Three fairytales, which have fairytales rules character’s places, phrases that occur in ‘threes’ of two quite different fairytale authors; Goldilock & the three bears and Jack & The Beanstalk by Andrew Lang and Cinderella by Charles Perrault.

To begin Goldilocks and the three bears, in which the heroine upon finding their cottage in the woods, tests each porridge of three bears, three times. Ascending upstairs goes, she test the three chairs, each of the three bears, three times. Once returned upstairs the three bears discover her sleeping in the baby bed, for this is the one she has chosen.

In cinderella, the fairy godmother grants her three wishes with her magic wand to whisk her away from the cellar where she sweeps hard away all day,to the ball with three magical things; a White horse drawn carriage, a fine dress and some special glass slipper shoes, one of which she leaves on the stairs as she hastily escapes the palace dance hall and prince before midnight falls, lest she turn into a pumpkin.

In Jack & the Beanstalk, it is the young Jack who retrieves three things from the Giant up in the castle; the golden coins, the golden hen and finally the golden harp with it’s singing voice that cries out ‘master master’ when jack snatches it and forces him to quickly escape down the beanstalk, back to his mothers home. Re-calling the voice of the giant three times ‘fee fi fo fum I smell the blood of an English man’ he quickly chops down the giant stalk which lands the giant crashing on his feet.

You may find more Fairytale rules of three in other fairytale audio’s on

Storynory.com

Thanks for listening

Bye Bye

N*

Dear Listeners,

The 6th chapter in the Katie series the ‘Witch Who Lost her spells’ is one that shows how important it is for Katie not to loose her spell book, from which she learns the magic art of how to become a witch at school and home.

The spell book that Katie writes in is one of ‘verse spells’, she has created. When it goes missing, the play Romeo & Juliet, written by Shakespeare,Katie watches at school, she understands that someone is playing tricks with her verse, for the characters speak the lines in verse out of turn.

‘Witch is the Witch that Wishes the Wicked Wish’ Katie re calls as she searches for the spell book thief. It is important for Katie that her spells don’t get into the wrong hands, for only a true witch should use these powers and only for good, as we find out in later chapters. Katie without her spell book has to learn to be a bit ordinary to find out who it is; also part of her learning curve. Mrs Hepworth recounts of the Witch trials in Salem when Witch’s were prosecuted and burnt at the stake if they weren’t seen to be doing good. Interestingly, The Witch hunts in England happened in the Sixteenth century around the time Shakespeare wrote his verse plays.

There will be more Katie Ordinary Witch series to come, in the mean time,
If you have written or learnt any verde at school,why not jot them down and make a verse book of your own. Just make sure you keep it in sight….

Bye Bye
N *

The Jabberwocky poem in the chapter, ‘Looking Glass House’ is known is a poem of Nonce verse.The nonce words in the poem are part of Lewis Carolls invention and what he coined as Lexicon: a language without direct or obvious meaning. Nonce words have a whimsical nonsensical quality, as you’ll see with the invented words in the poem. As Alice reads the poem, even she admits it is a little difficult to follow but understands ‘ that something has killed something’
The use of Lexicon in the verse is can have different interpretations and combine both nouns adjectives and verbs. Here are a few, some as described by Lewis Carroll, who even he himself admits didn’t always know the meaning.

Fictitious creatures: Nouns
‘Bandersnatch’: a swift moving creature with a snapping jaw.
‘Jub Jub Bird’ a desperate bird that lives in perpetual passion.
‘The Mome Wraths’:a of sort a green pig and means to be grave or have wrath.
‘Slightly Toves’, like a badger or a lizard and slithy meaning lithe or active

Borrogroves: a shabby looking Bird with it’s feathers all sticking out
Tulgey Wood: a thick or fast wood where the trees lie.
Wabe: grass plot around a sundial

Descriptive words: Adjectives
Chorteled: combination of chuckling and snorting
Frabjous: a combination fabulous and joyous
Frumious:between being fabulous and furious

Verbs: doing or action words
Galumphing: to tread somewhere heavy foot or foot fall.
The Vorpal sword: an ancient use of the sword.
Snicker Snack: related to the large knife.
Uffish : a state of mind when he voice is uffish and the manner
Huffish.

These Lexicon nouns, adjectives and verbs have an onomatopoeic quality; the sound they make is similar to the meaning and is best
heard when they are voiced.
Lewis Carroll also had a specific pronunciation, to some of the nouns and or words in the poem as follows:
‘ sligthy is pronounced with two words, as in ‘slit – thee’
and ‘ Gyre’ and ‘Gimble’ to be pronounced with the hard ‘guh’ sound at the back of the throat.
The rhyming words ‘Toves’ and ‘Groves’ and ‘Wrath to Rhyme with
‘Bath’ and the ‘o’ or borrow to fully pronounce the words.

The nonce invented words are strange and part of the inverted
mirage of looking glass house she has fallen into; when Alice picks up the book with the Jabberwocky poem, and holds the pages up to the mirror, she sees the words are written backwards for it is ‘The
Back to front Book.’

The rhyme scheme follows the strange inverted mirror world and Alice finds herself, within the Looking Glass House Chapter of the poem in the style of the back. The first three verse lines form what
is known as Tetrameter; a verse line of four stresses and the last lines of the stanza being a trimeter of three stresses per verse line. Alternate rhyme endings of ababa that are have both masculine and
feminine rhyme endings. In the first stanza ‘
Groves and Toves rhyme with a feminine uplifted end. And Wabe and Grabe rhyme with a masculine mid line stress.

