The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Beauty and the Beast’

Is good enough sometimes good enough?

Let me explain. Have  you ever revisited  work you did in the past to see how you have grown? What did you think about what you saw? Was it good enough or did you feel as if you could have done a lot better? Next month will be one year since I have been blogging, so I decided to see how much I have grown as a blogger. I decided to revisit Fairy Tales, What You Can Learn From Them, one of the first blog post I did, but also a review that I had some previously. What I discovered was that I still liked what I did back then. Good enough is good enough. Yes, I have made some changes to enhance the reader experience by using some of the tools that I am now familiar with.

Compare the old blog post with this one and let me know which version you prefer. In what ways can you make your work appear new? What new tools do you have to make the old new again?

Book Review: Best-Loved Folktales of the World by Joanna Cole

Reviewed by Avil M. Beckford

When was the last time you ventured into the land of make believe? Best-Loved Folktales of the World by Joanna Cole allowed me to do just that. As an active reader, I was really engaged and found myself getting really annoyed at some of the characters. For example, I became so frustrated with Snow White because she kept on making the same mistakes over and over again, because she thought it would be different, she kept on getting fooled by the disguises of the evil step-mother. Why was I frustrated? Is it because her actions are a metaphor for life, my life, your life, where we seem to find ourselves in the same undesirable situations over and over again until we finally get it.

Some people may think it is a waste of time to read folktales, but for me, I thought it was very worthwhile because it reminded me of simple life lessons such as persistence pays, there is no need to be greedy because there is enough for all of us and instead of competing, why aren’t we creating?

Though Best-Loved Folktales of the World by Joanna Cole is nearly 800 pages in length, it is still appropriate for people with short attention spans because 200 folk tales are included. Because the stories are so short, and there are so many of them, the reader can start reading at any point in the book. You’ll find familiar tales you read as a child such as Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstiltskin, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves or unfamiliar ones such as East of the Sun and West of the Moon, Crab, Chelm Justice, Baby in the Crib, Salt, The Bunyip, and Faithful Even in Death. As an adult, you’ll approach these stories much different from the way you approached them as a child. You’ll view them with a different set of lens all based on your life experiences. You may find yourself sympathetic toward a character in a tale while you could be frustrated with characters in other tales because they keep on making the same mistake over and over again.

I enjoyed reading this book because I was introduced to stories from all over the world, the majority of which I had never heard about. And, it was amazing to find the same story with a different spin because of cultural differences, such as Rumpelstiltskin and Tom Tit Tot. The folk tales reinforce that we are not as different as we think. The author organizes Best-Loved Folktales of the World by regions and if you are like me, the first section in the table of contents that I rushed to was the Caribbean and was delighted to see an Anansi story from Jamaica among the 200 stories. There were other Anansi stories that originated from the Ashanti Tribe in Africa. For those of you who may not be familiar with the Anansi stories, Brother Anansi is a trickster.

Another good thing about the way the book is organized is the Index of Categories of Tales, which allows the readers to quickly see which tales are appropriate for children, wonderful to read aloud, have a moral, are for women and girls and so on. If you like drama, adventure, romance, mystery, horror or fantasy, there is a tale for you. After reading Best-Loved Folktales of the World, you’ll be reminded of the following:

• Share what you have with others because there is enough for everyone
• Persistence pays
• Operate with honesty and integrity: do not claim the work of others because the truth has a way of coming out and the consequences can be dire
• Asking for help shows strength
• Dream big
• Appreciate what you have instead of pining over what you don’t have

I recommend Best-Loved Folktales of the World by Joanna Cole because it’s not only a page-turner, but it allows you to tap into your inner child and have some fun. When reading Best-Loved Folktales of the World , read it not only in the context of providing entertainment, but also in the context of what lessons you can learn to apply to your life. So, take a step back in time and remember when….

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For your research and writing needs, consider my firm Ambeck Enterprise for white papers, articles, fact sheets, anniversary booklets, you name it. Since I am the best kept secret you may not know this, but I have over 15 years research and writing experience. I KNOW content. And if you cannot figure out which books to read for professional development, I am your WOMAN, I can assist you with that too.

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Excerpt from March 2008 Ambeck Edge http://www.ambeck.com/newsletters/nl_200803.html

Over the weekend I read several versions of the fairy tale Beauty And The Beast. I am rewriting the story from the perspective of the beast. What I like about this task is that I have never read the story told from the perspective of the beast, so I have some room to be creative with the story. How might you approach your work from a different perspective and mindset?

Having read so many versions of the story can create a dilemma if I allow it. In one version, Beauty’s father the merchant had three sons and three daughters, in most of the versions there were only three daughters. In one version Beauty asked for a red rose, in another she asked for a white rose. In one version, there was a mirror that Beauty could look in to see her family was doing and that’s how she noticed that her dad was ill, and in other versions, her dad wasn’t ill and there was no mirror.

In life you have many choices and it’s up to you to choose well based on your unique situation: your experience, other information that you might have access to and so on. Information is doubling rapidly and there is no way you can absorb it all. Make a choice and stick to it. If you didn’t choose well, choose again and look at potential lessons. Reading all the different versions of the story wasn’t necessarily a bad thing because I decided to stick with one version and work from there.

In my research work, I have often read many reports on one event or topic, and doing that allowed me to fill in the gaps, because of the reference point the writers decided to focus on. So what lessons have I learned, from reading Beauty And The Beast?

1. Things are seldom what they seem (a very common lesson)
2. Always try to dig beyond the surface
3. Open up yourself to new experiences
4. Put your family first
5. Be yourself! You can zig even if others are zagging (Beauty was unlike her selfish sisters)
6. Circumstances change so change with them and don’t get left behind
7. Be compassionate
8. Listen to what your heart is telling you
9. Happiness is not far away, it is within you waiting for release
10. In everything, give thanks

Buy a book of fairy tales or borrow one from the library and read the tales from the perspective of an adult. What lessons have you learned?How might you apply those lessons to your life?

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please comment. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

For your research and writing needs, consider my firm Ambeck Enterprise. Since I am the best kept secret you may not know this, but I have over 15 years research and writing experience. I KNOW content.

Note: All book links are affiliate links
Photo Credit: Yahoo via Apture