Going in a little bit of a different direction today and we are going exploring in the tale of Johnny Appleseed. It’s funny, but I put my list together of posts for this challenge about three weeks ago and just the other day, my daughter and I started reading this story in our homeschool history class. Pretty cool, coincidence. I think everyone’s pretty familiar with the tale of Johnny’s generosity and love he had for apples. I had thought that…
Some of my favorite kind of heroes in stories are the unlikely heroes, the ones that aren’t bold, beautiful and obvious. Ichabod Crane was a school teacher, and compared by some to a scarecrow that had abandoned his post in the fields. He was not classically good looking, nor was he thought to be particularly brave, but he is the man we learn about in the story of the Headless Horseman. I love Tim Burton’s version of this story, and…
The holidays are my favorite time of year and they kick off with one of the best, Halloween. Even as an adult, I love seeing all the houses decorated and how kids get excited about their costumes. It’s so much fun to me to get the house all set up, making cookies that look like fingers. It wasn’t until I was in college that I learned the history behind the holiday. History, to me, is full of awesome stories, and…
I don’t want to bash the brothers too hard, but when I realized that the stories that I was really fond of as a kid were in fact a not as “G rated” as I thought, I was a bit shocked. To say the least. It’s a little disturbing to realize that while Cinderella didn’t have mice, she did have birds that helped her and eventually plucked the eyes out of her step-sisters after her wedding to the prince. Or…
You have to kiss a few frogs, before you can find a prince. Who comes up with this stuff? Why on Earth would ANYONE want to kiss a frog, even as it is meant in this case, if you suspect that he or she might be a “frog,” why would you want to kiss them? I think that the Grimm brothers were laughing when the wrote this; although from what I’ve read the story originally had the princess break the…