On why it's basically a miracle I found a husband - Kelly McCaughrain

Having had a great NaNo (38K words, thank you very much), I’ve been chillaxing this week by messing about doing Myers Briggs personality tests online for my characters. As a lapsed psychology student, I love this shizz.

The Myers Briggs system divides everyone into 16 personality types based on things like introversion, extroversion, thinking, intuitive, sensing, judging etc. Then it gives you a description of that type, their strengths and weaknesses, how they typically behave in relationships, in the workplace, and as parents.

For example, I did one for myself (of course) and was told I’m an INTJ. The description informed me:

• That INTJs are popular as fictional villains
• That well-known INTJs include Vladimir Putin and all the worst people from Game of Thrones (but also Michelle Obama and Katniss Everdeen so that’s cool)
• That I’m a fantastic employee unless you have the temerity to tell me to do something
• That I'm unlikely to ever meet anyone mad enough to marry me
• And that I’ll probably never even meet anyone else like me because this type is shared by only 0.9% of women. 

Luckily, no one (least of all me or Putin) is saying the Myers Briggs system is a psychologically valid tool. It’s been fairly widely discredited in fact. But mainly because the system was designed to test potential employees to see where they’d be best suited and it really doesn't do that very well. (Companies do still use it despite the widespread discrediting.)

And yet people love it, and they find the personality descriptions spookily accurate. I wouldn’t base any life decisions on it, but yeah, I could totally run Russia. 

And I think it’s actually really useful for working on your characters, because what it does do, is take a person’s answers to a bunch of questions and produce a summary of their personality. And it’s spookily accurate because you’ve basically given it the information, it’s only summarising what you’ve told it already. 

So if you do it for one of your characters, answering the questions based on their behaviour in your book, it won't tell you anything you didn't already know, but it does give you a little synopsis of them. Which is SO handy, because you can stick it over your desk and refer back to it while you’re writing. It’s like a shorthand, shortcut, quick-reference guide to that person and how they’ll typically behave in a variety of situations.

I have a tendency to assume my characters would do what I would do. But of course they wouldn’t. The personality descriptions can suggest behaviour you mightn’t have thought of. And in the early stages of drafting, it can be so helpful to have something to keep you grounded in that character’s personality. You don’t have to be rigid about it or make them stereotypical, but I think it does help to keep them believable.

Plus you get to spend hours procrastinating by taking tests for yourself and all your friends! Did I mention I studied psychology because I’m incredibly nosy?

You can do the free test here. Come on, what else is there to do in a locked down December?

 

Kelly McCaughrain is the author of the Children's Books Ireland Book of the Year,

 

Flying Tips for Flightless Birds. 

She is the Children's Writing Fellow for Northern Ireland #CWFNI

She also blogs at The Blank Page

@KMcCaughrain

 

Illustrators and designers. I salute you. Moira Butterfield

Today I would like to celebrate two groups of people. Without them children's books would not exist in the glorious form we find them. 

The illustrators I have been working with come from all corners of the globe because it's a truly international business. I feel privileged to be associated with them and they have all left me speechless at the way they have brought my words to life. I like to reach out to them to give them words of personal encouragement - usually through Instagram as lots of fabulous illustrators show their work on Insta. I'm aware that they're putting in many hours and it's not always an easy process so I like to say hello and good luck. However, I also make sure I leave them well alone to do their creative thing! When their work arrives it's a glorious moment. It's really important that all our illustrators get lots of credit whenever books get mentioned btw. Here's a selection from recent times: 

Vivian Mineker. From Taiwan and the US. Currently in lovely Slovenia! 
We've also done The Secret Life of Bees together. It's out in 2021. 

Jesus Verona, from Spain but living in Sweden.
2 books coming out in 2021 due to the virus. 

Claudia Boldt, out in L.A. 

The delightful Fago Studios in France. 

Fabulous talent Bryony Clarkson, living in Oxford. 

                                                                   This book out 2021. 

