Welcome to Wednesday Writing Essentials. Today, April 23rd is OPEN.
April 30th: GET READY FOR MAY DAY - articles about May Day - Spring OR COMMUNIST May Day may be Featured.
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But first a word about what OPEN means.
According to the original definition of Writing Essentials that group owner Jennifer Hodge originally set, the group description included:
Fiction, Poetry, Memoir, Creative Non-Fiction, Essays about Writing or Publshing, Screenplays, Playwriting.
This is what I mean by OPEN.
Wednesday Writing Essentials is about Writing, as in original and creative writing.
Wednesday Writing Essentials does not accept the following types of articles:
Rants
Chats
Announcement articles
Games
Adult
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And now a word about Stuart. To everyone who has read Stuart Little or even those who've seen the movie (1999) or the sequel (2002), you know Stuart is not JUST another MOUSE. True, he talks. What's so unusual about that? Don't all animals talk in ways kids can understand?
Sure, and that's just the magic of Stuart Little. Little kids - well, SOME little kids - believe that animals can communicate language in meaningful ways with their human friends. I definitely believed that about cats. In fact, I still do. Mice? They're adorable and cute, but apart from Stuart, none compare in such an educated and charming fashion.
I read Stuart Little when I was ten and on a vacation with my mom and sisters. We were visiting cousins who were all so much younger -BORRRINNNNG. I picked up the book and read it in one sitting.
I then wrote a very forgettable story about Stuart Little from the cat's point of view. In my story, my mouse was such a pain but Chompers (my cat) could not help but fall in love with my mouse even though poor Chompers licked his chops every time he saw my mouse. Chompers felt torn between his love for the mouse and his feline appetite for tiny, tender morsels of mouse meat.
Everyone has a love affair for the tiny mouse that roared.
According to what the author himself has to say, E.B. White got the idea for the story from a dream while sleeping on a train. Critics have complained the story is not quite finished - and White himself admits he was afraid he would die and just rushed through the ending.
Wikipedia.
Stuart Little was White's first children's book, published in 1945.
Famous quote:
" When Mrs. Frederick C. Little's second son arrived, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse."
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E.B. White (1899- 1985) was born in Mount Vernon, New York, attended Cornell University, where he was editor of the student newspaper, before beginning his writing career in newspapers.
He published his first article for The New Yorker in 1925 and joined the staff in 1927, at a time when the magazine was arguably the most important literary magazine in the country.
His three children's books - Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little and The Trumpet of the Swan are classics of children's literature.
Following the success of Stuart Little, White published Charlotte's Web in 1952.
In 1970, White published The Trumpet of the Swan and also received The Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for his two earlier books. In 1978, White received a special Pulitzer prize for his life's work.
White died at home on his farm in Brooklin, Maine, in 1985, after a long fight with Alzheimer's disease. From: E.B. White, Wikipedia.
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Excerpt:
"When Mrs. Frederick C. Little's second son arrived, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse. The truth of the matter was, the baby looked very much like a mouse in every way. He was only about two inches high; and he had a mouse's sharp nose, a mouse's tail, a mouse's whiskers, and the pleasant, shy manner of a mouse. Before he was many days old he was not only looking like a mouse but acting like one, too-wearing a gray hat and carrying a small cane. Mr. and Mrs. Little named him Stuart, and Mr. Little made him a tiny bed out of four clothespins and a cigarette box.
Unlike most babies, Stuart could walk as soon as he was born. When he was a week old he could climb lamps by shinnying up the cord. Mrs. Little saw right away that the infant clothes she had provided were unsuitable, and she set to work and made him a fine little blue worsted suit with patch pockets in which he could keep his handkerchief, his money, and his keys. Every morning, before Stuart dressed, Mrs. Little went into his room and weighed him on a small scale which was really meant for weighing letters. At birth Stuart could have been sent by first class mail for three cents, but his parents preferred to keep him rather than send him away; and when, at the age of a month, he had gained only a third of an ounce, his mother was so worried she sent for the doctor.
The doctor was delighted with Stuart and said that it was very unusual for an American family to have a mouse. He took Stuart's temperature and found that it was 98.6, which is normal for a mouse. He also examined Stuart's chest and heart and looked into his ears solemnly with a flashlight. (Not every doctor can lookinto a mouse's ear without laughing.) Everything seemed to be all right, and Mrs. Little was pleased to get such a good report.
"Feed him up!" said the doctor cheerfully, as he left."
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Previous Wednesday's Writing Essentials, author bio/lit reviews:
Wednesday Writing Essentials: SOME PIG - Wilbur lives on and Charlotte A. Cavatica, too
Wednesday Writing Essentials: Make Way for Ducklings
Shakespeare's Spring
Dr. Seuss
Wednesday Writing Essentials: Beatrix Potter lives on
Wednesday Writing Essentials: Richard Brautigan lives on
New Years Around the World
Holidays Around the World
Wednesday Writing Essentials: Winter Solstice, Holidays Around the World
Dickens' A Christmas Carol
JM Barrie
A.A. Milne
Wednesday Writing Essentials: Thanksgiving, Harvest Festivals and Family/Food Holidays Around the World
Norman Mailer
Wednesday Writing Essentials: Using Your Senses - Pavarotti Lives on in Paul Potts
Wednesday Writing Essentials: Flannery O'Connor Lives On
Dostoevksy/Raskolnikov: Guilty, Guilty Guilty
Harper Lee
Anne Sexton
Tennessee Williams' Kowalski's Stellaaa
Sylvia Plath
Virginia Woolf
Jane Austen
Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener
Bronte's Wuthering Heights
Wednesday Writing Essentials: JD Salinger
Faulkner
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To learn more about Gather's Writing Essential channel, please view these articles:
Writing Essentials by Pam Johnston VP Community Engagement
Meet the Writing Editors by Pam Johnston
Official Description of Writing Essentials by Jennifer Hodge, Gather Editorial Team
To join Writing Essentials, click HERE
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About Kathryn
Kathryn Esplin Oleski kathryneo.gather.com
Kathryn Esplin-Oleski was raised in Salt Lake City, but moved to Montreal with her family, where she finished high school and college. Kathryn has a BA in English Literature from McGill University and a Master of Science in Journalism (MSJ) from the Medill School of Journalism, at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill.
Kathryn's articles have appeared in The Montreal Gazette, The Globe and Mail, and Kathryn covered Utah politics at Medill from Washington, D.C. for The Ogden Standard-Examiner. She has also written on business, computers, health, living, education, arts, travel and books.
She freelanced for numerous computer/business publications, including a stringer story for Newsweek magazine on graft in the music industry.
Kathryn worked as a news/feature reporter, and Features Editor for International Data Group (IDG) for several years, and then continued to writing freelance computer/business articles.
Kathryn copyedited a technical book, Raggett on HTML 4.0, Second Edition, published by Addison-Wesley Longman, New York and London, 1998.
Kathryn's fiction, The Quill Speaks, was published in Pieceworks, in 2003.
Kathryn was a finalist in the Gather-Borders-Mitch Albom contest: "Times My Mom Stood Up for Me:" My Mom Stood Up for Me During the Last Days of My Childhood.
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Copyright © 2007, 2008, Kathryn Esplin-Oleski
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Comments: 26
I loved little Stuart Little.
thank you all.
Another book with small talking mammals I enjoyed was 'Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH'.
I also enjoyed 'The Wind in the Willows' when it was read to my class by a teacher at school who put all the voices on. Looking at it now, it seems very dated.
Scout Finch says something about the children in her class not really connecting too well with Miss Caroline's reading to the class from a book featuring talking animals.
Thank you, Dan.