Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Roald Dahl: Master and Commander.



When I watched the film called Matilda, I thought: What kind of marvellous mind has been able to invent this modern fable… Today, I know the answer, Roald Dahl.
Matilda, the modern Cinderella, combine a lot of characteristics in its argument that make it a big Children’s Literature’s example. Matilda hasn’t parents, an orphan girl (like Oliver Twist, Harry Potter, Peter Pan or another Roald Dahl’s book’s main character of The Witches-), she has strange magical powers (like Harry Potter too) and the novel action succeed at school (school is the best and the worst place for children’s adventures, two faces of the same coin). The last thing: Matilda loves books.
Few years later, I know the answer to that question: the Matilda’s creator is Roald Dahl. In this point, it has come the moment to speak about Roald Dahl, probably, the most important 20th century’s Children’s Literature’s author.
Roald Dahl was born in 1916 -Llandaf (Wales)- and died on 1990. His life was full of happy and sad events (like he was pilot in II World War and his daughter Olivia died when she was a child). A lot of his books have been traduced to many languages -like French, German, Spanish, Japanese or Chinese- and have been adapted to cinema. Among his creations can cite The Witches, Dirty Beasts or his brilliant traditional fairy tales’ adaptation, Revolting rhymes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, George’s Marvellous Medicine or James and the Giant Peach.

More information http://www.roalddahl.com/

Monday, November 10, 2008

Memories



My passion for books began very early. When I was a child, my father and I get used to visiting the library. I remember that we read a lot. I loved comic, illustrated books…, some adventure novels, like Treasure Island or Gulliver’s Travels… I really had fun. Since those years, I like libraries. Libraries are beautiful places where words live.
Now I used to go there too, and I read and read too.
In my memories, there are a lot of books that have changed me. My mind has grown up with some stories. One of them is Frederick. Frederick was created by Leo Lionni, one of the most known illustrators and authors of Children’s Literature. Among his works we can quote Little blue and little yellow or Swimmy.
Frederick tells the life of a mice family. While four of these mice work hardly collecting food to eat during the winter, the fifth mouse, doesn’t. This mouse, Frederick, is a special mouse. He collects the sun’s heat, the flowers’ colours and the words carried by the wind. Simply, read it.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Contrary thoughts


We find a lot of conflicting thoughts in fairy tales or Children’s Literature. In these kinds of stories have been combined pairs of thoughts or feelings, like realism/idealism, sadness/happiness, serious/cheerful, incorrect politically/correct politically, etc. Like the whole life… The life is plenty of conflicting situations that involved us in many dilemmas: when you are going to get married, when you want to have a child, when you obtain a new job, when somebody dies… Everybody doubts, it’s a life’s law.
If there is somebody who doubts about all, this is Charlie Brown. This character, created by Charles M. Schulz , represents the eternal child. He’s honest, lovely, fearful, ... He’s human too… Charlie Brown is so close…!
Charles M. Schulz created Peanuts in 1950, from then to the present day, after his decease too, Peanuts: Lucy, Sally, Linus, Marcie, Patty and the rest of Charlie Brown’s family have had a lot of followers around the world.
At the end, say that I don’t know if Charlie Brown’s hesitation is a good solution to world’s problems and I don’t know if Obama could be good solutions to this too… We’ll hope it…