Archive for March, 2017

Norse Myths for Kids

norse myths for kids, thor, storytime, kids magazine subscriptions, best magazines for kidsWhen I was growing up, Norse myths were one of my absolute favourite reads. We had an old, old book with a battered cover and dog-eared pages. In the front was a detailed drawing of the mythical tree, Yggdrasil, which I used to study intensely. The idea of a tree connecting different worlds boggled my mind. It was like a much cooler version of Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree. As a kid, I couldn’t resist climbing trees, hoping they’d lead somewhere exciting. To this day, I can’t walk past an impressive ancient tree without naming it Yggdrasil.

Not just that, but as an early lover of language and its origins, I was fascinated by the idea that supposedly mythical Norse gods once had enough influence to lend their names to days of the week. Odin (or Woden in Old English) for Wednesday, Thor for Thursday, and Freyja for Friday.

Add to this the humour and cleverness in the original Norse myths, especially from the mischievous trickster Loki (read more about cool tricksters here), and I was won over. My only regret is that the female characters don’t have more starring roles.

Norse Myths in Storytime

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Thor in his wedding gown on the left in Storytime Issue 3! Art by Pauliina Hannuniemi.

So far in Storytime, we’ve featured several Norse myths, including a few Thor stories. Back in Issue 3, one of my favourites, Thor’s Stolen Hammer – in which Thor is tricked by Loki into cross-dressing to retrieve his hammer from the giants. In Storytime 31, Thor ends up duelling with a giant with a stone skull. Odin also makes an appearance on an eight-legged horse. An eight-legged horse, I tell you! I was pleased to see that Marvel put this in their second Thor film. You can also read more of Thor’s adventures and find out how he got his hammer in Storytime Issue 47.

I suppose that brings me to the point of this blog. We hope that Marvel’s Thor films are encouraging more kids to read and enjoy Norse myths. We really do, because it would be a shame if all their knowledge of Thor and his crazy cohorts was limited to what they saw in the movies, as enjoyable as they can be.

Sometimes, you just can’t beat a good story in written form, so we’ll keep putting Norse myths in Storytime, because they deserve a place in our magazine.

We always put a few fun facts and activities in our Myths and Legends section too. However, I thought I’d put a few extra Thor facts here for you to share with your kids. Maybe it will entice them to really get into Norse myths.

5 Fun Facts about Thor

1. Thor had loads of other names, including Atli, which means ‘the terrible’; Ennilang, meaning ‘the one with the wide forehead’ and, coolest of all, Vingthor or ‘Battle Thor’!

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Awesome art here and top by Tim Paul for Thor’s Duel in Storytime Issue 31!

2. It’s not just Thor’s hammer that has power. Thor also owns a special belt, which doubles his strength, and iron gloves, which he has to wear to handle his hammer.

3. His favourite form of transport was edible! Thor got around in a chariot pulled by two goats called ‘Teeth-snarler’ and ‘Teeth-grinder’. Every now and again, if he got hungry, he ate the goats and then brought them back to life.

4. Thor started a fashion craze – hammer pendants were the in thing among the Vikings, who loved their Norse gods.

5. Thor’s house was the biggest home ever built in Asgard and had 540 rooms! He lived there with his wife Sif and his daughter, Thrud (‘Strength’). He also has two sons called Modi (‘Brave’) and Magni (‘Strong’). There’s a definite theme here…

I reckon a good place to share these facts might be in the middle of the woods, when you’ve found a particularly fine Yggdrasil tree to climb.

 

If you’ve already got a passion for Norse myths (or myths from any culture), you might want to download our free Myths and Legends Resource Pack, which has loads of great activities and interesting information about myths, legends, gods, heroes and monsters. A grand way to spend your time.

 

Have a great Thors-day and enjoy sharing the magic of Norse myths with your kids!

 

Growth Mindset and Reading

Storytime magazine, bedtime stories for kids, kids magazine subscriptions, growth mindset and readingChances are that your child has come home from school in the last year or two talking about growth mindset. It’s a fairly new idea, though it seems to be based on a good dose of common sense, and the great news is that growth mindset and reading – or learning to read – are a match made in heaven.