Taiwanese illustrator Cindy Wume.
We're working together on something exciting for 2022. 

Bryony Clarkson's fantastic work. 

A snippet of gorgeous upcoming work from Jesus Verona. 

An upcoming book with the genius Salvatore Rubbino,
who lives in North London. I think it will be out in 2022. 

The designers - I've been incredibly lucky to work with some magicians/designers this year. They've chosen the perfect artists, then taken my words and moulded them into great layouts. The designers help to manage the whole tricky process that is the recipe for an illustrated book. I salute all of you for your hidden but vital input. I know it hasn't been easy this year grappling with big computer programmes while at home and trying to make sure you know what your editors and sales department are thinking. Chapeau! 

If you'd like to celebrate some of the in-house talent that has helped you this year, please go ahead below! 

Moira Butterfield 

www.moirabutterfield.co.uk

Twitter: @moiraworld

Instagram @moirabutterfieldauthor 

'What's sealing wax?' Or, More Borrowing - Anne Rooney

Borrowers are in the the zeitgeist, it seems. I came here this morning with the intention of writing about The Borrowers by Mary Norton, only to find that Paul May had beaten me to it two days ago with his excellent critique. Luckily, I wasn't going to attempt anything so erudite and analytical. This is more a companion piece, about reading it afresh with a new reader, MB, who will be seven in a few days.

When I finished reading all the Arabel and Mortimer stories (by Joan Aiken) to MB, she turned to the advertising pages at the back and chose The Borrowers as her next book. I duly went to Heffers and bought it. It's a roaring success. She sees, so far, none of the threat that Paul identifies and that is clear to adults. To her, the dangers are excitements. I'm not sure how it will be when we get to the end with the prospect of the rat-catcher, but she can see there are more books in the series so Arrietty clearly isn't going to be eaten. That's an advantage to advertising pages that I hadn't thought of. (And, to be fair, a source of solace not available to the very first readers of Norton's first book in the series.) Homily's remark that woodlice 'smell like old knives', which I find one of the most chilling similes in children's literature, MB responded to only with indignation. 'They do NOT!' She is a fan of woodlice. I could actually write a whole post on just that simile. Maybe one day...

Reading The Borrowers now is a bit of a challenge in that the things borrowed are almost entirely unfamiliar, as are most of the details of the setting. The Borrowers live behind the wainscot ('What's a wainscot?') Arrietty seals her letter with sealing wax. ('What's sealing wax?) She finds 'reels and reels of coloured thread'. (What are 'reels and reels?') Pod uses a hat pin to climb the curtains. ('What's a hat pin for?') Other things pass her by, obviously easy to accommodate — the flicker of gas lamps, even when turned down to a blue flame, seems OK. 

Last night she was comparing the size of the figures in the nativity set to Borrowers, trying to work out which were bigger. Borrowers are part of life now, outside the book. 'Where is your school shoe?' 'I don't know. Maybe Borrowers took it?' Therein lies the appeal. They are both a useful scapegoat and a group a small child can identify with. A child, too, is blamed for things whether they did it or not, and has no course to redress. A child is relatively powerless in a world dominated by much larger people. But there is a spark of joy, defiance and autonomy in the way the Borrowers, like a successful child, can appropriate, manipulate and re-purpose the human/adult world. Arrietty defies her parents and her parents defy the human beans. Borrowers and children alike make their world, real or imaginary, in the gaps and with the detritus of adult life. 

I have already tried to source the next Borrowers book as we're more than halfway through, but the lady in Heffers tells me that PRH hasn't reissued all of them yet. There is the compendium (we had to buy a compendium to get all the Arabel stories — two volumes, many hundred pages each). A compendium is not as easy for a small person who wants to read ahead. It's heavy. And besides, we have the first one. But there might be no choice. I don't think the craving for more Borrowers will wait while Puffin republishes so we might have to go for the 900 pages. As MB says, 'It's become one of my favouritest books in the world.' (I just asked her about the 900 pages. She says 'That's the one I wanted in the first place.' Small person unintimidated by large book.)

