Dina Gregory, author of a new audio adaptation of The Little Mermaid, tells us: "The smallest of three sisters, I grew up in the South West of England with the moors visible from my bedroom window. A steep walk and wooden latch were all that separated my ordinary home from an enchanted landscape: gnarled, wind-swept trees, ravens soaring above the heath, granite stones standing sentry, grisly sheep bones scattered in the bracken, chattering hedgerows teeming with life. It’s probably no coincidence that many of my favorite books possessed similar gateways—portals to untamed worlds where danger, whimsy, and magic prevail. Here are five that come to mind."
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Once there was, and twice there wasn’t...
So begins this scary story about three brothers who venture into the woods to play, despite being warned about the old witch-woman who resides there. The boys end up lost and hungry and—oh, horror—take refuge in precisely the wrong cottage. Fortunately, the youngest sibling, Teeny-Tiny, outsmarts the witch before she can eat him and his brothers for dinner. (As the teeny-tiny one in my family, I took a certain pride in his bravery.) Based on an old Turkish folk tale, and with illustrations by Michael Foreman, this was probably the first witch to truly terrify me, in that delicious way of “firsts.” Back then I didn’t notice that, in nearly all of the books I enjoyed, the heroes were boys and the wicked characters were women. Now, all these years later, I enjoy subverting these gender stereotypes when I can.
C.S. Lewis’s wardrobe is perhaps the most memorable portal in all of children’s literature. When the Pevensie siblings are evacuated to an old country house, young Lucy (it’s always the little ones!) decides to investigate inside the large armoire, only to stumble into the magical Kingdom of Narnia. Everything from the tears of Tumnus the faun to Edmund’s brush with the White Witch suggest that evil is lurking in this frozen wilderness. I read this classic during the winter holidays, and much of its symbolism and imagery has fused with Christmas in my imagination—a natural melding, given the story’s religious undertones. It’s a special gift when the magic of a story amplifies the magic in a child’s own world ... an even rarer gift when the actions of one character (Aslan) inspire that child to be a better human being.
My first encounter with The Hobbit was actually an abridged book-on-tape, but it was enough to hook me on high-fantasy. Another small hero—I’m noticing a theme here—albeit one with big feet, the hobbit’s bravery in leaving his comfortable shire, resisting the evil of the ring, outsmarting sly Gollum, and confronting Smaug the dragon, made me want to journey onward with this hairy-toed hero from the safety of my own comfortable shire in Devon. Fortunately, I could do exactly that as a teen, returning to Middle-earth’s trolls, wargs, ents, orcs, goblins, and other creatures in the pages of The Lord of the Rings. But I’ll never forget that first listening experience; the twinkling noise on the cassette recording instructing me to turn the page and the rousing music that underscored Gandalf’s wizardry. Perhaps my passion for audio storytelling was born of that old analog technology, which makes me rather ancient!
For me, no author captures the British countryside better than Kenneth Grahame. All those lost words that nature writer Robert MacFarlane rightly laments are disappearing from the English language can be found in the descriptive passages interleaving the madcap adventures of Ratty, Mole, Badger, and motor-car-obsessed Toad. I adored these anthropomorphic animals and their antics, which is why it was such an honor to be asked, as an adult, to create an audio adaptation of this whimsical tale and to commune, once again, with a landscape that, as a US resident, I deeply miss.
Of all the marvelous characters conjured by Roald Dahl’s exuberant imagination, the Big Friendly Giant is my favorite. As a young girl, I ought to have identified with the character of Sophie, but I was far more enamored with her large-eared, vegetarian captor. I adored the BFG’s nonsense words and malapropisms (or, as he himself phrases it, his “gobblefunking”), and I was heartsick over the merciless taunting he endured at the hands of Fleshlumpeater, Blood Bottler, Bone Cruncher and the other giants.
Some adults may steer kids away from Roald Dahl in order to avoid awkward encounters with harsh or outdated language. But in Dahl’s hands, biting humor and nasty characters are used in service of some beautiful motifs: the quiet impact of kindness, the importance of standing up to bullies, the difficulty of doing the right thing. If purged of all their wickedness, I fear Dahl’s stories will lose their power and cease to be read. Rather than Bone-Crunchers, we adults ought to be dream-blowers, like the BFG, blowing the best dreams possible into our children’s lives.
