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Our current guest is Mel U from The Reading Life. Mel has an awesome post for us today about two of Oscar Wilde's fairy tales. I hope you enjoy the reading. I know it did.

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"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." — Albert Einstein
Fairy tales and their cousins the fable and parable are the sources of much wisdom. They evolved in time into the novel and the short story. They have been around probably longer than the written word. They came before Homer and the great Indian Epics. I was very happy to see the announcement for Fairy Tale Fortnight and decided I would do a post on two of my favorite Oscar Wilde fairy tales.

"The Selfish Giant" by Oscar Wilde (5 pages, 1888)

Oscar Wilde (1854 to 1900-Dublin, Ireland) is the author of Portrait of Dorian Gray (1890) read and loved to this day by readers all over the world. I loved it many years ago when I read it for the first time for the many epigrams that seem to defy the conventional too adult world. Like many people, I wished I could come up with remarks like those spoken in The Portrait of Dorian Gray or even to know someone who could. It is also a great study of the corruption and hypocrisy of late Victorian English high society.

Wilde also wrote and published a number of short stories done in the style of a classic fairy tales. Among the more famous is "The Selfish Giant". As the story begins the giant is returning from a long trip and is not happy when he sees the beautiful gardens surrounding his castle have become the play ground for local children.

One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend the Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After the seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his conversation was limited, and he determined to return to his own castle. When he arrived he saw the children playing in the garden.
"What are you doing here?" he cried in a very gruff voice, and the children ran away.
"My own garden is my own garden," said the Giant; "any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself." So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board.

TRESPASSERS
WILL BE

PROSECUTED

When the spring returns next year there are flowers, and birds and happy scenes in all of the gardens but that of the selfish giant. It is still winter in his garden. Wilde's prose is simple and echoes masterfully the rhythm of simple fairy tales.

'I cannot understand why the Spring is so late in coming,' said the Selfish Giant, as he sat at the window and looked out at his cold white garden; 'I hope there will be a change in the weather.'
But the Spring never came, nor the Summer. The Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, but to the Giant's garden she gave none. 'He is too selfish,' she said. So it was always Winter there, and the North Wind, and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees.

Here is a simply perfect description of winter:

He did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that it was merely the Spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting.

If you like, The Portrait of Dorian Gray I think you will like this simple story. It is also an easy way to sample Wilde's style. I read it on line here and I enjoyed seeing the original illustrations by Charles Robinson that were published with the story. It appears all of Wilde can be read on line. This story can be read in just a very few minutes and it is well worth your time, I think.

"The Happy Prince" by Oscar Wilde (1888, 7 pages)

As "The Happy Prince" opens we are given a description of a statue that has sort of become the symbol of the town.

High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt.

"When I was alive and had a human heart," answered the statue, "I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans — Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot chose but weep.

I read it on line here and I really liked the inclusion of the original pastel illustrations.

The Uses of Enchantment
Bruno Bettelheim

Bruno Bettelheim was one of the great child psychologists of the twentieth century and perhaps none of his books has been more influential than this revelatory study of fairy tales and their universal importance in understanding childhood development.

Analyzing a wide range of traditional stories, from the tales of Sindbad to “The Three Little Pigs,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “The Sleeping Beauty,” Bettelheim shows how the fantastical, sometimes cruel, but always deeply significant narrative strands of the classic fairy tales can aid in our greatest human task, that of finding meaning for one’s life.

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Thanks to the lovely Edie @ Silence in the Library, we have a copy of The Uses of Enchantment to offer 1 lucky winner! (Thanks, Edie!) This book is a must for the truly fairy tale obsessed (yes, Misty has read it...) .
To enter, fill out the form below.
Please note, this giveaway is on The Book Rat and Books From Bleh to Basically Amazing — please only enter once; multiple entries will be deleted.
Ends May 5th May 8th!
International
+1 for spreading the word

Today's first guest is Danya from A Tapestry of Words. She's got an awesome post prepared for us and I can't wait for the rest of you to read this amazing post! So, without taking anymore of your time, here's Danya.

