This Summer… Play Has a New Location!

Well, friends, it’s just about time to close this puppy down, turn off the lights, and have a nice chorus of “We’ll Meet Again.” In just two days, we’ll have our huge farewell celebration – you ARE planning to be here Friday, we wish! – we’ll have a big parade out the building, and that’ll be that for a few months!

Yeah, right!

 

For about seventeen seconds, we were tempted to make like bears and hibernate while our space is being renovated, but that won’t work! We have SO MUCH playing to do, and we want to see each and every one of you as we move around town. We’ll be making quite a few appearances around Atlanta over the next few months, at parks, libraries, shows, festivals, and bookstores. So we’re entreating you to come and play with us!

The Children’s Museum of Atlanta actually began in the late 1980s as a Museum Without Walls. Our facility didn’t actually open until 2003, and we spent this period doing community outreach, going to schools in the nearby neighborhoods and engaging children in the power of play. So we’re taking this unique opportunity to reconnect with our history while also connecting with all of you!

We are still working on the final details for the weeks that our facility will be closed, but you’ll first be able to see us on Sunday, August 2 at Little Shop of Stories in Decatur. We’ll be joining the Little Shop for their storytimes each Sunday at 3 pm, and each Thursday at 7 pm, for the next few weeks.

In August, you can also find us at the BBQ, Blues & Bluegrass Festival in Decatur, at the Summer Shade Festival in Grant Park, and at Miss Mary’s Ice Cream Crankin’ in Roswell. On Mondays starting the 17th, we’ll be hosting a “Toddler Takeover” from 10 am to 1 pm in Centennial Olympic Park. Then in September, we’ll be appearing at branches of the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System, and there’s so much more!

We want to make certain that you’re all able to find us and play with us during our renovation. With that in mind, the best way to do that is follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Make sure that you select “GET NOTIFICATIONS” after liking us on Facebook; that’s the best way to ensure updates show at the top of your feed. We’ll also have a calendar on our refreshed web site that will launch this weekend.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve spoken to hundreds of you, and been overwhelmed by the optimism, faith, and excitement about the wonderful enhancements to our facility. We’ve answered lots of questions about what’s coming up at our Museum, through email and social media, but also from visitors and guests who’ve come to play with us. We hope that we can answer all of your questions, so when you see us, please ask away! Our Imaginators and Visitors Service staff who’ll be manning tables, telling stories, and playing with your children can’t wait to talk with you!

Demolition Derby!

Are your children fascinated by the world of construction? Do they know more about backhoe loaders, wreckers, piledrivers, and bulldozers than you do? Probably! Kids love to watch demolition and construction, and with that in mind, we wondered what sort of equipment will be coming into our Museum for our renovation in early August.

Our Manager of Exhibits, Rachel Towns, reached out to DPR Hardin Construction, who will be bringing in the big tools, and learned what they plan to use in order to transform our current space into the NEW Children’s Museum of Atlanta.

For all the high work, including installing new lighting and working on our new mezzanine, Step Up to Science, the crew will have a pair of scissor lifts. This is a mechanized access platform, a portable, hydraulic-powered lift that can be raised into the air directly above the base.

They’ll also be bringing a mini-excavator to tear down certain items and help load debris. These are fairly common in the construction industry. It is a fairly small machine with a backfill blade, and moves on treads.

To remove parts of the flooring and install the mezzanine area, the crew will also have a skid steer. The workers doing this part of the job will be using hydraulic powered concrete saws and chipping hammers for concrete demolition. A skid steer is often known by the brand name “Bobcat,” although quite a few different companies make these vehicles. It’s kind of like the way, for years, everybody called every brand of photocopier a “Xerox machine”!

We’re sorry that, for safety reasons, your children won’t be able to see these machinery in operation. On the other hand, if they’re a little blue because they won’t be able to play in the Museum for a few months, perhaps you can share this post with them, break out the toy construction equipment and blocks and make believe with them that you’re building your own children’s museum! Then join us in late 2015 to see what our new space looks like!