Anne Rooney

Latest book:

 

 

 

Miles Kelly, 2020

Borrowing by Paul May

The Borrowers is a remarkable book. Marcus Crouch called it 'flawless', and I agree with him. He also said that 'by its idea alone, one of the few really original ideas in children's literature, it would have been a landmark.' It is a dark and frightening book which is made bearable only by the brilliance of the characterisation and the precise realisation of the Borrowers' lives. It has atmospheric line illustrations by Diana Stanley and wonderful dialogue, but it would be inaccurate to describe it as 'fun' or 'twee'—words I've seen used to describe film adaptations. If you only know the Borrowers through their screen incarnations I recommend you read the book as soon as possible. The Sunday Times review on the back of my copy sums it up brilliantly: 'Beautifully written, poetic and almost always alarming, The Borrowers books have something very mysterious, sad and exciting about them.'

The book is a landmark and also, I think, a culmination. When I was reading it I found myself thinking of several of the other Carnegie winners I'd read recently. It seems to me that The Borrowers represents a synthesis of the most successful elements of those earlier books. The Clock family, Homily, Pod and Arrietty, reminded me of the Ruggles family in The Family from One End Street, and of the evacuated working-class families in Visitors from London. The Clocks, despite being only five inches tall are ordinary, recognisable people who live in a terrifyingly hostile world. Pod and Homily know about the dangers, but Arrietty is young and foolhardy and brave, and has to learn the hard way.

The Clocks are real people. There is nothing magical about them, but they do keep out of the way of 'human beans' and 'being seen' is the worst thing that can happen to them—well, almost the worst. They are, in fact, rather like BB's Little Grey Men, although in The Little Grey Men the characters are nowhere near as vivid and lively as those in The Borrowers and there is hardly a female in sight. Still, the close observation of the natural world from the point of view of a very small person finds echoes in The Borrowers as Arrietty goes outside for the first time:

'Cautiously she moved towards the bank and climbed a little nervously in amongst the green blades. As she parted them gently with her bare hands, drops of water plopped on her skirt and she felt the red shoes become damp. But on she went, pulling herself up now and again by rooty stems into this jungle of moss and wood-violet and creeping leaves of clover.'

Mary Norton

In The Little Grey Men we have this kind of thing: 'Being a damp sort of a place, weeds of all kinds flourished: all those plants which love water crowded round; giant dock, appearing not unlike the riverside plants of a tropical stream, with huge hairy columns for stalks as thick round as trees . . .'

There is a slight whiff of the schoolroom in BB's nature descriptions which is entirely absent from The Borrowers. Arrietty's journey (the first time she has ever been outside) is vividly realised, but also terrifying. Note the 'nervously' and even the 'blades' in the extract above. As we read about her bare hands and the drops of water and the red shoes we can't help thinking of blood. Well, I can't anyway. Further down the page we have this: ' . . . she knew about woodlice. There were plenty of them at home under the floor. Homily always scolded her if she played with them because, she said, they smelled of old knives.' A few lines later the chapter concludes like this: 'Startled, she caught her breath. Something had moved above her on the bank. Something had glittered. Arrietty stared.'

Illustration by Diana Stanley

Passages of description in The Borrowers always exist to create tension or to move the plot forward. Walter de la Mare also used detailed and poetic descriptions of the natural world from a small person's perspective, most notably in Memoirs of a Midget, but where de la Mare liked to cause unease by hinting at things unseen, Mary Norton made her Borrowers most emphatically real. And look at the Boy's reaction when he first sees Arrietty and she asks why he wants to kill her:

'In case,' came the surprised whisper at last, 'you ran towards me, quickly, through the grass . . . in case,' it went on, trembling a little, 'you scrabbled at me with your nasty little hands.' 