The syntax in the poem make it a dramatic nonce poem. Exclamation marks, semi colon speech marks of the father to his son
as well as the question marks create and build a dialogue between them:

‘And has thou slain the Jabberwock my son?
Come to my arms my beamish boy!
Oh crannogs day Callooh Callay
He Chorteled in his Joy!’

Despite the nonsense verse of the poem, Lewis Carroll wrote within the traditional parameters of verse structure; four verse lines per
stanza,known as a quatrain, with severn stanzas in total. The nonce words can be seen as a way in which Lewis Carroll, was able to have space for creative expression with words in the poem, hence Lexicon language.

There were other nonce verse poets of the eighteenth century including Edward Lear’s poem ‘The Table and the Chairs’ you can
find on Storynory.com

More nonce poems, written by Lewis Carroll are within other chapters of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which you can read

Chp 1. ‘How doth the Little Crocodile?’
A short two stanza poem also in quatrains

Chpt 2. ‘The Mouses Tale’
It’s form in the shape a Mouses tale and also with a similar rhyming
pattern.

Chpt 6. ‘ You Old Father William’
The poem, that the Lobster and the Mock Turtle, have Alice read out loud.

Why not listen to these chapters and to practice reading
with Carrolls Lexicon verse in mind, why not skim
http://storynory.com/2011/03/24/the-art-of-reading-poetry-aloud/

The word ‘Brillig’ interestingly means four ‘ o’ Clock in the afternoon, when things are broiling for dinner time.

Thanks for reading

I hope you get time to listen to more Alice chapters soon

Bye Bye
N*

Did you know that there is a celebration known as ‘Alice Day’
that takes place in Oxford every year on, July 09. It features fictional characters from the book including the Mad Hatter and his Tea Party, the Red Queens croquet game, along side the guards that look like playing cards and not to forget the menacing cheshire cat.
There are also live Alice storytelling events and abridged dramatic plays on the themes from the book. The events take place mostly outdoors, on the lawns of the Botanic Gardens and the Bodeliean Library.

Oxford is where the prestigious English university lies and where Charles Dodgson, under the pen name Lewis Carroll wrote ‘ The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland’. He studied at Christ Church college and really did know a little girl called Alice with whom he went rowing with along the River. It is believed that he wrote the book for her.

There are many Alice events taking place, and book stores that run chapter readings from the book including Borders and Blackwell’s book store.
There is also the Story Museum in Oxford, who run Alice events:

http://www.storymuseum.org.uk/the-story-museum/familyevents/alice

So if you are curious why not of Alice Day this year
and re visit some of the audio chapters from Classic Blue on Storynory in the meantime.
I’ll be back with more Alice news soon,

So look out and keep listening,

Bye Bye
N *

Musicality, Verse rhythm and The Dulcimer

Dear Listeners,

The Dulcimer is a fascinating musical instrument, with three strings
to its body and forms part of the image the poet uses in the last Stanza of the Abyssinian maid, playing on her Dulcimer.

The image forms part of the poets dream, to recreate her with the
Sunny Pleasure dome in the air. ‘Could I revive within me her symphony and song’ is part of the musicality and rhythm the poet
hears and is reflected in the rhyme meter, which simplifies to a Trochaic tetrameter rhyme scheme in this last stanza.
This trochee meter has four stresses per verse line and can be read as as ti tum ti tum ti tum, that go from short to long stresses, giving
the verse line a faster rhythm.

The stanzas, which come before have longer verse line patterns known as Iambic Tretrameter. The trochee verse meter has a
characteristic forward movement when spoken and was typically used by the Victorian poets.Coleridge used it a lot in his poems and the distinct meter shapes this verse poem known as lyric. A lyric
also has rhyming and alternate rhyme endings, that are found in the
verse Stanzas. Lyrics in the early 16th Century were poems originally accompanied to music, and the musical quality can be
heard in the verse rhythm of the Kublah Kahn and conveyed in it’s images like the Abyssinian maid.
I hope you enjoyed listening to the poem
and you could find a sense of the rhythm in the verse meter.
Coleridge was a visionary poet and used used a lot of metaphoric
nature imagery, the seal the sun, the moon the stars.
We have more poems from Samuel Taylor Colerdige including
‘. The Ryhme of the Ancyient Mariner’ to come, so look out and
keep listening.

In the mean time a good way to practice and explore the meter and
rhyme scheme of a poem is to say it out loud. ‘ The Art of Reading Poetry out loud’ Storynory PCR you may find useful
It links to other Victorian poets in the Storynory Classics collection including William Wordsworth, who also lyric poems and who
Coleridge collaborated with to write his poetry.

http://storynory.com/?s=The+Art+of+Reading+poetry+out+loud

Thanks for listening

Bye Bye

N *

What do you think of Katie and the character of Isis? This is the chapter where the
Magic spells form part of their friendship. Isis is a friend who Katie needs to help her with the tricky task of being an Ordinary Witch at school. The chapter also shows that fun can be had with magic making.

There are other story chapters in the Katie and the Ordinary Witch series, you can listen to, without the App for now, ‘The Revenge’ and ‘ The Invisible Umbrella’ are two good chapters.