All the Cinderellas

For our last little peek behind the pages of the fairy tales in our current exhibit, Once Upon a Time, we’d like to celebrate one of the best-known of them: Cinderella! The beauty with the special slipper has a very, very long lineage. Stories about her, or women very much like her, have been traced back hundreds of years, to China, Greece, and Egypt.

The Greek-Egyptian version of Cinderella is most likely the earliest, although it lacks many of the elements that are more familiar to us from the European-derived stories of the 1700s. In this tale, the heroine is named Rhodopis, and she was one of many servants of a Greek businessman and politician named Xanthes. He had taken a party to Egypt for business, and Rhodopis, bathing in a spring, had one of her slippers snatched up by an eagle, who then dropped it in the lap of the King of Egypt. The king took this as a sign from the heavens and searched everywhere for the slipper’s owner. Rhodopis, also known as Rhodope and as Doricha, was most likely a real woman, a courtesan (or “hetaera”) who lived about 2600 years ago, but the story about the shoe was probably a tall tale, and we can thank her contemporary, Aesop, for that.

More than a thousand years later, the popular tale had made its way to China. Tuan Ch’êng-shih wrote of a heroine named Yeh-Shen, and her story is closer to the version that we know. Yeh-Shen longs for happiness and marriage since her stepmother is so cruel, and she has some supernatural help from a magical fish who grants her wishes. Yeh-Shen attends a ball wearing a beautiful dress and slippers made of gold, and leaves one behind, in the hands of a charming king, when her allotted time expires.

Yeh-Shen and Rhodopis stories continued to be told, with different names, as the centuries passed, with dozens more iterations than we have room to discuss here. In 1697, Charles Perrault’s version, “Cendrillon,” was published, and it’s pretty much the final form that we know it today. Earlier European versions had replaced the magical benefactor with a kind godmother, but Perrault made her a fairy godmother for the first time. She transforms a pumpkin into a carriage, makes the slippers from glass, turns mice into horses, and so on. Basically all the elements of Cinderella that we all recognize are present in Perrault’s version, which has as strong a claim as any to being the most popular of all fairy tales.

Perrault’s was not the final version, of course, because as we’ve discussed, fairy tales are always changing and evolving. In recent years, Hollywood movies like Snow White and the Huntsman and Maleficent have given classic fairy tales a darker edge, but the Cinderella story was taking on heavier overtones quite early on. In 1812, the Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, published their seminal collection of European tales, and the Cinderella version that they included, entitled “Aschenputtel,” is much darker than Perrault’s and all the variants that followed it.

What interests me about Cinderella, though, is that the bleak overtones that some writers and folklorists have added to the story don’t actually seem to stick. As we noted in the first of these features, about Jack and the Beanstalk, many fairy tales actually thrive with a little color and backstory and discussion of motivations, even if it’s sometimes darker. Cinderella, however, shrugs off anybody’s attempts to darken it. Perhaps because the core of the story is so bright and happy, and its tale of wish-fulfillment is so encouraging and promising, that darkness just doesn’t belong to it. Cinderella is arguably the most popular fairy tale in the world, and the happiest.

Further reading: Lit Reactor | readyed.com.au | popsugar.com

Red, White and Blueberry Recipes!

In honor of the Fourth of July, this week we challenged ourselves to create a full meal based on three different colors: Red, White and Blue. It turns out that the internet is chock-full of patriotic-themed recipes. Because we have a dedicated staff (who like to eat!) we whittled down the sixty-gajillion available color-themed ideas we found into a somewhat healthy and nutritious three-course meal with lots of blueberries. Well, the dessert’s not the healthiest thing we could come up with, but it sounds delicious!

Let’s start with a “Patriotic Salad” with quinoa and berries, as found at Yummy Mummy Kitchen.

5 ounces arugula or other salad greens
3 cups cooked, cooled quinoa
1.5 cups blueberries
1.5 cups raspberries
Sliced watermelon cut into stars with a cookie cutter
favorite salad dressing, served on the side

On the bottom of a medium trifle dish or clear salad bowl, arrange one third of the greens. Top with half the quinoa, all but 1/4 cup blueberries, the remaining quinoa, another third greens, all but 1/4 cup raspberries, and top with the remaining greens. Arrange the remaining 1/2 cup berries over the top. If using watermelon stars, tuck into the sides and arrange on top of the salad. Make this salad up to 5 hours in advance, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate. Serve dressing on the side.