Mary Norton is evoking the human fear of the rat, I think, and it is as rats that the Borrowers will be exterminated if Mrs Driver has her way at the end of the book. It is a more visceral fear than those de la Mare conjures up in many pages of a barely glimpsed supernatural presence in his story, The Scarecrow, and the Boy's terrified reaction at this point gives us a warning of the way adults are likely to react if they find the Borrowers.

Whether or not Mary Norton was aware of these earlier writers we can't know for sure. I like to think she may have borrowed from them and she may also have borrowed from de la Mare the distancing or framing device that she uses to tell the story, though she certainly makes it her own and de la Mare is not the only one to use this kind of approach. The reader knows from the first paragraph that they are in the hands of a wonderfully skilful and assured writer:

'It was Mrs May who first told me about them. No, not me. How could it have been me - a wild, untidy, self-willed little girl who stared with angry eyes and was said to crunch her teeth?'

So, the author, Mary Norton, pretends to be a little girl who is hearing this story from Mrs May, and then says that it can't have been her, perhaps because she no longer recognises the little girl she once was. And then it turns out that Mrs May is only relaying a story told her by her brother, who was given to 'strange imaginings'. 'There was something about him,' says Mrs May, 'perhaps because we were brought up in India among mystery and magic and legends - something that made us think he saw things that other people could not see; sometimes we'd know he was teasing, but at other times - well, we were not so sure . . . '

This is a wartime book, just as much as were We Couldn't Leave Dinah and Visitors from London, even though it is set in the time of Queen Victoria. Mary Norton wrote about the origin of the book. She describes (in the introduction to the Puffin Complete Borrowers) how undiagnosed short-sightedness in childhood led her to focus on tiny things seen up close. 'What would it be like, this child would wonder, lying prone upon the moss, to live among such creatures—human oneself to all intents and purposes, but as small and vulnerable as they.'

These childhood imaginings were forgotten until 'just before the 1940 war, when a change was creeping over the world as we had known it . . . There were human men and women who were being forced to live (by stark and tragic necessity) the kind of life a child had once envisaged for a race of mythical creatures. One could not help but realise (without any thought of conscious symbolism) that the world at any time could produce its Mrs Drivers who would in turn summon their Rich Williams. And there would be.' (Rich Williams is the rat-catcher.)

A N Wilson saw something slightly different in the book. Having noted that 'the ingenious way in which Pod and Homily 'make do' with cast-offs . . . does reflect the resourcefulness of British families during the austerity years', and having also suggested that the terrible destruction of the Borrowers' home, with the roof ripped off, 'owes much to the British experience of losing houses and possessions through aerial bombardment', he goes on to say:

'Many readers in 1952, however, the year of the book's publication and of George VI's death, must have seen a faint parallel between Arrietty, last of her strange race and guardian of the Borrowers' future, and the figure of Princess Elizabeth.' Wilson also apparently described the book as, in part, an allegory of post-war Britain 'with its picture of a diminished people living in an old, half-empty house.'

The fact that Mary Norton denied 'any thought of conscious symbolism' doesn't mean there's no symbolism in the book, but I value the book's truthfulness more than its symbolism. We live in an uncertain world with unpredictable dangers ahead. Homily's biggest fear is that one of the Borrowers will be 'seen' and they will have to emigrate. To hear some people talk about 'immigrants' these days you would think it was an easy thing to leave everything you have and flee to another country. It's not so easy for Homily: 

'It's no good, Pod, I won't emigrate!'

'No one's asked you to,' said Pod.

'To go and live like Hendreary and Lupy in a badger's set! The other side of the world, that's where they say it is - all among the earthworms.'

'It's two fields away, above the spinney,' said Pod.

The book is all about weighing up risks and making choices. The Borrowers live with fear and anxiety all the time, and the book ends on a horrifying note as the rat-catcher prepares to smoke out the Borrowers so that his terriers can kill them. Mary Norton carefully leaves her readers with no certainty that the Borrowers have escaped this fate, or even that the story Mrs May's brother told was true. There were no plans at first for a sequel, but in the end there were four more books and a short story prequel, though even after this Mary Norton was not prepared to deliver a straightforward happy ending. She had lived through two world wars and her books mirror the real, unpredictable and dangerous world that she knew; the same world we live in now.