Bye Bye

N*

Dear Listeners,

‘The Daffodils’  by William Wordsworth, from our audio recording of the poem on Storynory.com, is a distinctively Romantic poem.

 But what makes it a romantic ?

Wordsworth was a central writer of the Romantic movement in the Victorian era known as English Romanticism.

It is full of key Romantic features in its form, language and themes.

Language:

The poet in the first verse tells us he ‘Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’

This simile, of the poet comparing himself to a cloud conveys the image of him floating loftily and dreamily, like someone with romantic ideals.

‘The Daffodils’ ,the central symbol of the poem are personified i.e given human qualities ‘Fluttering and dancing in the breeze’ and are what the poet sees as he walks. The daffodils ‘Out do the Waves’ that also dance, as conveyed in the fifth stanza, coupled with the clouds are all nature personified, that the Victorian romantic poets were fascinated with.

‘O’er hills and dales’

The shortening of O’er from Over is what is called Archaic i.e. it is abbreviated: a syntactical feature of language the Romantic poets used a lot and gives it an olden Romantic quality as you read out loud.

 The poet is describing what he sees of nature; ‘Beside the Lake, beneath the tree’s’ and the Romantic poets Wordsworth and Coleridge were well known for walking to help stimulate idea’s for their poetry, which we see in the last stanza when the poet, remembers recalls the Daffodils in his mind:

‘For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye’
The simile of comparing the Daffodils,
to being as continuous as
the ‘Stars that shine’ and ‘Twinkle on the
milky way’ supports the metaphor

of the Stars and their action in the night sky.

The heavens and the elements of nature is a the key themes the Victorian Romantic poets were fascinated by, and links to the ideals of romanticism.

 Form:

There are four syllabic stresses per verse line known as Iambs that go from stressed to unstressed.

So as you read stress the first syllable of the word as follows: ‘I wandered Lonely as a cloud’

 This meter continues in all the verses lines of Six verse lines, equalling Six stanzas in total and giving the poem a continuous metrical effect.

There is a rhyme scheme of alternating rhyme endings, in the first four verse lines of the stanza, with the final last two verse line’s as rhyming couplets that are feminine, with the penultimate syllable stressed giving the poem its delicate, lifted quality.

This four beat iambic meter and rhyme scheme give the poem its lyrical composition.

Lyrics were a key feature of the Romantic movement that Wordsworth and other poets used.

Did you know Lyric poems were originally accompanied to music?

I hope picking out these Romantic features helps you enjoy the poem further and encourages you to read the poem

There are lots more, why not try finding some  for yourself, if you do, drop me a line and I’ll get back to you!

Bye Bye

N *

The latest Victorian poems we have recorded include William Wordsworth’s ‘The Daffodil’s and Tennyson,s The revenge. These are companions to the Victorian classics; William Blake’s ‘Tyger,Tyger’ and Browing Browning’s ‘Pied Piper of Hamelin’,  already on Storynory.com. They have spurred some thoughts about the benefits of reading poetry out loud.

Reading poetry aloud can deepen your understanding and engagement with the text, help improve your literary and language, as well as your speaking and listening skills.

Reading aloud can help your appreciation of poetry and improve your speaking voice. After a few chapters of reading aloud, your awkwardness will disappear.

As with any art form, if you practice it, you will get better.

Almost all poetry was created to be spoken out loud, and good poets know that poety starts in the mouth.

Sadly, children are not brought up to read out loud anymore, but if your trust yourself you may see some small improvements.

Why not try practicing reading aloud a little and often, and combine your practice with listening to some of the audio recordings we have here?

Storynory combines the audio of the poem with the text and visuals to help you engage with the literature.  But you can also practice doing this yourself with any poem if you have the text to hand. T

Why not try listening to these four Victorian poems in the sequence that we have in our ‘Storynory Poetry’ category

William Blakes Tyger Tyger
Robert Browings The Pied Piper of Hamelin
and recent audio poem recording’s
Wordsworth’s The Daffodil’s
and Tennysons The Revenge

All are from England and are Victorian poems with similar romantic, social and epic themes.

Verse forms patterns and meter and rhyming verse ends meter.

They’re also have highly poetic and metaphoric language, typical of Victorian verse poetry.

Combing listening to these Victorian poems will also help you appreciate them by providing an historical context as as they were all written around the same time in the Victorian period, between 1700- 1900.

There will be more audio poems from another great Victorian poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge to come, so look out and listen for that…

In the mean time I hope you enjoy learning about the poems,  and you get to listen and take time to read out loud for yourselves..
Bye Bye

Natasha

Hope you enjoyed the last three Audio Chapters of The Wizard of Oz.

In the next three chapters Dorothy, and her companions, The Scarecrow, The Tin Woodman, The Cowardly Lion go with her on her journey to the Great Wizard of Oz to see if he can help them. Each character in every chapter reveals how their character came to be, and why they must seek help from The Great Wizard of Oz too.

The scarecrow, who was only recently put on a poll to scare the crows, longs for real brains, not just the head stuffed with straw that he has now. The Tin Woodman, who was axed by the Wicked Witch of the East, feels he needs a heart. The Cowardly lion, who ironically cannot scare away the animals in the forest and trembles with fear, desires courage.

Each one of them tells their story  and firms his resolve to gain help from the Great Wizard of Oz. Each agrees to accompany little Dorothy on her journey to the Great Wizard of Oz.