 

For the main course, let’s continue with blueberries since they are in season right now, and enjoy a Chicken and Blueberry Pasta Salad, from Eating Well:

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, trimmed of fat
8 ounces whole-wheat fusilli or radiatore
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 large shallot, thinly sliced
1/3 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
3 tablespoons lime juice
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
1 teaspoon freshly grated lime zest
1/4 teaspoon salt

Place chicken in a skillet or saucepan and add enough water to cover; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer gently until cooked through and no longer pink in the middle, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a cutting board to cool. Shred into bite-size strips.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cook pasta until just tender, about 9 minutes or according to package directions. Drain. Place in a large bowl.

Meanwhile, place oil and shallot in a small skillet and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until softened and just beginning to brown, 2 to 5 minutes. Add broth, feta and lime juice and cook, stirring occasionally, until the feta begins to melt, 1 to 2 minutes.
Add the chicken to the bowl with the pasta. Add the dressing, blueberries, thyme, lime zest and salt and toss until combined.

Finally, let’s have a Red, White and Blue dessert, from the blog of Taste of Home magazine.

2 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups heavy whipping cream, whipped
2 quarts strawberries, halved, divided
2 quarts blueberries, divided

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar and extracts until fluffy. Fold in whipped cream. Place a third of the mixture in a 4-qt. bowl. Reserve 20 strawberry halves and 1/2 cup blueberries for garnish.
Layer half of the remaining strawberries and blueberries over cream mixture. Top with another third of the cream mixture and the remaining berries. Spread the remaining cream mixture on top. Use the reserved strawberries and blueberries to make a “flag” on top.

You’ll have plenty left over after this one, but on the other hand, you could certainly adapt this as a single-layer recipe for your family. If you’re planning to take a dessert to a July 4th party, on the other hand, this looks like a treat fit for all the founding fathers!

 

More Fairy Tales: Andersen and de Beaumont

Most of the fairy tales which Americans grew up reading are of European vintage, and a healthy majority of them were compiled by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen, who popularized such classics as “The Little Mermaid,” “The Snow Queen,” “The Ugly Duckling,” “The Princess and the Pea,” “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” and “The Steadfast Tin Soldier,” among many others. Our current feature exhibit, Once Upon a Time: Exploring the World of Fairy Tales could very easily have been an Andersen-only exhibit, but since the intent is to explore the whole world of fairy tales, from many sources, only one of Andersen’s made the cut, and that’s the wonderful and charming “Thumbelina.”

Thumbelina is an inch-high little girl who popped into this world from barleycorn, and who fends off marriage proposals from various members of the animal kingdom. In Andersen’s story, she is nearly wed to both a toad and then to a mole, but finally finds true love with one of her kind, another fairy who emerges from a flower. Her story is related to a human storyteller by way of a bluebird who had also fallen in love with her, and confides to the man about his broken heart.

Hans Christian Andersen wrote travelogues, novels, and memoirs, but it’s the fairy tales that he’s best known for today. Seven or eight of Andersen’s are probably iconic enough that they’ll be on anybody’s list of classics, but he either adapted or created more than two dozen!

About a hundred years earlier, in France, Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont penned the best-known version of “Beauty and the Beast,” a folk tale that had been passed around for several decades. De Beaumont’s novel was first published in 1756, and either excised or simplified much of the Beast’s backstory. Interestingly, as later adaptations, films, and cartoons have been produced, based on the story, many writers have sought to bulk up the story behind the Beast’s hideous appearance. There is actually no need for them to go to all that trouble because Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, decades before de Beaumont, had already given the Beast a family and a lengthy origin that includes political scheming and fairy queens, material that de Beaumont later dropped from her novel.

“Beauty and the Beast” has a pretty good claim to be the most popular and well-known of all fairy tales, maybe sharing equal first billing with “Cinderella.” It’s been directly adapted for films almost a dozen times, with Disney’s 1991 animated feature arguably the definitive version, and has inspired heaven-knows-how-many storybooks for young readers, each of which has its own version of what the Beast looks like, and its own storyline. Singing teapots and candelabras are a fairly recent addition to the story!