The final words from Peagreen at the end of the final book in the series resonate powerfully today, when 'Stay safe' has replaced 'Have a nice day,' as a farewell greeting at the supermarket checkout. Arrietty says: 

'I only wanted her to know we were safe . . .'

Peagreen looked back at her. He was smiling his quizzical, one-sided smile.

'Are we?' he asked gently. 'Are we? Ever?'

For those eagle-eyed readers who have noticed I haven't mentioned the 1951 Carnegie winner, The Wool-pack, by Cynthia Harnett, I will just say that there is a decent historical novel here struggling to get out from beneath the weight of a wealth of carefully researched detail about life in Tudor times and about the Cotswold wool trade in particular. The Borrowers is by some distance the best book to have won the Carnegie up to this point. The Wool-pack is interesting because it is a signpost towards Rosemary Sutcliff who would, in a few years time, achieve a perfect blend of plot, character and setting in books similar in quality to The Borrowers.  But The Wool-pack is not itself the finished article.

Cynthia Harnett 
Marcus Crouch said of her work: 'The stories are not exciting . . .'
A strange recommendation, but true.

A N Wilson's piece, Royal life as seen under the floorboards in in The Telegraph 4/10/2004 (paywall)

Also worth a look is The Borrowers Anew by Judith Elkin in Books for Keeps

Paul May's website

Creative Christmas writing ideas for children (and adults?) By Steve Way

 

I thought you might find the example ideas below useful for stimulating children (and maybe adults) to do some Christmas related creative writing. I’ve used them in schools and in other contexts and they seem to have gone down well! Just a possible tip; since the children invariably ask how many letters to Santa etc that they have to write I generally tell them that they have to write at least two but no more than six million (in which case we have to inform the police.) If the children are responsive to my daft humour I also let them know that I am going to let them write on the special modern, ‘new-fangled’ (I bemoan the fact that we never had any when I was at school) DOUBLE SIDED (Gasp!!) paper. If nothing else, it’s interesting to see how many of them get the joke!

~~~~~

                                                 Pongos Circus of Wonder,

                                                 The Big Top,

                                                 Wherever it is we’re at this week,

                                                 Tuesday 16^th December 2021

Dear Santa,

         I hope you are well. Giggles the clown here. For Christmas could I have some enormous trousers? I need them for my fellow clowns to pour custard down. I’ve had to wash my current pair of enormous trousers so many times they’ve shrunk – I think the custard makes them shrink faster for some reason.

         Also, could I have a new car for our act? Our old one is so worn, the pieces of it stick together when they are supposed to fall apart. Why at the end of one act the stupid old thing was running perfectly and still had all its doors on – ridiculous!

         Finally, unlike last year, please don’t send me any more new jokes. We’ll stick with the old ones, like we always have.

         Yours sincerely,

Giggles

~~~

                                                          Germany,

                                                          Germany,

                                                          Wednesday 16^th Dec 2021

Dear Santa,

         It’s Germany here. I hope you are well. For Christmas please could I have a few more mountains? Although I’ve got quite a few high bits, no one ever talks about my mountains. Lots of nearby countries are famous for their mountains and as you know I like to be the best at everything.

         It’s also occurred to me that as well as having a huge “Black Forest” how about letting me have a “Green Forest” or an “Orange Forest” or even a “Stripy Yellow and Blue Forest”. That would be a bit of a laugh – and you know how much I enjoy a bit of a laugh! … As long as it really is only a bit.