Find out what a growth mindset actually is and how it could help your child to become a better and more confident reader.

What Is a Mindset?

The growth mindset idea was pioneered by US psychologist, Carol Dweck following decades of research. Dweck says that a mindset is something you firmly believe about yourself. For a child (or adult), this could be “I’m good at reading”, “I’m bad at maths”, “I’m naughty”, or, even worse, “I’m stupid”.

Dweck believes that your mindset – whether you’re aware of it or not – has a profound effect on the way you learn throughout life.

Fixed vs Growth

Someone with a fixed mindset believes that they’re either good at something or they’re not. For instance, good at reading, or bad at maths. They’ll put all their failures and successes down to the talent they were born with and won’t naturally make any effort to develop their skills. You could sum it up as “if you believe you can’t, you can’t.”

Someone with a growth mindset, however, believes that they can develop their skills, get better, and build on the talents they were born with. They’ll be more likely to challenge themselves and will view failures as a chance to learn and improve.

It’s possible to develop a growth mindset from a fixed one, and you can see how this would be far more beneficial to the school environment, and understand why so many teachers are talking about it right now.

Growth Mindset and Reading

One of the ways in which teachers are employing the growth mindset is in the feedback they give to their individual pupils. Instead of saying something is good (or not so good), they’ll praise the effort the pupil has put into working on it and relate that effort to the outcome.

This is something you can adopt at home. Here’s a simple example:

Fixed mindset encouragement: “Great reading.”

Growth mindset encouragement: “You worked so hard to pronounce all those tricky words and look how much better you read tonight and how much more you enjoyed it. Well done.”

The idea here is that your child will make a positive connection between putting in an effort and getting better at reading. From that, they’ll feel inspired and motivated to carry on. More importantly, they might feel more empowered by their own abilities, instead of being held back by a fixed mindset.

Some experts believe that giving growth mindset-style feedback to reluctant readers can be particularly effective. There are some useful and interesting growth mindset feedback examples here for all kinds of scenarios.

Stories for Growth Mindset

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Did the crow in this Aesop’s fable have a growth mindset? Illustration by Erica Salcedo.

Growth mindset is also about sharing good examples to inspire children, and stories can be a fantastic source. I’ve picked just a few from Storytime, which I believe feature positive growth mindset characters.

1. The Hare and the Tortoise (Storytime Issue 1)
You could describe this famous fable as a battle of fixed vs growth mindset. Instead of believing “I’m too slow to race”, the tortoise boldly takes on the challenge and puts itself forward. The tortoise demonstrates growth mindset. The hare, on the other hand, is so arrogant about its own speed, its own fixed mindset causes it to lose the race. “I’m fast, therefore I will win even if I take a nap”. This story is a great example of how growth mindset can bring surprising results.

2. The Mouse Merchant (Storytime Issue 8)
In this inspiring tale from India, a poor but determined boy, with no father and nothing more than a dead mouse to start his career, uses what he has to slowly and successfully build his own empire, one step at a time. A character with a brilliant growth mindset.

3. The Crow and the Pitcher (Storytime Issue 19)
You could also say the clever crow in this fable has a growth mindset. While all the other animals around it are bemoaning the lack of water and awaiting their own demise (“We will die if it doesn’t rain”), the crow seeks ways to survive the drought and comes up with an ingenious solution. It employs a growth mindset to avoid a grisly fate.

4. Moscione the Fool (Storytime Issue 32)
This is an old Italian folk tale about a lazy boy who is considered to be a fool. When he’s forced to go out in the world alone, however, he doesn’t let an “I’m stupid” fixed mindset get in his way. He proves everybody wrong, especially his unsupportive father.

 

Like all psychological approaches to education, growth mindset has its doubters. Some are wary of how warmly it has been welcomed into schools and wonder whether it oversimplifies individual educational needs, but many argue that they’re seeing evidence of how well it is working.