In our Once Upon a Time exhibit, your children can crawl through a mole’s tunnel and have an elegant dinner at the Beast’s castle, but don’t forget to take the stories home with you after you have played! How will you create your own version of these stories for your children to remember and, many years from now, share with their own?

The Many Tales of Anansi

Children always surprise me when they play, and when they’re in our Once Upon a Time exhibit, they are always finding new things to do that I didn’t see coming. This past Saturday, my son, who is four, spent the better part of ten minutes hiding behind the big pretend “melon,” hollering “Hey, I’m a melon! Don’t you want to eat me?!” at anybody who passed. Other kids would grab the melon and make a thundering “Gobble, gobble!” or such before my son would jump out to say “I’m really a spider! I tricked you!” and the eater would run away in playful shrieks. Repeat, frequently. Not at all bad for a kid who first heard this story about thirty seconds before he ducked behind/inside that melon.

Anansi, the spider hiding inside that melon, features in dozens of folk tales. He’s typically traced back to western Africa, in the region that is now the nation of Ghana, and made his way to the Caribbean and the colonies that would later become the United States in the 1600s, during the days of the slave trade. Anansi lived in oral telling for hundreds of years before his exploits were printed. He is most often literally a spider, but in some variants from Jamaica, he’s a human with four arms and four legs.

The Anansi story that is spotlighted in the Once Upon a Time exhibit is one of his most popular outings and emphasizes how clever Anansi is to think his way out of a bad situation. Writer Eric Kimmel and artist Janet Stevens have recreated many of Anansi’s adventures in storybooks that are published by Scholastic. In this story, Anansi lets his greed get the better of him, and eats so much of a melon, tunneling his way into it as he munches, that he grows too fat to escape it! The only way out is to have someone shatter the melon, so, pretending to be a talking fruit, he starts mocking all the other animals of the jungle, hoping that one of them will take the mysterious melon to the hot-tempered Monkey King.

Learning about Anansi, I was most interested to learn that, between the Caribbean and many of the communities of the southeastern US, he transformed from a spider into a rabbit. Arguably the most famous of the “Uncle Remus” tales of Br’er Rabbit involve the bunny losing his temper with an inanimate statue, striking it, and getting stuck. Remarkably similar stories are also told about Anansi getting his head, arms, and legs stuck in tar traps.

There’s no consensus among folklorists about precisely why the spider of the 1600s was replaced by a rabbit in the 1800s, but both characters, and many other derivatives, are classic examples of a trickster. The character is sometimes portrayed as good, with a mischievous side, and sometimes amoral, and sometimes downright rotten and needing to learn a lesson, but in all the trickster’s forms, he is smart and clever and can think his way out of any situation, even the ones that resulted from his own poor choices.

First Lady of Atlanta Helps Kick Off Mayor’s Summer Reading Club

It’s summer, and one of the great things about summer in Atlanta is the Mayor’s Summer Reading Club. We’re happy to once again be a partner, and a host for their kickoff event. The fun starts at 10am this Saturday morning, and we’ll have readings and crafts all day long! Plus, a special reading by First Lady of Atlanta Sarah-Elizabeth L. Reed and other special guests.

At the Museum, our staff works hard to promote literacy, because the studies show that many children don’t read and exercise their mental muscles during the summer months as much as they do when school’s in session, meaning that they will start the next grade a few weeks or months behind, and often struggle to catch up. We hope that all parents will participate in combating summer reading loss, and keep kids engaged in books.

So, where does the Mayor’s Summer Reading Club come in? Well, from their site, “The program designates a city- wide book choice for infants, for children ages 2-4, and for children ages 5-8 to share with families at no cost to them. Throughout the summer, libraries, museums, farmers’ markets, and other institutions in Atlanta will hold “book club reads” to model research based methods of reading books with children and will host enrichment events based upon the stories. The books will come to life as children enjoy arts and crafts activities, drama exercises, and other hands on activities designed to make the language in the stories meaningful to children.”

