White Rabbit in MacGregor's Deli

Watch out, White Rabbit!

White Rabbits have their enemies.

Take heed from Peter Rabbit who gobbled a carrot quiche in a delicatessen, and was startled by the owner, Mr MacGregor.

Who didn’t like rabbits.

In fact, Peter Rabbit’s father had an accident in that very deli and ended up in one of Mrs MacGregor’s quiches.

Saying “White Rabbit White Rabbit White Rabbit” first day of every month will help prevent misfortunes.

Take it on faith.

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Jack and the Beanstalk Retold

Fee, Fie, Foe, Fum...

A plant inspires a tale retold...

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Jack: Unbelievable. It appeared overnight. Gotta be a story in this.

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Kris: The beanstalk? Jack arrived at work by bicycle one hot summer morning.

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Jack: A huge plant had appeared overnight. Grew out of the stormwater grate.

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Kris: Jack looked up into the leaves and saw a shining mango. He hadn’t brought any lunch so he thought, “That’ll be my lunch.”

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Jack: Up he climbed, up and up.

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Kris: But he didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Suddenly, he realised something. The beanstalk was growing as fast as he was climbing.

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Jack: And carrying him up with it. The ground was now far away.

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Kris: And the shining mango was just as far off.

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Voice-over

Choose an ending to complete the story as a sort of “Choose your own Adventure”. Remember those?

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(a) Jack woke up from the dream.

(b) The shining mango fell, Jack caught it and climbed safely down.

(c) A giant appeared and ate Jack for his lunch.

(d) It was a genetically modified beanstalk which grew mangos.

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Kaguya Hime's Telescope

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Moon–watching…

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Okusan: What’s she doing?

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Taketori no Okina: Looking at the moon again. Always through that bamboo tube.

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Okusan: What does she see up there?

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Taketori no Okina: Probably more than we can see or understand.

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Voice-over

A fragment of fractured fairy tale? Well, the Taketori Monogatari (aka the tale of Kaguya Hime) has several elements of science fiction. A tiny baby and gold nuggets found in bamboo stems. Kaguya Hime’s people come down from the moon to take her back there. Perhaps Kaguya Hime picked up a bit of astronomy while she was on Earth. Maybe the bamboo tube had lenses and was the first telescope.

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Fractured Fairy Tale: Wiesner’s Three Pigs

After story time…

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Escape from the wolf...

Adult: Did you like that story of the Three Pigs?

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Child: It was different. Not like the old story.

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Adult: No, the original story was just about the wolf and the pigs. This one jumped to other stories and mixed things up.

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Child: Pigs jumping out of the story. And mixing up dragons and cats.

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Voice-over

David Wiesner’s post-modern telling of The Three Little Pigs is a fractured fairy tale. Reviewers mostly liked it. Telling an old story in a different way, putting a twist in the tale, a fractured fairy tale takes a traditional fairy tale and changes the setting, characters, plot or point of view.

Most fractured fairy tales are from Europe. How about retelling a Japanese traditional tale such as Urashima Taro, or Kaguya Hime as a post-modern fractured fairy tale?

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