If you have a struggling or reluctant reader, why not give it a try? Encourage and applaud effort, recognise achievement and give positive examples through stories, books and news articles. There’s even more to growth mindset than that (there are great resources here), but it’s a good start. And if it can help one child stop believing “I’m rubbish at reading”, then surely that’s a positive thing.

 

Food for thought! See you next time.

 

 

Beauty and the Beast: the Real Story

10 things you never knew about Beauty and the Beast, storytime magazine, magazine subscriptions for kidsYou probably haven’t been able to avoid the excitement surrounding Disney’s new Beauty and the Beast, starring Emma Watson. But what do you know of the original story that inspired it?

Like most famous fairy tales given the Disney treatment, it’s hard to imagine that it had a life before Hollywood. Not least a life without singing clocks, candlesticks, teapots, bad guys like Gaston and 3D animation.

But the original story (a version of which is in our latest issue of Storytime) is a different beast indeed. For fairytale fans everywhere, here are 10 things you never knew about Beauty and the Beast.

10 Things You Never Knew about Beauty and the Beast

 

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Beauty and her magic mirror in Storytime Issue 31. Illustration by Letizia Rizzo.

1. The original printed version of Beauty and the Beast is credited to a French writer called Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve. She included it in a 1740 story collection called The Young American or Tales of the Sea. She claimed that a chambermaid told it to a young lady, while on board a ship to America.

2. Villeneuve’s telling is over one hundred pages long. In it, Beauty is the daughter of a king and a wicked fairy – the very same fairy who turns the prince into a dumb and pitiful Beast.

3. A highlight of Villeneuve’s version include Beauty chatting with birds. She also dreams every night of a dashing prince (who is actually the Beast). Even better, she is able to watch any theatrical performance of her choice through a magic mirror. As this version is from 1740, that’s a pretty cool concept. A wise fairy also visited her in her in dreams.

4. Villeneuve might be most famous for Beauty and the Beast, but in her lifetime, she was best known for her novels. Interestingly, her own story is one of riches to rags. Sadly, she married a man who wasted her family’s fortune and she was widowed at the age of 26. It’s thought she found love later in life with a Parisian playwright.

5. Villeneuve’s story didn’t stay the course. Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont rewrote it several years later, creating the adaptation we know best today. She also got rid of the rather long ending. Beaumont wrote the story for governesses to share with gifted young girls.

6. In Beaumont’s version, a fairy turns the two mean sisters into statues at the end – statues that are conscious. “You shall stand before your sister’s palace gate, and be it your punishment to behold her happiness; and it will not be in your power to return to your former state, until you own your faults, but I am very much afraid that you will always remain statues,” says the fairy.

7. Neither of the two versions above actually describe how Beast looks, other than saying he is ugly, furry, fierce and frightful. The Beast we imagine today is the creation of clever illustrators, animators and special effects supremos.

8. Anthropologists believe the story is actually over 4,000 years old. Indeed, elements of Beauty and the Beast appear in tales from many different cultures. In Cupid and Psyche (Storytime Issue 17) – a myth from Ancient Rome – Psyche is transported to a magical palace, where she is served by invisible servants and not allowed to see Cupid’s true form. In East of the Sun, West of the Moon (Storytime Issue 2) – an old Norwegian fairy tale – a young girl is taken to a castle hidden in a mountain, served by invisible servants and not allowed to see the bear by night. Also, in The Singing, Springing Lark from the Brothers Grimm, the enchanted prince is disguised as a lion. Perhaps Cupid and Psyche inspired Villeneuve’s tale.

9. Disney weren’t the first to make a Beauty and the Beast film. That accolade belongs to French director, Jean Cocteau, whose 1946 movie is considered to be a romantic, fantasy classic.

10. For some reason, the original French title, La Belle et la Bete, sounds so much more “fairy tale” than Beauty and the Beast, don’t you think?