Dorothy desires to get back to her beloved Kansas with her little dog Toto and with her Aunt Em but has a greater quest also; to defeat the Wicked Witch of the West and for this she knows there are perils she must face and will need the help of her three friends The Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and Cowardly Lion along the Yellow Brick Road to reach The great Wizard of OZ..>Will they get to the Great City? What dangers, adventures, things will happen? find out in the next three audio recording chapters of The Wizard of Oz on Storynory.com. Send me your comments and Ill get back to you…

Natasha

Dear Kidz

Good King Wenceslas is a wonderful christmas story – and it’s rather unusual because it’s told in a song in its original form. I suspect that many people sing it at Christmas and don’t even realise that it’s a story.

We’ve worked Good King Wenceslas up into a prose tale that’s easier to understand, but we’ve tried to keep its lyrical undertone. We’ve integrated refrains of guitar music with the original tune. Do listen to the end to hear the Christmas Carol performed by Gabby and Jamie. If you hear it sung slowly and carefully you will appreciate that it’s a lovely peice of music that is sometimes rather belted out in church at Christmas by the festive congragation!

The verses, though lovely, are a little hard to understand, so let me guide you through them.

Good King Wenceslas looks out from his Castle on the feast of Stephen and sees a peasant in the snow. At this point the carol tells the story in the form of a conversation in quotation marks. The King asks the page boy about the peasant

“Hither, page, and stand by me
If thou know’st it, telling
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?

And the page boy replies

“Sire, he lives a good league hence
Underneath the mountain
Right against the forest fence
By Saint Agnes’ fountain.”

Once you get that it’s a conversation, the story becomes much easier to understand. The king goes out into the snow to help the peasant braving the harsh winter which is described rather beautifully:

“Through the rude wind’s wild lament
And the bitter weather”

But as the king, a tower of strength, goes out to perform his good deed, he drags the page boy along with him. The poor boy is freezing to death:

“Sire, the night is darker now
And the wind blows stronger
Fails my heart, I know not how,
I can go no longer.”

And this is where the miracle takes place. You have to listen carefully to the words to catch it. The King’s feet are giving off a wonderful energy and heat. The boy steps in the king’s footsteps and is revived by saintly heat.

In his master’s steps he trod
Where the snow lay dinted
Heat was in the very sod [clump of earth]
Which the Saint had printed.

In helping someone less fortunate than himself Good King Wensceslas affirms the virtues of all good Christian man by going beyond his wealth and position by blessing the poor. It is for this that we rejoice in him and sing his praises in this moral and heartfelt Christmas tale.

Can you think of a time when you have perhaps gone beyond your call of duty and helped someone less fortunate than yourself; maybe you will this Christmas?

The story is read by myself and the carol is sung by our musicians Gabby and Jamie.

Drop me a comment to this Christmas Wenceslas Post Recording Review and respond back to you!

Bye Bye Natasha*

In this wise and ancient tale, an old man when see how he reaps the fruits of his old age and gains the rewards through his trust and faith in providence. The Roman Emperor rides past on his horse and decides to speak to the old man, who tells him he has lived a hundred years and is waiting to gain the rewards of the fig tree fruit he has planted.

Later on in the story when the old man returns and repays him his visit ten years later in his Kingdom of Galilee. Back bent and strained with hard work from his life in his old age he returns ten years later to pay the Emperor a visit to show him the fruits that the tree has born.

The Emperor commands the his servants to fill the old mans basket with gold coins and in this sense we can link him to the character of Good King Wenceslas who goes beyond his call of duty and brings the poor man wine and pine logs hither in the cold snow.

The figs of the tree which the old man gains are a sweet and luxurious fruit, symbolic of the riches gained by those who work hard and do good deed and reinforces the theme of faith and trust in providence of those deserving in life. The ten years that go by before he tree bears fruit and he visits the emperor and the one hundred years he has lived for, serve to show the element of time that we all must wait for in life and its link to trust in patience equally.

The anecdotal nature of the Story and its humour is provided by the crafty old women when she tells her husband to try also his good fortune with the Emperor Hadrian in bringing him a basket of figs , but which he has planted or waited the length of time to see grow, gets pelted with nuts by the Kings servants, bringing the tales to its humorous end. And the lady says to him.

‘If they had been coconuts instead of figs you might have suffered harder knocks’!

Of an ancient tale story that reaches across all cultures and we link it to Good King Wenceslas tale one of our own traditional English stories on Storynory this Christmas Time.

This Post Recording Review Is to dedicated to my Dad who likes the tale of Good King Wenceslas.

So Dad this one’s for you!

Dear Kidz,

The Old Man & The Figs is a good one to listen to in this festive season

When the snow is falling about

And think of family friends and figs for the festive season ahead!

N*

This a special edition Post Literary Review of The Garden Of Live flowers with a special comment from flower & garden expert Susan Lynn, of Notting Hill.

This is about Alice’s journey when she finds herself in the garden of live flowers and meets the flowers who try and cross her path

Her initial meanderings and route along the path that twists and turns like a corkscrew distracts little Alice from the direction she wants to be heading in, which would be the end to all her adventures and take her back to the Looking Glass House.

