Kepler's 2020 Project in the News:
Follow us on Facebook
This is one of my very favorite fairy tales (I don't have many; I like most fairy tales, but I only really love a few). It's about a princess who is deprived of all her gravity, both literally and figuratively. As a baby, she floats up beneath the ceiling and out the palace windows; and as a young woman, she must carry stones to weigh herself down or else drift away into the sky. She never cries and she never sees the seriousness in anything. She can't be sad and there's something odd about her laugh because, as the story tells us, "the hatching of a real hearty laugh requires the incubation of gravity." George MacDonald tells the story of what happens to the weightless, heartless princess with elegance and wit. He takes pleasure in unusual words and puns, and mixes humor with seriousness so neither gets boring. This edition has illustrations by the incredible Maurice Sendak. They are delicate and finely drawn in black and white, and they emphasize both the beauty and the oddness of the story. It's a fantastic little book, and I always buy several copies because I somehow manage to give them all away. Megan K.
|
|||