 

I love delving into the origins of well-known fairy tales and can’t help thinking there’s an interesting story to be told about Ms Villeneuve. I wonder whether she ever met Beaumont, who was 26 years her junior? Furthermore, what would she have thought of Beaumont’s adaptation? And what would they both think of Disney’s latest reimagining of the story? Would they approve? What do you think?

The story may well be thousands of years old, but like the Brothers Grimm, you have to admire Villeneuve for getting it down on paper and ensuring it would never be forgotten.

 

Long live fairy tales!

 

 

Storytime Issue 31 Is Out Now!

Storytime Issue 31 is out now, magazine subscriptions for kids, kids magazine subscriptions, storytime magazine, best bedtime stories, beauty and the beastNew issue weeks are always the most exciting round here and we’re delighted to say that Storytime Issue 31 is out now – and it’s both a beauty and a beast of an issue!

Yes, in light of Disney’s big movie release, we couldn’t miss the opportunity to share with you the original and classic version of Beauty and the Beast. There may not be a singing teapot or candlestick in sight, but there is a great opportunity here to share with your children an amazing tale that is thought to be over 4,000 years old, and which thrived for a long time before Disney put their creative stamp on it. It’s always an interesting exercise to compare the film version with the original, so why not indulge yourself in both? Our gorgeous cover illustration is by Letitia Rizzo, who has given us a very dashing Beast!

Get the lowdown on our contributors and stories here…

Inside Storytime Issue 31

We’re celebrating spring with a learn-off-by-heart abridgement of William Wordsworth’s Daffodils – a great poem for home and school. In fact, school subscribers get our free Daffodils Resource Pack to use in class. Find out more here! Look out for Silvia Sponza’s very original take on the illustration too.

Norse myth, Thor, Odin, Storytime magazine, kids magazine subscriptions, Storytime Issue 31 is out nowOur popular new strand, Tales from Today, returns with Crocodile’s Silver Suit. It’s a sweet and funny story by new writer Lowri Kirkham. Lowri, a student and mum from North Wales, has been writing for several years. She loves sharing stories with her six-year-old daughter. Starring jungle animals and a roller disco, we think this will be really popular with little ones, especially thanks to Lee Cosgrove’s warm and humorous illustrations.

For a bit of action, we’ve got Thor’s Duel – a cracking tale from Norse mythology, featuring Odin, Thor, a giant with a stone skull and an eight-legged horse! You’d be mad to miss it and  brilliant and Tim Paul‘s slightly bonkers illustrations.

Bickering siblings? Look no further than our Famous Fable, The Foolish Otters, for a great lesson in compromise. In our story, it’s a clever jackal who gets the better of the otters. Berta Sastre provided the wonderfully expressive illustrations .

This issue’s Tale from Around the World comes from South Korea and features The Terrible Tiger, except she’s not really that terrible at all and gets outwitted by a fruit! It turns out that Korea is home to loads of great stories and I hope to feature more of them in future. Illustrator Pham Quang Phuc has created a truly great tiger for us.

 

St Patrick's Day, leprechaun, irish folk tale, irish stories for kids, storytime magazine, kids magazine subscriptionsOur rhyming Alphabet Zoo series is back again, this time featuring animals beginning with the letter C. Storytime favourite Tim Budgen illustrated this poem. On this trip, you can learn about the cockatoo, coati, capybara, chameleon and camel. Plus, you can download our Alphabet Zoo activity pack and collect our posters. We’ve had loads of downloads so far, so we’ll keep putting them up there for you.

Finally, we’re celebrating St Patrick’s Day with a fantastic, funny story from Ireland – Jack and the Leprechaun. We hope it gives you a chuckle and you enjoy Daby Ihsan‘s illustrations, which have a rich, retro feel. Farmer Jack in this story reminds me of a well-known Northern comedian. Let me know if you can spot who. We might just have to share it with him on Twitter.

We hope you enjoy Storytime Issue 31. We are always happy to hear what you think on Twitter or Facebook, and don’t forget that we’re on Pinterest too.

 

Happy reading!