Caroll tells us how the path twists and Alice exclaims ‘It’s more like a corkscrew than a path!” The path th8erefore seems to reflect her strong curiosity and conflicts with her determination to keep the path straight and follow her way up on the hill. This again links to the theme of time we have encountered in the previous “Alice Down The Rabbit Hole” chapters, where Alice finds herself plunged into a world where it seem, there is little sense of control or of time and therefore we deeply empathise with little Alice when she says that despite the Garden route trying to affect ther ‘ She Really will do a character from one of previous Alice chapters It is then we see how she encounters the flowers who talks to her and cross her path, seemingly wanting to stop her in her tracks:

It is these flowers in the garden and their character, that can be seen to link to Alice and her character when she tries to move through the garden. And the origins of the flowers themselves, and the flower families they belong to, which can be found in the book The Flower booklet for The Pocket belongings, are another interesting aspect of her journey.

The character of The Rose reflects its rude and impertinent character.

‘Where does she wear her thorns ‘? Little Alice asks. And the Tiger Lily who, with its animalistic name that says it’s like a tiger, says with a roaring voice:

“Hold your tongue! And the Violet, small and rounded in a snubbing way that stops her in here tracks, says to Alice ‘ I never saw anybody stupider!

The flowers are a strong match for little Alice, as she attempt’s to navigate her way through the Garden and get on the path to where she is supposed to be.

The Red Queen, a character from previous chapters, whom Alice stumbles across in the garden and is like a Bad Luck omen, wants answers from little Alice on her journey through the Garden and to know, where she has been (highlighting?) how little Alice in a non fictional sense isn’t perhaps always where she is supposed to be!(do you mean : the Red Queen is reminding Alice that she isn’t always where she is supposed to be?)

‘Its Time to answer now’ says the Red Queen’ to her demandingly

‘ I only wanted to see what the Garden was like your majesty’ replies Alice- once more pointing up Alice’s curious nature on her Journey through the Garden of Live Flowers.

Thanks for reading

And listening

Q: Do you have any flowers in your Garden you talk to?

Susan Lynn, Gardener of Notting Hill gives us her thoughts on flowers:

I always say “Hello, pleased to see you” to flowers when they first appear, especially Hellebores – one of the first to flower in late winter and who hang their heads so you have to bend down and look up at the markings, and in late summer, the dahlias, with their mop of tousled red hair, because their survival is always uncertain

Id also recommend flower lover The Little Flower Book for the Pocket also advised by Susan Lynn, so thanks to you!

And that’s my literary review, which if you take the time to read, ill respond back to you!

Bye bye

N*

]]> http://storynory.com/2010/11/16/garden-of-flowers-review/feed/ 2 http://storynory.com/2010/10/31/the-wicked-witch-of-the-west-from-the-wizard-of-oz-on-halloween/ http://storynory.com/2010/10/31/the-wicked-witch-of-the-west-from-the-wizard-of-oz-on-halloween/#comments Sun, 31 Oct 2010 15:53:20 +0000 Natasha http://storynory.com/?p=3644 The Wizard of Oz-

Halloween Post Recording Comment

The Wicked Witch of The West

Ch.12

- The Search for the Wicked Witch of the West

starting with ‘ The Solider with the Green Whiskers led them through…’

This dark and atmospheric chapter is the perfect treat for a Halloween listen

where the Guardian of the Gates lead Dorothy and her friends through from to the Emerald City to embark on the most scary part of her quest yet, facing the Wicked Witch of the West.

‘Which road leads to the Wicked Witch of the West’? asks Dorothy

bringing this character to the forefront as a the threat she is to Dorothy, The Wicked Witch could make her one of her slaves like the Weird Winkies.

It is Dorothy and her with the help of her friends The Tin Woodman

The Lion and The Scarecrow who must help Dorothy defeat The The Wicked Witch of the West who is angry and not easily defeated.

And Winged forced of the Winged Monky’s who she uses against them

fro her castle where she looks out with her one eyes powerful as a telescope, am it n exiting and scary chapter for Halloween.

The character of the Wicked Witch of the West make her the perfect scary Halloween character and like a real with with her spells she draws on her left foot foot:

‘Ep-pe, Pep-pe-Kak-Ke’

On her right foot:

‘Hil-lo, hol-lo, hello’

and

‘Zizzy Zuzz-zy, Zik’

She is an interesting character as even though she is a witch we do like her and she certainly doesn’t like to be defeated. Her desire for Dorothy’s Silver shoes but Dorothy who sees her for the ‘wicked creature she really is, gives her just desserts in the end

and she is defeated, a triumph of her joinery in the nOvel to reach the great Wizard of OZ. And Dorothy prevents her from steeling her magic Silver Shoes

This chapter I read aloud when I played the role of The Wicked Witch of The West for the Puffin World Book Day Launch.

You can see here

http://storynory.com/2006/10/01/natasha/

She makes perfect one to dress to for Halloween

Do you have any Scary Halloween Costumes you dressed up in for Halloween that you can share with us? Or any Halloween stories

Why not listen and read along with this one:

http://storynory.com/2009/10/12/the-wicked-witch-of-the-west/

And I will respond to your comments

Id recommend Wicked The Musical, a stage adaptation with the character of

The Wicked Witch and the Great Wizard of OZ

http://www.wickedthemusical.co.uk/about.asp

There will be more magic chapters of Dorothy in L Frank Baum’s classic American fairytale

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz@ Storynory.com so drop by and listen to them

I will be reading with her original Kansas accent and look out for the ‘Post Recording Literary’ comments you can respond to and Ill respond

Lots of interesting words can all be gathered up in a story and as the reader we have to grab hold of those, imagine them as a real life things – Make these images real!! Characters in life are in abundance- they are every where you go- use the person you last saw on the train or the bus- the more real the better!!!