“The Mayor’s Summer Reading Club has helped thousands of Atlanta’s children and family members improve their literacy skills and ignite their passion for reading,” said Mayor Kasim Reed. “Now in its third year, the program, supported by my administration, valuable partners and Atlanta-based organizations, is increasing its reach, and inspiring more young ones to fall in love with reading. Research shows that children who read during the summer months perform better on achievement testing and are better prepared for the school year. It is my hope that the program continues to grow, and further support one of my top priorities—investing in our city’s children.”

For the third year in a row, the Rollins Center for Language and Literacy at the Atlanta Speech School have written a new adventure starring Amari, our city’s favorite young heroine, for children aged 3-5. In the previous books, Amari has visited Zoo Atlanta and biked on the Atlanta BeltLine. In her newest story, Amari’s Shining Moment, she and her neighbor, Andres, visit the children’s village of the Dogwood Festival and see a performance of “The Shoemaker and the Elves,” inspiring them to recreate the stage and perform the play for their entire neighborhood. Amari uses the skills of problem solving and determination she learned through her first two adventures to help Andres get over his stage fright.

(Say, isn’t that something? “The Shoemaker and the Elves” is one of the fairy tales that are spotlighted in our current featured exhibit, Once Upon a Time!)

The First Lady of Atlanta, Sarah-Elizabeth L. Reed, will be here to share Amari’s adventures to our guests Saturday morning. She will be here to read the book at 11 am. The other books featured for the club this year are, for infants, The Pigeon Has Feelings Too by Mo Willems, and, for readers aged 5-8, Dad, Jackie and Me by Myron Uhlberg and Colin Bootman. Find out more about the books at the Mayor’s Summer Reading Club! All of our guests on Saturday will get to take home books for free! We look forward to seeing you here at the Museum on Saturday.

Schedule of events for Saturday, June 6

• 10 AM : Craft time
• 11 AM : First Lady of Atlanta, Sarah-Elizabeth L. Reed to read Amari’s Shining Moment
• 12 PM : Imaginators bring to life Dad, Jackie and Me by Myron Uhlberg
• 1 PM : Mr. Jason’s Music Party will perform live music to get kids up, movin’ and groovin’!
• 2 PM : New York Times-best-selling children’s author, Surishtha Sehgal reads ‘A Bucket of Blessings’
• 3 PM : Cold cooking demonstration
• 4 PM : Construction Aerobics

All events are included with the price of admission and, as always, members are free.

Summer Fun and Safety

School’s out, Atlanta! The water parks and swimming pools are open, and, given the chance, many of your children will happily spend dawn to dusk on slides, swings, and inner tubes. But before you let the kids soak up all of those rays, we would like to remind you of a few simple summer safety tips.

“Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death in children age 14 and under,” said James Fortenberry, M.D., Pediatrician-in-Chief at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, who have launched their 2015 Summer Safety Series. “Summer is an exciting time for kids. With that excitement comes an added responsibility for parents and children to educate themselves on what they can do to ensure a safe and healthy summer.”

One thing to remember is “The Shadow Rule, which states that if your shadow is shorter than you are, than the sun’s UV rays are particularly intense and you need to be extra careful. That’s a good reminder to lather up with sunscreen, lather generously, and lather frequently. Wear sunglasses, give children wide-brimmed hats to wear, and stay in the shade as much as possible.

Remember that water, sand, and surfaces can reflect the sun and UV rays. Even if you’re under a shaded area at a water park, UV rays are still bouncing off practically everything around you and your family, even the magazine that the sunbather next to you is reading, so buy that sunscreen and use it.

It’s incredibly important to drink plenty of fluids during any outdoor activities, even if you’re not being especially active. Avoid caffeinated drinks like tea, coffee and cola, as these can lead to dehydration. Yes, even a nice, tall glass of sweet iced tea. Drink plenty of water if you’re going to be out and active for around an hour, and sports drinks like Powerade if you plan to be active for longer than that. Take frequent breaks to drink, and if you’re at a playground with a misting station, take advantage of it. Try to plan for playground trips before noon or in the early evening, and take breaks in shady spots. In the hotter afternoon hours, try to schedule indoor activities.