When someone says the word “fairy tale” what’s the first thing that pops into your head? Cinderella’s glass slipper, perhaps. Beauty and the Beast twirling around a ballroom. Seven dwarves with seven distinct personalities. An ugly little man with a penchant for other people’s first-born children. But probably not…
A baby girl found inside a bamboo trunk.
A fox who can shapeshift into a beautiful woman.
A tea-kettle that’s really a raccoon-dog in disguise.
A boy who battles demons with the help of a monkey, pheasant and dog.
Right?
Yet these are all fairy tales…from Japan. Ever since I started studying Japanese (way back in elementary school) I have collected Japanese fairy tale and folk tale books. I thought I’d share my favourite story along with some of the illustrations from the version I own.

This one is the first Japanese fairy tale I learned about, and it's probably also the most famous. In Japanese it's called "Kaguya-hime," but it also often goes by the titles “The Bamboo-Cutter’s Daughter,” “The Bamboo Princess,” "Lady Kaguya's Secret," or “The Tale of the Bamboo-Cutter.” The story begins with an old bamboo-cutter chopping down a shining bamboo tree one day to find, to his surprise, a little baby girl inside.

He and his wife adopt her, christening her “Kaguya-hime” which means “Radiant Princess.” Though the couple was originally poor, now every time he chops down bamboo, inside the trunks are gold pieces. The girl grows into a stunningly beautiful woman who is soon surrounded by admirers hoping to wed her. She doesn’t wish to marry any of them, but agrees to set each of them a task to complete to demonstrate their courage. She asks one to bring her the Buddha’s stone bowl, another the golden bough from Mount Horai’s sacred tree, a third a jewel from a dragon’s forehead, and so on. None of them manage to satisfactorily complete these impossible tasks.

The Emperor soon hears of this and demands to see her, but she will not come to court. Angry, he goes to her home in person, but when he sees her he falls immediately in love and tells the bamboo-cutter that Kaguya-hime will marry him. It is then that Kaguya-hime admits that she is a princess from the moon, and must return to her home there soon. Distraught, the Emperor goes back to his palace, but sends Kaguya-hime exquisite presents, and they begin to exchange poems.

Then one evening the Moon King comes for Kaguya-hime, ignoring her pleas to stay on earth. The Emperor had set a guard around her, but at midnight all of the soldiers are rendered immobile as a cloud drifts down from the moon and floats over the bamboo-cutter's house. A voice commands Kaguya-hime to drink from a goblet, which contains the elixir of immortality. She does so, then is told to put on a shining robe that will cause her to forget all her memories of life on earth. Desperate, she writes one final letter to the Emperor and, along with the last of the elixir, gives it to him. Then she wraps the robe around herself and returns with the cloud to the moon.
The Emperor, heartbroken, does not wish to live forever without her. He finds the mountain that is closest to the heavens, and there he burns the letter, fueling the fire with the elixir of immortality. "Let the smoke reach her and help her to remember for just a moment!" the Emperor cries out in anguish.

And to this day, we can sometimes still see a wisp of smoke floating up from the crater top of Mt. Fuji.

And now, just because I can... I've actually hiked up Mt. Fuji. It's a grueling climb, but getting to the top is very satisfactory. Here are some photos from my experience:

The view hiking up, as the sun set behind some other mountain peaks.

Made it to the top! And just in time for...

... the sunrise!

Please help me welcome Alexa to the blog today! She is our third Memory Monday guest! And, because she loves the book she's talking to us about so much, she is going to be giving a copy away!!

Hi Everyone!
I'm Alexa, I'm a 20 year old college student studying to get a Bachelors Degree in Nuclear Medicine. I normally get blank looks when I say nuclear medicine so basically it is just a fancy title for the techs that take MRI, CT and PET scans. I love to read YA books and Adult Romance so I started a blog to share my opinions with others out there who love to read. I started my blog, Pages of Forbidden Love, back in August and I'm amazed and how many great people I have already met through my blog. The blogging community is full of great people with new things going on all the time. My book wish list is now miles longer since I now read so many great reviews for all sorts of books that I would have never even thought of reading before.