         Best Wishes,

                              Germany

 

~~~

                                                          9 Liquid Street,

                                                          Water Avenue,

                                                          Drinktown,

                                                          DR14 8WW

                                                          Friday 13^th December 2021

 

Dear Santa,

         I am writing on behalf of my carpet. My carpet has been in my house for over forty years (it was put in the house by the person who first moved into it.) In all that time it has never received a Christmas present. As you might imagine after forty years of being walked over, having dirty shoes cleaned on it, several muddy dogs rolling on it and quite a few cups of tea spilt on it, it is very threadbare. Is there any chance you could send it a couple of rugs to cover the most worn out and dirty patches, I’m sure it would appreciate them?

         Also, while I think about it, my old fridge could do with a couple of new drawers and a plastic thingy to go in the bottom of it. Finally, just to mention, my toilet roll holder needs a new middle bit.

         Thank you for your help.

         Yours,

                  Tony Turtlesoup

~~~

                                             The Round Table,

                                             Camelot Castle,

                                             Camelot,

                                             Fair England,

                                             Tuesday 4^th December Time of Yore

Dear Santa,

         I hope ye be well. For the season of Christ Mass, would ye be so kind as to send me some more knights for my round table. Some of them have been killed by dragons before others have slain them (the dragons that is.) Also, some of the victorious knights have married the fair maidens they’ve rescued and so that leads to an even greater shortage of knights. It’s depressing, especially at this time of year when the nights are drawing in. The nights are short and I’ve a shortage of knights.

         Oh, and did I mention that some of my knights have gone off on quests and never come back?

         Yours knight-shortagely,

                                               King Arthur

 

~~~

                                                               York Castle,

                                                               York (where else?)

                                                               14^th Dec 1649

Dear Santa,

         I hope you are well. The Duke of York here. I was wondering if you could send me ten thousand more men? The ten thousand I’ve got at the moment are hopeless!

         All I did was march them up to the top of the hill and march them down again. And when they were up, they were up in arms about how hard I was making them work and when they were down, they were down on their backs snoozing the minute we’d got back to camp. I can’t have an army as useless as this! It wasn’t even much of a hill! Why if I try and take them over the Pennines to invade Lancaster, they’ll take all year to get there and be no more use as soldiers as a bunch of school children!

         I look forward to hearing from you and hope you’ll send me some real soldiers.

         Yours sincerely,

                                  The Grand old Duke (of York)

 

                        ~~~~~

                                                      Buckingham Palace,

                                                      The Mall,

                                                      London

                                                      Monday 16^th December 2021

Dear Santa,

         Could One please have three hundred new corgis for Christmas? The palace seems so empty with only two thousand of them running around the place and knocking over the statues.

         Also, could One have some more guards and things covered in gold and jewels.

         Yours sincerely,

                                    Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth

 

P.S. A few pairs of warm slippers would be appreciated too.

 

P.P.S. And a new crown if you’re running out of stocking filler ideas.

 

~~~~~

The Stables,

                                                    Behind the Toy Factory,

                                                    LAPLAND,

                                                    Wednesday 16^th Dec 2021

 

Dear Santa,

         Rudolf here. I know I ask for this every year, but this year please can I have a year off. It’s exhausting flying around the world pulling your heavy sleigh. It always makes me laugh to think that children think your sleigh is magic and floats of its own accord. As you know if we didn’t pull on your sleigh fast enough and hard enough, it would fall down.

         Well frankly this year I really am exhausted. OK the rest of the reindeer and I have had a whole year to rest… but so have you and you aren’t getting any lighter.

         Finally, another thing I don’t want is a silly red hat with a white bobble on it. Reindeer don’t wear hats – how many times do I have to tell you.

         Yours red-nosedly,

                                       Rudolf

 

~~~

The Moon,

                                             Earth Orbit,

Above Turkey at the moment, oh now its Greece… ah Italy… um France… oh forget it…

Thursday 16^th Dec 2021

 

Hello Santa,

                We hope you are well. It’s the Lunar Reindeer here. From the colony that got started when a few of our forefathers (and foremothers) escaped from the harness attached to your sleigh.

       Now, we hear you’re finding it hard to find flying reindeer to help pull your sleigh. Well we’ve got a few young bucks up here keen to volunteer. So, all you have to do is give us the Christmas present we want - namely LOTS OF CHEESE!!! There’s absolutely none here and for some reason it’s the only thing we want to eat all the time! We think about nothing else!

       Hope to hear from you.

       Yours sincerely,

                                  Rudolf Armstrong

 

P.S. Any chance of also buying us a lottery ticket? Ta.

 