Then there’s the narrative through line, the journey; its up and down paths that take you on an adventure as you read aloud. Try to grab hold of the reins and control the pace- Its your story!!

And finally, most of all make it you own

bye for now
Natasha

Post Recording Review

Looking Glass House

Dear Kidz, This is one for before Christmas and the white snow…

The beautiful language Alice uses when she describes the white snow outside the window and white quilted cushion and of course the white cat itself.  All this snow and white and the  looking glass itself that reminds us of Christmas to come!

As well as a link to the chapter in Alice in Wonderland ‘Down the Rabbit hole and the theme of Time!’

Download the MP3 Audio

Looking-Glass House. Alice’s out of the way adventures start again in the second Alice book by Lewis Carroll, published in 1871.

This time she meets characters from a game of chess – as opposed to the pack of cards in the first book. There are more jokes based on bending logic, and we can look forward to plenty of conundrums.

In the opening scene, Alice is playing with her cats and a ball of wool (worsted). This might well have been written from observation. Lewis Carroll’s real name was Charles Dodgson, and he was tutor at Christchurch College, Oxford. He befriended Alice Liddell, the pretty and clever daughter of the College’s Dean. And Alice really did have a cat called Dinah.

But the highlight of the chapter is surely one of the most brilliant pieces of nonsense ever written. The poem called

“JABBERWOCKY” which begins ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves..”

Read, of course, by Natasha. Duration 23.10.

See PRC Lewis Carroll, Lexicon & Nonce Verse

and PRC Alice Time & Parallel Worlds

CHAPTER 1

Looking-Glass House

One thing was certain, that the WHITE kitten had had nothing to

do with it:–it was the black kitten’s fault entirely. For the

white kitten had been having its face washed by the old cat for

the last quarter of an hour (and bearing it pretty well,

considering); so you see that it COULDN’T have had any hand in

the mischief.

The way Dinah washed her children’s faces was this: first she

held the poor thing down by its ear with one paw, and then with

the other paw she rubbed its face all over, the wrong way,

beginning at the nose: and just now, as I said, she was hard at

work on the white kitten, which was lying quite still and trying

to purr–no doubt feeling that it was all meant for its good.

But the black kitten had been finished with earlier in the

afternoon, and so, while Alice was sitting curled up in a corner

of the great arm-chair, half talking to herself and half asleep,

the kitten had been having a grand game of romps with the ball of

worsted Alice had been trying to wind up, and had been rolling it

up and down till it had all come undone again; and there it was,

spread over the hearth-rug, all knots and tangles, with the

kitten running after its own tail in the middle.

‘Oh, you wicked little thing!’ cried Alice, catching up the

kitten, and giving it a little kiss to make it understand that it

was in disgrace. ‘Really, Dinah ought to have taught you better

manners! You OUGHT, Dinah, you know you ought!’ she added,

looking reproachfully at the old cat, and speaking in as cross a

voice as she could manage–and then she scrambled back into the

arm-chair, taking the kitten and the worsted with her, and began

winding up the ball again. But she didn’t get on very fast, as

she was talking all the time, sometimes to the kitten, and

sometimes to herself. Kitty sat very demurely on her knee,

pretending to watch the progress of the winding, and now and then

putting out one paw and gently touching the ball, as if it would

be glad to help, if it might.

‘Do you know what to-morrow is, Kitty?’ Alice began. ‘You’d

have guessed if you’d been up in the window with me–only Dinah

was making you tidy, so you couldn’t. I was watching the boys

getting in sticks for the bonfire–and it wants plenty of

sticks, Kitty! Only it got so cold, and it snowed so, they had

to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, we’ll go and see the bonfire

to-morrow.’ Here Alice wound two or three turns of the worsted

round the kitten’s neck, just to see how it would look: this led

to a scramble, in which the ball rolled down upon the floor, and

yards and yards of it got unwound again.

‘Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty,’ Alice went on as soon as

they were comfortably settled again, ‘when I saw all the mischief

you had been doing, I was very nearly opening the window, and

putting you out into the snow! And you’d have deserved it, you

little mischievous darling! What have you got to say for

yourself? Now don’t interrupt me!’ she went on, holding up one

finger. ‘I’m going to tell you all your faults. Number one:

you squeaked twice while Dinah was washing your face this

morning. Now you can’t deny it, Kitty: I heard you! What’s that

you say?’ (pretending that the kitten was speaking.) ‘Her paw

went into your eye? Well, that’s YOUR fault, for keeping your

eyes open–if you’d shut them tight up, it wouldn’t have

happened. Now don’t make any more excuses, but listen! Number

two: you pulled Snowdrop away by the tail just as I had put down

the saucer of milk before her! What, you were thirsty, were you?

How do you know she wasn’t thirsty too? Now for number three:

you unwound every bit of the worsted while I wasn’t looking!

‘That’s three faults, Kitty, and you’ve not been punished for

any of them yet. You know I’m saving up all your punishments for

Wednesday week–Suppose they had saved up all MY punishments!’

she went on, talking more to herself than the kitten. ‘What

WOULD they do at the end of a year? I should be sent to prison,

I suppose, when the day came. Or–let me see–suppose each

punishment was to be going without a dinner: then, when the

miserable day came, I should have to go without fifty dinners at

once! Well, I shouldn’t mind THAT much! I’d far rather go

without them than eat them!

