Heather Kinser
  • About Me
  • Books
  • School Visits
  • Blog
  • Contact

First Lines from Hans Christian Andersen

8/27/2015

0 Comments

 
    I love playing with the fairy tale form. (I have a thing for reworking Cinderella.) So this week, I'm studying the master, Hans Christian Andersen. Thanks to my local library system, I have in hand the Reader’s Digest “Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen”, with translations by Neil Philip. These are charming translations, and what a writers "voice" Mr. Andersen has! I'm dazzled by his opening lines and have typed out quite a few so I can go on admiring them after I return the library book. I'll bold my very favorite parts! These will be places where an intimate voice is established, or empathy is created, or an intriguing character is established, or setting is painted, or we glimpse a theme relating to human existence. Reading these as an adult, you see that Andersen's heart is truly on his sleeve. These are poignant and moving stories. It's no wonder they have endured.
_
Thumbelina
    Once there was a woman who longed for a little child of her own, but she didn’t know how to get one. So she went to an old witch and asked her, “Can you tell me where I can find a little child? I would so love one.”
    “That’s easy,” said the witch. “Take this barleycorn—but mind, it’s not the sort that grows in the fields, or that you feed to the chickens. Put it in a flower pot, and you shall see what you shall see.”

The Swineherd
    There was once a prince who didn’t have any money. But he had a kingdom, and though it was only small, it was enough for two. So he decided to get married.
    Still it was daring of him to say to the emperor’s daughter, bold as brass. “Will you have me?” But he did, for his name was famous far and wide, and there were hundreds of princesses who would have answered, “Yes, thank you.”
    Listen, and you shall hear what this one said.

The Wild Swans
    Far away, where the swallows fly in winter, lived a king who had eleven sons, and one daugter, Elise. The eleven brothers went to school with stars on their breasts and swords at their sides. They wrote on golden slates with diamond pencils, and learned all their lessons off by heart; you could tell they were princes. Their sister Elise used to sit on a shining glass stool, reading a picture book that cost half a kingdom. The children had all they could want; but it didn’t last.
    Their father the king married a wicked queen, who disliked the poor children—they found that out on the very first day. There was a big party at the palace, and the children played their old game of pretending to be visitors. But the queen did not give them any cakes or baked apples, as usual. She just handed them a teacup full of sand, and told them to feed their imaginations on that.

The Nightingale
    You know that in China the emperor is Chinese, and all the people around him are Chinese too. This story happened there a long time ago, which is all the more reason I should tell it to you now, before it is forgotten.
    The emperor’s palace was the finest in the world, made entirely of the most delicate porcelain, so precious and so fragile that you had to be very careful about touching anything. The garden was full of rare flowers, and the loveliest had little silver bells tied to them that tinkled to attract the attention of passers-by.
    Yes, everything in the emperor’s garden was very well thought out, and it stretched so far that even the gardener had no idea where it ended.

The Teapot
    There was once a proud teapot—proud of her porcelain, proud of her long spout, proud of her wide handle. She had something to boast about at the front and the back. She never talked about her lid, because the lid had been broken and glued back together. We don’t like to talk about our shortcomings—other people will do that for us. The rest of the tea set—the cups, the cream jug, the sugar basin—preferred to gossip about the broken lid rather than praise the fine handle and the excellent spout. The teapot was well aware of that.

The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep
    Have you ever seen a really old carved-wood cupboard, quite black with age? There was once one just like that in a sitting room; it had been in the family for generations. It was carved from top to bottom with roses and tulips, and little stags’ heads with branching antlers peeping out from the twining leaves. And on the central panel was carved a funny man. He had a long beard and little horns on his forehead, and the legs of a billygoat, and he had a grin on his face—you couldn’t call it a smile. The children of the house called him ‘Brigadier-General Private Sergeant-Major Goatlegs’, because it was hard to say, and there aren’t many—living or carved—who can boast a title like that.
    Anyhow, there he was…

She Was No Good
    The Mayor stood by the open window. He was in his shirt-sleeves and feeling very pleased with himself, even though he had cut himself shaving. He had stuck a bit of newspaper on the cut to stop it bleeding.

0 Comments

Researching Mac Barnett & Co.

8/19/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
    Mac Barnett and Christian Robinson are coming to my local children's bookstore at the end of the month. Woot! Woot! I'm so THERE!
    I've been digging in, looking to learn a bit more about them before I show up at the event. So far, my research has taken me off on a Jon Klassen tangent (Jon and Mac have teamed up on a number of picture books). Here are some inspiring words from both Jon Klassen and Mac Barnett that I transcribed from YouTube videos.

Inspiring words from Jon Klassen
(accepting a 2012 Boston Globe Horn Book award for Extra Yarn)

"By nature [picture books are] suggestive. The author isn’t telling the whole story, and the illustrator isn’t telling the whole story. The negative space in between those two things is the story. And the people reading it are filling that up with whatever they’re bringing to it.”

"The more general these books are and the more latitude they give us to wander around and sort of fill it up with our own experiences and really get personal with them, the more we can’t help meeting each other in them, the more we can’t help but make it a collective thing and sort of join up inside this weird extra spot that the book didn’t even mean to make."

Inspiring words from Mac Barnett
(accepting a 2012 Boston Globe Horn Book award for Extra Yarn)


"I think the picture book is uniquely positioned as a storytelling medium. The great divide in fiction is between the commercial and the literary. Commercial fiction has to entertain first, and literature should provide some sort of insight in what it means to live. I think that distinction is usually rigorously policed by writers and critics and readers and marketing departments. But in picture books that border is more porous. It’s a popular art. A picture book must be entertaining, but it’s also expected to convey some truth. Books that try too hard to please can end up pandering. And books that strain for meaning can end up moralizing. But the best picture books meet this dual obligation, and we get to write literary fiction that people actually buy. What a world!"

"The tradition of the picture book is a tradition of experimentation. … It’s the bold books—the experiments—that drive our form."

"There are no formulas. There are no dogmas. There are no rules except for this: ‘Try to write books that are honest and good.’"


0 Comments

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    January 2022
    October 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    October 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    March 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014


    RSS Feed

    Subscribe
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.