The Children's Literature Podcast

Welcome to my 13 Nights of Halloween, where I will share frightening folktales guaranteed to scare the bejeebers out of you. Tonight’s story is “The Baba Yaga” which comes from William Ralston’s 1873 collection of Russian Folk-Tales.

Baba Yaga is a delightfully nasty witch who never apologizes and likes to eat up little girls and boys who are too stupid to escape from her. She rides around in a mortar and pestle, presumably because she likes to grind herbs while on road trips.

PREPARE YOURSELVES! And please enjoy “The Baba Yaga.”

If you would like the commentary-free version of this tale, you can find it over on my storytelling channel:

https://youtu.be/YAEiAdC2In8

This is the second of my 13 Nights of Halloween, and tonight you will hear “The Ghost Sailor,” a folktale that comes from the Mashpee people of Cape Cod.

This is my own retelling, and the story teaches us that you can’t put a price on the safety of your children.

PREPARE YOURSELVES! And please enjoy “The Ghost Sailor”

If you would like a commentary-free version of this story, here it is:

Welcome to my 13 Nights of Halloween, where I will share frightening folktales guaranteed to scare the bejeebers out of you. These are stories so scary that most grownups won’t share them with children any more. But I think we’ve gone soft! Bring back the screams, the peril, the ghastly, the ghoulish. Kids from the past loved feeling their hair stand on end, and so do kids today.

Tonight’s story is “The Blue Beard,” which was originally published as “Barbe Bleue” in Charles Perrault’s 1697 collection, Histoires ou contes du temps passé. Perrault didn’t just write happy stories like Cinderella. “The Blue Beard” is gruesome and horrible. I am reading the 1729 translation by Robert Samber, which is the earliest English version.

PREPARE YOURSELVES! And please enjoy “The Blue Beard.”

If you would like a commentary-free version of this story, you can find it over at my storytelling channel:

 

This evening’s Fireside Fairy Tale is “Cap O’ Rushes,” a tale printed in English Fairy Tales, which was a collection made by Joseph Jacobs in 1890. He gave the author as “Anonymous,” which isn’t totally correct. The authors are the common people of England.

Cap O’ Rushes is interesting because it combines elements of King Lear with the structure of a classic Cinderella story. This tale has ties to Leicestershire, where I live, so I am pleased to present a story from a place I am happy to call home.

If you would like the commentary-free version of this tale, you can find that over on my storytelling channel:

These two episodes didn’t make for good audio, but here are two recent videos I’ve done doing another deep dive into Greta Gerwig’s take on the Chronicles of Narnia and why I am not encouraged by what I see.

I adored Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons as a kid. I had to respect Wile E. Coyote for never giving up, no matter how many times he was smashed, bashed, crashed, blown to smithereens, or launched in the air only to fall down into that canyon . . . AGAIN.

I was very happy to finally get the chance to see Coyote Vs. Acme. I hoped I would laugh . . . but ended up crying!

This is a super deep dive into the newly released photo of the main cast of Greta Gerwig’s first Chronicles of Narnia project, which is a film adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew. The setting has inexplicably been taken from the late 19th century to the 1950’s, and the only representation of a working class Englishman has been removed from the film, which doesn’t quite sit right with me given what I have learned about the complicated ways class affects everything here in Britain since I came to live here.

I said it before. I’m saying it again. Greta Gerwig was not the right person to adapt the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, and Empire Magazine’s glossy spread on the first film (allegedly) based on The Magician’s Nephew reveals a number of very bad story changes that will compromise the plot and alienate a whole lot of potential customers.

“Love Story” from Taylor Swift’s 2008 album Fearless takes the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet and gives it a happy ending. All it took was for the characters in the play to confront their problems head on instead of sneaking around.

Key to the success of Swift’s love story is that there wasn’t a Friar Lawrence there to come up with a truly idiotic and overcomplicated plan. All it took was for Juliet to meet Romeo outside town and for Romeo to just go work things out with Capulet.

To mark the 30th birthday of Muppet Treasure Island and pay tribute to the late and eternally great Tim Curry, Tom the Tale Teller and I sat down to rewatch this classic work based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel. On this rewatch we noticed a bunch of jokes that went RIGHT over our heads as kids. Now we understand why our parents were laughing.

As with Muppet Christmas Carol, this film lovingly and faithfully adapts a beloved children’s story. But with Muppets.

Tim Curry was the perfect choice to play Long John Silver, bringing warmth, wit, a mercurial temperament, and the greatest laugh in history to one of the most complex and interesting villains in literature.

Come join us on the couch and share your memories of this fun film.