~~~~~

Revolt in the Christmas factory.  

 

We of the Working Everyday Elves Party (WEEP) hereby issue the following demands.  If they are not met by you Father Christmas, we will not make any more presents.

 

1) We want some heating on in the factory. It's freezing!

 

2) Stop coming up behind us and saying, "Ho Ho Ho!" when we're not expecting it.

 

3) Why should we have to change out your reindeer? … Yuck! … It's about time you did some of the dirty jobs.

 

4) GO ON A DIET!!  We're fed up of getting squashed in the corridor when you walk by. Also eating so much makes you burp all the time, which we think is very unprofessional.  Children look up to you, you know.

 

5) We want pictures of us working in the factory on more Christmas cards - so people can see who really does the work around here.

 

6) Buy some new sacks for goodness sake! They're hundreds of years old! They're all about to collapse. You'll look a fool if they split open and the presents fall out all over Poland, won't you?

 

7) Do we have to listen to a tape of Christmas songs all year round while we're working? Can't we have Radio One on - at least for one month?

 

8) Why do you still insist on having Christmas cards showing you coming down a chimney? No one has chimneys anymore! Cards showing you using your huge bunch of skeleton keys to break into people’s houses would be much more up-to-date and accurate.

 

~~~~~

Ways to make Christmas easy.*

*Abridged version of ‘400 ways to make Christmas easy’ which first appeared in What kind of fool would buy this ridiculous magazine magazine.

 

1.    Go to the moon. You can have Christmas on your own.

2.   Find out how to become an octopus and swim under a rock and hide for a month. (See explanation above.)

3.   Arrange for all your relatives to be abducted by aliens or kidnapped. Then you won’t have to send them cards or buy them presents.

4.   Hire someone else to be you and go on a world cruise.

5.   Tell everyone that Father Christmas doesn’t exist, that Jesus was actually born in March and that pagan festivals never took place in December.

6.   Spend all day swallowing carbon dioxide so you cause drastic Global Cooling causing it to snow so much that no one can go anywhere and certainly not come to your house expecting Christmas dinner.

7.   Travel back in time and send everyone such an awful present last year that they won’t want anything to do with you this year.

8.   Steal all the clocks, diaries and calendars in the world. (This may be a little difficult, only attempt if all else fails.)

9.   Teach turkeys the rudiments of language and social unrest and hope they organise massive nationwide escape attempts.

10. Use the ideas from the book “Frankenstein” to reincarnate Scrooge and produce thousands of clones, each to be manager of every workplace in the country.

11. Invent aerial speed cameras so that Santa gets caught for speeding so many times he has his flying sleigh-riding licence removed.

~~~~~

It’s been around a while but I’ve only just discovered this link to stories on cutalongstory.com; https://www.cutalongstory.com/authors/steve-way/1172.html

 

A STORY TO START DECEMBER: "IVAN'S PUSSY CAT" by Penny Dolan

 

It is the start of December, and a Christmas season unlike anything known before. 

Usually I'd be getting ready to share winter stories and songs with children, parents and carers, all huddling cosily around the mat at my local library. 

Instead, at home, we've been videoing a snowy story, ready for the staff to post up on the Library's Facebook page sometime soon. 

The story was an old favourite, remembered from years back when, and so I decided to share my written version here on ABBA today too.

 

 

 IVAN'S PUSSY CAT.

A long time ago, in a cold faraway land, a man called Ivan was walking through the snow. On and on he went but he did not walk alone. A white bear padded along by Ivan's side. He had rescued her when she was a cub and now she followed him wherever he went.