‘Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How

nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the

window all over outside. I wonder if the snow LOVES the trees

and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers

them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says,

“Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.” And when

they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they dress themselves all in

green, and dance about–whenever the wind blows–oh, that’s

very pretty!’ cried Alice, dropping the ball of worsted to clap

her hands. ‘And I do so WISH it was true! I’m sure the woods

look sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are getting brown.

‘Kitty, can you play chess? Now, don’t smile, my dear, I’m

asking it seriously. Because, when we were playing just now, you

watched just as if you understood it: and when I said “Check!”

you purred! Well, it WAS a nice check, Kitty, and really I might

have won, if it hadn’t been for that nasty Knight, that came

wiggling down among my pieces. Kitty, dear, let’s pretend–’

And here I wish I could tell you half the things Alice used to

say, beginning with her favourite phrase ‘Let’s pretend.’ She

had had quite a long argument with her sister only the day before

–all because Alice had begun with ‘Let’s pretend we’re kings

and queens;’ and her sister, who liked being very exact, had

argued that they couldn’t, because there were only two of them,

and Alice had been reduced at last to say, ‘Well, YOU can be one

of them then, and I’LL be all the rest.’ And once she had really

frightened her old nurse by shouting suddenly in her ear, ‘Nurse!

Do let’s pretend that I’m a hungry hyaena, and you’re a bone.’

But this is taking us away from Alice’s speech to the kitten.

‘Let’s pretend that you’re the Red Queen, Kitty! Do you know, I

think if you sat up and folded your arms, you’d look exactly like

her. Now do try, there’s a dear!’ And Alice got the Red Queen

off the table, and set it up before the kitten as a model for it

to imitate: however, the thing didn’t succeed, principally,

Alice said, because the kitten wouldn’t fold its arms properly.

So, to punish it, she held it up to the Looking-glass, that it

might see how sulky it was–’and if you’re not good directly,’

she added, ‘I’ll put you through into Looking-glass House. How

would you like THAT?’

‘Now, if you’ll only attend, Kitty, and not talk so much, I’ll

tell you all my ideas about Looking-glass House. First, there’s

the room you can see through the glass–that’s just the same as

our drawing room, only the things go the other way. I can see

all of it when I get upon a chair–all but the bit behind the

fireplace. Oh! I do so wish I could see THAT bit! I want so

much to know whether they’ve a fire in the winter: you never CAN

tell, you know, unless our fire smokes, and then smoke comes up

in that room too–but that may be only pretense, just to make

it look as if they had a fire. Well then, the books are

something like our books, only the words go the wrong way; I know

that, because I’ve held up one of our books to the glass, and

then they hold up one in the other room.

‘How would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty? I

wonder if they’d give you milk in there? Perhaps Looking-glass

milk isn’t good to drink–But oh, Kitty! now we come to the

passage. You can just see a little PEEP of the passage in

Looking-glass House, if you leave the door of our drawing-room

wide open: and it’s very like our passage as far as you can see,

only you know it may be quite different on beyond. Oh, Kitty!

how nice it would be if we could only get through into Looking-

glass House! I’m sure it’s got, oh! such beautiful things in it!

Let’s pretend there’s a way of getting through into it, somehow,

Kitty. Let’s pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so

that we can get through. Why, it’s turning into a sort of mist

now, I declare! It’ll be easy enough to get through–’ She

was up on the chimney-piece while she said this, though she

hardly knew how she had got there. And certainly the glass WAS

beginning to melt away, just like a bright silvery mist.

In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had jumped

lightly down into the Looking-glass room. The very first thing

she did was to look whether there was a fire in the fireplace,

and she was quite pleased to find that there was a real one,

blazing away as brightly as the one she had left behind. ‘So I

shall be as warm here as I was in the old room,’ thought Alice:

‘warmer, in fact, because there’ll be no one here to scold me

away from the fire. Oh, what fun it’ll be, when they see me

through the glass in here, and can’t get at me!’

Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could be

seen from the old room was quite common and uninteresting, but

that all the rest was as different as possible. For instance, the

pictures on the wall next the fire seemed to be all alive, and

the very clock on the chimney-piece (you know you can only see

the back of it in the Looking-glass) had got the face of a little

old man, and grinned at her.

‘They don’t keep this room so tidy as the other,’ Alice thought

to herself, as she noticed several of the chessmen down in the

hearth among the cinders: but in another moment, with a little

‘Oh!’ of surprise, she was down on her hands and knees watching

them. The chessmen were walking about, two and two!

‘Here are the Red King and the Red Queen,’ Alice said (in a

whisper, for fear of frightening them), ‘and there are the White

King and the White Queen sitting on the edge of the shovel–and

here are two castles walking arm in arm–I don’t think they can

hear me,’ she went on, as she put her head closer down, ‘and I’m

nearly sure they can’t see me. I feel somehow as if I were

invisible–’

Here something began squeaking on the table behind Alice, and

made her turn her head just in time to see one of the White Pawns

roll over and begin kicking: she watched it with great

curiosity to see what would happen next.

‘It is the voice of my child!’ the White Queen cried out as she

rushed past the King, so violently that she knocked him over

among the cinders. ‘My precious Lily! My imperial kitten!’ and

she began scrambling wildly up the side of the fender.

