wallace…He was very disciplined about the one chapter thing, telling me it was “so exciting” to wait til the next day (like me he’s a sick person who enjoys delayed gratification–this makes us really great readers, we will willingly believe whatever you tell us because we like not knowing the real answer)

5. When we finished the book, Franklin (my son) wanted to know if we could pa-lease-read-it-starting-at-the-beginning-tomorrow-night-RIGHT? (needless to say we went a reserved the graphic novel of The Hobbit at the library ASAP)

Katy’s Review 4 out of 4 stars

Franklin’s Review 60 out of 4 stars

PS: The story of love’s triumph over nothingness is amazing, and I can only pray that Hope Larson has been engaged for A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and not someone else–because, hey, I trust her….She was able to show me Aunt Beast, Mrs. Which, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Whatsit without messing with their alien/mysterious natures!!!

Other pictorial interpretations of Wrinkle in time