Kristen Rudd

Once upon a time, there was a princess who was so beautiful that even the sun, who saw everything, was bemused by her beauty every time he shone down upon her. On hot days, she liked to go sit near a cool well on the edge of a dark wood by the castle, take out her favorite plaything—a golden ball—and pass time by throwing it in the air and catching it again. One day, the golden ball dropped and fell into the well instead of into the girl’s hands…

I’m currently in the middle of a unit in some of my literature classes where we are reading and discussing fairy tales. Reading and talking about fairy tales is quite possibly my very favorite thing to do ever. I might be only a tiny little bit hyperbolic about that. Just a smidge. I could honestly do nothing but teach fairy tales all year, every year, and be perfectly happy…

I feel a little bit like cheating writing this after reading Ian’s recent post on The Bronze Bow, but I, too, had an interesting discussion in my literature classes recently while trying to decide on where to place the climax of a story. I’ve been slowly teaching my students the elements of fiction, and chose The Quiltmaker’s Gift by Jeff Brumbeau in order to talk about characters. The Quiltmaker’s Gift is a picture book about two people. The first is a powerful, greedy, unhappy king who fills his castle with gifts that he constantly demands from his subjects. The second is a wise, old, magical quiltmaker who lives in a house on a mountain in the clouds and gives away her quilts to the poor and needy. She won’t sell them, not for any amount of money…