‘Imperial fiddlestick!’ said the King, rubbing his nose, which

had been hurt by the fall. He had a right to be a LITTLE annoyed

with the Queen, for he was covered with ashes from head to foot.

Alice was very anxious to be of use, and, as the poor little

Lily was nearly screaming herself into a fit, she hastily picked

up the Queen and set her on the table by the side of her noisy

little daughter.

The Queen gasped, and sat down: the rapid journey through the

air had quite taken away her breath and for a minute or two she

could do nothing but hug the little Lily in silence. As soon as

she had recovered her breath a little, she called out to the

White King, who was sitting sulkily among the ashes, ‘Mind the

volcano!’

‘What volcano?’ said the King, looking up anxiously into the

fire, as if he thought that was the most likely place to find

one.

‘Blew–me–up,’ panted the Queen, who was still a little

out of breath. ‘Mind you come up–the regular way–don’t get

blown up!’

Alice watched the White King as he slowly struggled up from bar

to bar, till at last she said, ‘Why, you’ll be hours and hours

getting to the table, at that rate. I’d far better help you,

hadn’t I?’ But the King took no notice of the question: it was

quite clear that he could neither hear her nor see her.

So Alice picked him up very gently, and lifted him across more

slowly than she had lifted the Queen, that she mightn’t take his

breath away: but, before she put him on the table, she thought

she might as well dust him a little, he was so covered with

ashes.

She said afterwards that she had never seen in all her life

such a face as the King made, when he found himself held in the

air by an invisible hand, and being dusted: he was far too much

astonished to cry out, but his eyes and his mouth went on getting

larger and larger, and rounder and rounder, till her hand shook

so with laughing that she nearly let him drop upon the floor.

‘Oh! PLEASE don’t make such faces, my dear!’ she cried out,

quite forgetting that the King couldn’t hear her. ‘You make me

laugh so that I can hardly hold you! And don’t keep your mouth

so wide open! All the ashes will get into it–there, now I

think you’re tidy enough!’ she added, as she smoothed his hair,

and set him upon the table near the Queen.

The King immediately fell flat on his back, and lay perfectly

still: and Alice was a little alarmed at what she had done, and

went round the room to see if she could find any water to throw

over him. However, she could find nothing but a bottle of ink,

and when she got back with it she found he had recovered, and he

and the Queen were talking together in a frightened whisper–so

low, that Alice could hardly hear what they said.

The King was saying, ‘I assure, you my dear, I turned cold to

the very ends of my whiskers!’

To which the Queen replied, ‘You haven’t got any whiskers.’

‘The horror of that moment,’ the King went on, ‘I shall never,

NEVER forget!’

‘You will, though,’ the Queen said, ‘if you don’t make a

memorandum of it.’

Alice looked on with great interest as the King took an

enormous memorandum-book out of his pocket, and began writing. A

sudden thought struck her, and she took hold of the end of the

pencil, which came some way over his shoulder, and began writing

for him.

The poor King looked puzzled and unhappy, and struggled with the

pencil for some time without saying anything; but Alice was too

strong for him, and at last he panted out, ‘My dear! I really

MUST get a thinner pencil. I can’t manage this one a bit; it

writes all manner of things that I don’t intend–’

‘What manner of things?’ said the Queen, looking over the book

(in which Alice had put ‘THE WHITE KNIGHT IS SLIDING DOWN THE

POKER. HE BALANCES VERY BADLY’) ‘That’s not a memorandum of

YOUR feelings!’

There was a book lying near Alice on the table, and while she

sat watching the White King (for she was still a little anxious

about him, and had the ink all ready to throw over him, in case

he fainted again), she turned over the leaves, to find some part

that she could read, ‘–for it’s all in some language I don’t

know,’ she said to herself.

It was like this.

YKCOWREBBAJ

sevot yhtils eht dna ,gillirb sawT’

ebaw eht ni elbmig dna eryg diD

,sevogorob eht erew ysmim llA

.ebargtuo shtar emom eht dnA

She puzzled over this for some time, but at last a bright

thought struck her. ‘Why, it’s a Looking-glass book, of course!

And if I hold it up to a glass, the words will all go the right

way again.’

This was the poem that Alice read.

JABBERWOCKY

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!’

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought–

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

‘And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’

He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

‘It seems very pretty,’ she said when she had finished it, ‘but

it’s RATHER hard to understand!’ (You see she didn’t like to

confess, ever to herself, that she couldn’t make it out at all.)

‘Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas–only I don’t

exactly know what they are! However, SOMEBODY killed SOMETHING:

that’s clear, at any rate–’

‘But oh!’ thought Alice, suddenly jumping up, ‘if I don’t make

haste I shall have to go back through the Looking-glass, before

I’ve seen what the rest of the house is like! Let’s have a look

at the garden first!’ She was out of the room in a moment, and

ran down stairs–or, at least, it wasn’t exactly running, but a

new invention of hers for getting down stairs quickly and easily,

as Alice said to herself. She just kept the tips of her fingers

on the hand-rail, and floated gently down without even touching

the stairs with her feet; then she floated on through the hall,

and would have gone straight out at the door in the same way, if

she hadn’t caught hold of the door-post. She was getting a

little giddy with so much floating in the air, and was rather

glad to find herself walking again in the natural way.