As Ivan walked, he saw steep cliffs and sharp mountain peaks around him. The night was coming and the snow was growing thicker so Ivan knew he must find somewhere to shelter. 

Then, not far off, he saw a farm-house, with smoke curling out of the chimney.  A man came and unbolted the door when Ivan knocked. Warm air came out from inside that home, filled with the scents of delicious food.

 "Please let me stay for the night, sir," Ivan asked. "I will be not trouble."

Now it was the custom in those days for travellers to lodge in people's house, so the man looked hard at Ivan and then he did welcome him inside. Ivan left his bear curled up contentedly in the snow.

The house was very full. There was a mother too, and aunts and uncles and grandmothers and grandfathers and plenty of children. The tables were crowded with pies and cakes and apples and nuts and all sorts of good things to eat and drink, and the walls were decorated with green branches and ribbons and small gifts. 

"Oh, I forgot," Ivan thought happily. "Tomorrow is the day of the winter festival." But then he noticed that not one face was smiling. Everyone looked sad, or scared, or both at the same time. "Tell me. What is wrong?" Ivan begged and so they did.

They told Ivan that the year before, when everyone was asleep and the room ready for the festival - just as it was at that moment -  a horde of wicked, pointy-faced trolls came down from the mountain tops. They burst into the room and raced around, snatching up this and that and jumping on to the tables. Some food they gobbled up, some they threw around and the rest they trampled with their hard, nasty feet. They screeched and cackled as they pulled down all the decorations and by the time the trolls left, everything good had been broken or spoilt. 

"And they will be coming again," the children cried. "We heard them calling from the mountains."

Ivan nodded wisely."Listen, if you let me bring my pet bear in to sleep by the fire, all will be well. She is gentle and will not harm any of you." Everyone agreed, so Ivan went outside and whispered to his bear. In she came, quietly, and curled herself up on the rug by the warm fire just as if she was a pussy cat. 

"Now get to bed," said Ivan "and bolt your doors. Do not worry." Ivan hid himself safely in a cupboard to keep watch.

Before long, those bad trolls came crrep crreping down from the mountains and up to the house and in through the door. They sniffed with their pointy noses and wriggled their pointy fingers and giggled as they looked all around, ready to make mischief and worse. Suddenly they saw the shape of Ivan's bear, asleep by the glowing fire.

"It's a great big pussy cat," they cried. "Let's tease her! Let's poke her! Let's pull her fur." And so they  went close to the sleeping bear, and they did poke and pull her. 

The bear grunted a bit and grumbled a bit and growled and then she opened her  eyes. When she saw all the nasty trolls, she lifted her great head and roared as loudly as she could. Then she rose up and set to, wopping the trolls with one paw and bopping them with the other, this way and that.  As soon as they could, the terrified trolls screeched and scrambled their way out of the house and away into the mountains.

 What joy! What happiness! When the people saw that the trolls had gone, they were so delighted. They thanked Ivan over and over - and his bear, of course - and began their winter feast then and there and did not stop for days.

 However, Ivan soon knew it was time to set off again, so he started to say goodbye. 

"But, what willwe do if the trolls come next year, Ivan, when you aren't here?" the children asked. 

Ivan chuckled. "Tell them that while Ivan's pussy cat was here, she had two kittens and she left them behind by the fire. Now those kits have grown and grown, and are twice as big and strong and cross as their mother." The children laughed, but they remembered that story.

And that is exactly what happened. The next year, when troll voices called down from the mountains, the children shouted back and told them there were now two big white pussy cats by the fire. 

"Then we are never ever coming again!" screeched the trolls, and off they ran, far away and over the mountains and they never ever did come back.

Each winter, ever since, that house has always had the happiest of celebrations, and each year, they always tell the story of their friend Ivan and his wonderful white pussy cat.

 Good wishes to you all.

 Penny Dolan

@pennydolan1