At the pool, before your children even get in to swim, remind them to take it slow and not run. We know, that’s an awful lot like asking the earth to stop turning, but remind them constantly. Make certain that at least one responsible adult is constantly supervising the activities. Try assembling a group of chaperones; we know that grown-ups want to relax and play and talk and have fun, too, but some of your party always needs to be completely focused on the kids, because drowning can occur in a matter of seconds. Tag team so that focus is always fresh.

Be especially alert for children inhaling pool water. Even a small amount of water in the lungs can be extremely dangerous, with drowning happening many hours later, often after the victim has gone to sleep. If you notice anyone coughing after being underwater, ask about it. If anyone mentions losing consciousness or memory after being underwater, they may have inhaled water without realizing it, and should be taken to an ER.

Finally, we wanted to remind everyone about car safety. Do not leave children unattended in a car for any amount of time, even with the windows rolled down. The temperature inside can rise to dangerous, life-threatening levels within minutes. Just as you would never leave a small child alone in a bathtub, never leave a child alone in a car.

We want everybody to have lots of fun this summer, but take a couple of minutes before you go outside to get water and other supplies together. Plan ahead and schedule your activities and remember to stay focused on the children in your care while you’re having a great summer!

Additional reading:
http://www.choa.org/About-Childrens/Newsroom/News-and-Announcements/2015-Summer-Safety-Series
http://www.choa.org/Child-Health-Glossary/Summer-Safety
http://safety.lovetoknow.com/Safety_Topics_for_Summer
http://www.pbs.org/parents/summer/summer-safety-tips-for-kids/
http://childrensmd.org/browse-by-age-group/toddler-pre-school/dry-drowning-every-parent-needs-know/

Giving children time to explore

Earlier this week, in The New York Times, David Kohn wrote about children and learning, and although he didn’t use the exact phrase that we do here, “The power of play,” it still resonates throughout his story. Children learn through hands-on exploration. They need to set their own pace, and they need to be given constant opportunities to use their imagination, create rules and boundaries, and interact with other children.

From Kohn’s story, “Play is often perceived as immature behavior that doesn’t achieve anything,” says David Whitebread, a psychologist at Cambridge University who has studied the topic for decades. “But it’s essential to their development. They need to learn to persevere, to control attention, to control emotions. Kids learn these things through playing.” You can’t teach these things, and you certainly can’t test them. Children will observe and respond and learn at different levels, but even the silliest-looking play has so much more going on than can be quantified, objectified, and compartmentalized.

Kristin Tillotson, writing in The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, uses an analogy familiar to anybody who’s read the Sunday funnies: when kids explore, it looks like one of the characters in Bil Keane’s The Family Circus, taking off on their meandering, “serpentine” paths, connecting points A and B by way of every other possible letter. We see this a lot with our regular guests. Sometimes, they arrive and the child has a very specific idea about which area of our Museum they’d like to explore and go straight there, but just as often, we’ll see a child absolutely determined to climb in our treehouse, but only after winding around through every other place they can find and writing their name on our paint wall first.

It’s pretty amusing watching children do this, but it’s also perfectly natural behavior. Tillotson calls this “informal meandering” an organic way to learn, and Marjorie Bequette, director of evaluation and research at the Science Museum of Minnesota, agrees, pointing out that children respond to being in charge of the adventure.

Even looking around and observing things in a space, whether it’s one you are familiar with or one that’s brand new, has so much value. In her story, Tillotson mentions that some New York police officers receive training in observation at the Museum of Modern Art. I read some more about that in a 2009 story at Smithsonian, and learned that there is a program where veteran officers get an early morning class in observation. It’s evidence for Tillotson’s theory that museums really are mind-expanding, and that, whether you’re an adult or a child, the experience at any museum is one where the observer is continually learning.

When you next visit us, once you catch up with your child after their “serpentine” tour of the place, try spending a few minutes asking questions about what they have explored and observed. What does the Moon Sand feel like? How many lights do they see? What do they notice about colors and shapes? Perhaps they’ll have some questions about what you have seen and explored as well, so keep your eyes and ears open as you play with your children… you may just learn a thing or two yourself!

http://www.startribune.com/museums-are-literally-mind-expanding-researchers-say/301738001/?stfeature=S
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/teaching-cops-to-see-138500635/?no-ist

Fairy Tales Thrive in the Telling

Ask a dozen academics why fairy tales have such staying power and resonance and you’re sure to get a dozen different answers. Folk tales go back centuries, and the details shift and change in the telling. As books became available, and later, films were made to adapt the stories, they took on new details, additional characters, and often songs to pad out the running time. But even before the possibilities of print or animation, the tales that we know and love from our childhood had evolved and changed as the stories moved around different cultural groups.