As part of Memory Monday I would like to share one of my childhood memories with you, I promise it has to do with books. When I was little, try first and second grade I really didn't like reading. I've always been a math and science person but I hated reading. Obviously this is a huge problem because when you are in first and second grade you need to learn how to read and it is a big part of your education. It was so bad that I had to stay after school with my teacher for her to spend extra time teaching me how to read.

Through the extra time spent with my teacher I learned how to read but I still didn't like it all that much. All of a sudden between 8th and 9th grade I started to go to the library to check out books from them and slowly I started to find books that were great for me. I feel that every person can be a reader, they just have to sometimes get through some genres that aren't for them before they find ones that they really enjoy.

One of the first books that I became hooked on was Battle Dress by Amy Efaw. The story is about a girl named Andi who wants to escape her family live so badly that she wants to go to West Point Academy to join the military. The story has a great group of male characters that in a weird way accept Andi even though she is one of the few girls in their Platoon. This story is a great story about a girl making it in a "man's" world. I personally love this book and I have read it at least 4 times. However, this book sadly seems to go unnoticed in the book world. Even though I am not a huge fan of the military I think this is a book anyone could read and love, who doesn't love a strong female who could be a good role model for younger girls. This book is about so much more than just West Point or the military, I hope that more people will read this book, give it a chance, what do you have to lose?

Giveaway:
In order to try to get more buzz going about one of my favorite books I'm going to be giving away a copy of Battle Dress by Amy Efaw. I will be giving away the newest reprint which is the black cover featuring Andi that I posted above.

Rules:
This giveaway is open to US Residents only. The giveaway will run from today, Feb 14th until Feb 28th at 11:59 PM.
The winner will be announced within one week of the giveaway's end date.

How to Enter:
~ Leave a comment on this post with your email address

Extra Entries:
+1 Follow Ashley's blog (Books from Bleh to Basically Amazing!)
+1 Follow my blog Pages of Forbidden Love
A huge thank you to Ashley for letting me be a guest on her blog.

Thanks again for being with us today Alexa! This is a book that's definitely going onto my wishlist!
If you would like a chance to be a guest blogger for Memory Monday, fill out this form, or send me an email!

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner is a book that's been sitting on my shelf for about 3 years now. It was a text book for one of my Political Science classes in college. This book was used entirely for in class discussion. All of my classes that semester had a large reading load, and this one didn't seem as important to get read as the actual texts and published articles.

I read the first 3 chapters along with the class, before I prioritized (well, probably more like got lazy) and set it on the back burner. But, I enjoyed the book and the information it presented, and I've always planned to go back and read it. So, I added it to my Fill-in-the-Gaps list, and on my list for Adam's TBR Challenge, over at Roof Beam Reader.

I liked this book. A lot. The writing is mostly smooth, and the questions asked and the information presented is readable, entertaining, and interesting. Levitt is a somewhat unorthodox economist, claiming he isn't very good with numbers, and the traditional economic subjects don't interest him too much. He'd much rather decipher why drug dealers still live with their mothers if they are all supposed to be rich, or whether or not your name can really make a difference in your future careers. Dubner is a journalist who interviewed Levitt. They liked working together, and decided to collaborate on a book, detailing some of the studies and analysis they did to answer some of these questions.

I liked that the questions asked were a little unusual, but also relevant and pertinent to life. Economics can be broken down into the study of incentives, and it's interesting to note what they believe to be highly motivating. Incentives aren't always monetary. They can also be social, and moral. These incentives are often connected. Breaking apart or changing these incentives give us an added insight into human behavior, and why people do what they do. I don't know that I agree with everything they theorize about in this book, but I can say that they have done a very thorough job with their research, and it was never dull.

It's not a book for everyone, but then — I don't think much non-fiction is. But, this is a book that will make you think a little differently about the world and ask a new set of questions, even if it only happens while actually reading the book. I'm glad I finally finished this one. It was definitely worth it.

Have any of you read this book, or their blog? What do you think?