We’re thinking about legends and folk tales a lot this week because we’re so happy to be welcoming back a really popular exhibit, last seen on the Museum floor in 2011, Once Upon a Time…Exploring the World of Fairy Tales. If you missed it the last time around, you’re in for a treat. From an African jungle to a giant’s castle, this unique and educational exhibit focuses on the power and significance of fairy tales throughout history and from around the world. Children will enter an enchanted storybook kingdom where they’ll learn the meaning and history of tales they’ve known all their lives, and others that may be new to them.

The featured tales are “Anansi and the Talking Melon,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Cinderella,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Lon Po Po,” “The Shoemaker and the Elves,” and “Thumbelina.” Over the next few weeks, we will be exploring the origins of all of these fairy tales, starting with “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

“Jack and the Beanstalk” is correctly called an English folk tale, dating to the early 1800s, but the metaphorical “beans” came from all over Europe before the version of the tale that you might find most familiar took “root.” The concept of climbing some kind of plant life to reach an otherwise impossible-to-access realm in the sky is centuries old. Norse mythology considered a gigantic tree called Yggdrasil whose branches were in heaven, as does Buddhist tradition, where it is described as a Bodhi tree. The Book of Genesis offered the tale of Jacob’s Ladder, which also reached heaven. The “Jack and the Beanstalk” section of the exhibit features a small “beanstalk” for children to climb, which is really quite fun. Don’t worry, parents, the beanstalk doesn’t stretch quite so high that your children will vanish into the clouds!

Germanic folklore is positively packed with giants and ogres, most of whom selfishly guard treasure and need to be outwitted or defeated. That makes them the perfect antagonist for a traditional, clever, and sharp-thinking hero. England in the 15th and 16th Century brought us just such a hero in a bright young commoner, typically called Jack, who appeared in dozens of folk tales. (There’s a “house that Jack built,” for example.) Mix in a little Shakespeare – the giant’s traditional warning cry of “Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman” comes almost directly from King Lear – and the basic form of the story is pretty typical of 18th Century folklore from the British Isles.

One of the great things about fairy tales is that despite the usual conclusions like “The end” or “And they all lived happily ever after,” they’re still evolving and adapting, with no end in sight. Jack himself has been replaced in dozens and dozens of adaptations over the last seventy years by everybody from Mickey Mouse to Ernie to Nintendo’s Mario to the casts of The Goodies and The Magic School Bus, and they all bring their own spins to the story, making anybody who remembers the version that they heard or saw then retell it differently to their own children. How many trips did Jack make up to the giant’s castle, anyway? Was it just the one, or did he pilfer all the giant’s treasure over the course of a week? Was the giant a lone miser, or did he have a wife who helped Jack bedevil her cruel husband?

And is it really fair to root for Jack, stealing the giant’s gold and ensuring his grisly end? Some adaptations, including a 1952 Abbott & Costello comedy, include some rather important details about Jack and his community’s poverty, blaming the giant for stealing all the area’s gold. On the other end of the spectrum, a 2001 TV miniseries directed by Brian Henson, shown in America on CBS, painted Jack as the villain of the piece, and sent his descendant back to the kingdom of the giants to return the stolen property and atone for the crime.

How will your child interpret the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk”? How will you retell it to him or her at bedtime? We’re sure you will add a detail or two, and your child will tell a slightly different version to his or her own kids down the line as the stories continue to evolve with each new generation.

Once Upon a Time… Exploring the World of Fairy Tales opens this Saturday, May 16, and runs through July 26. We hope that you’ll come and play with us!

For more information about Jack and the Beanstalk and its cultural origins, see:
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/jackbeanstalk/history.html
https://suite.io/john-k-davis/1wj72tj
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_and_the_Beanstalk