Tag: story

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kid pick: room on the broom

I periodically write reviews of some of my kid’s favorite stories in book or movie form (you can check out my take on Miss Rumphius here). Room on the Broom is a favorite of all three older kids, so it kind of begged to have its own review…

I was first introduced to the delight that is Magic Light one Saturday morning while my children were choosing a show to watch on Netflix. Nadia spotted a gruff-looking creature with purple prickles all over its back in the lower corner, and immediately asked if we could watch the monster one. I knew that The Gruffalo was probably good, somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind (I think I’d read it at a bookstore once for fun in my teens?) and so we clicked through and tried it out. I was blown away.

If there’s one thing consistent about very young children’s programming, it’s that most of it is grade-A crap. You have to sift through bucketloads of mindless, unimaginative drivel to get one decent show. And the excellent ones are truly few and far between. These are the ones that combine curiosity, gentleness, great art, and well-written story into something I want my children to see — and something that I enjoy watching as well. 

I say I was blown away by Magic Light in general, rather than by The Gruffalo in particular, because shortly after enjoying The Gruffalo we discovered their other offerings available on Netflix — The Gruffalo’s Child, Room on the Broom, and Stick Man. All of these come recommended for compelling stories, interesting animation and scores, and child-like pacing. One of my favorite things about them is that they are faithful to the author’s intent, while gently expanding the story ideas in the source material for the better. But the one that all of my kid’s pick again and again is Room on the Broom.

the importance of character

Room on the Broom begins by establishing the relationship between the witch and the cat. The witch is a joyful, empathetic type (if a bit clumsy) and very kind toward everyone she meets, perhaps to a fault. The cat, on the other hand, is not so much unkind as possessive. He feels it is his duty to protect the witch and her best interests. He doesn’t want anyone taking advantage of her kindness, or (on a deeper level) getting in the way of their special friendship. In his mind, there is room on the broom for one and only one: him.

You may wonder how I know so much about these characters. It’s because Magic Light goes out of their way to translate the 2D characters from the book into 3D characterizations in simple and subtle ways, through both expression and action. When ants begin carrying the witch’s potion ingredients off, the cat anxiously brushes them away. But the witch stops him with a smile, then drops a single leaf into each ant’s waiting jaws. The cat, in response, rolls his eyes.

This interaction is seconds long, but establishes key ingredients of each of their character’s personalities. And every character from here on out receives the same treatment, with later actions reinforcing every character’s moment in the spotlight. I can’t help but admire the careful, clever handling of the characters. And you know what? My kids get these nuances, because kids are sharp and they pick up more than we give them credit for.

Side note: every time I watch this thing, and it has been many times, there’s something new I notice about the characters or the background. Like the moment when the dog’s flapping tongue hits the cat in the cheek, or how the witch finds the snake from the Gruffalo story hiding in a woodpile. All children’s programming should be this detailed and intentional.

establishing conflict

Then the witch (as she is wont to do) loses her hat. The primary conflict appears when an overly-enthusiastic dog finds it and brings it back. The cat is obviously not a fan of sharing space or friendship, and unequivocally rejects the dog. But the witch is too kind, and offers the dog space on the broom.

As they travel along, the witch invites more characters onto the broom and the cat becomes more angry with them all. It’s a very personal conflict for me as an introvert. I value my close friends dearly, and sharing them with others is not easy for me. The more people we add to the equation, the worse the situation.

And yet, in short order, the group adds a melancholic green bird and a neat-freak frog. The witch is consistently kind toward all of these outcasts and builds a little family of her own as a result. Of course, her cat becomes more and more frustrated. He sees what’s coming and knows that all this kindness will eventually cause disaster. And finally, what he has predicted all along happens, and the broom snaps in two. The weight of the witch’s kind decisions has finally broken her ability to support this odd little family.

But that’s not the end of their troubles.

use of growing tension

Unbeknownst to the group, they have been tracked from the beginning of the story by a witch-eating dragon. Of course, we know the beast is coming, because the creators dropped hint after hint of the impending dragon attack from the very beginning. 

This was the icing on the cake for my kids (3, 4, and 6, respectively). The moment they saw the dragon’s yellow eyes open in the shadows at the very beginning, they were hooked. They knew the dragon was coming, and every time it showed up it got closer and fiercer to a yummy witch meal. This is the type of tension and danger that we all crave.

The brilliance of Magic Light’s choice to do this is that in the midst of drawing us into caring for the characters, they take time to ratchet up the danger these characters are in, and it pulls us deeper into the story. The stakes are high here. Not only might the cat blow a blood vessel, the witch we all know and love might get eaten by a dragon. 

the payoff

At the height of the story, all hope is lost. The cat and the other recipients of the witch’s kindness have all been unceremoniously dropped into a muddy bog. The cat is at his wit’s end, and clearly indicates to the others that all of this is their fault. And then the hungry dragon catches their beloved witch. 

Despite the absence of a side of fries, the dragon settles down to a witchy feast. And that’s when every story element that’s been built-up before pays off in spades. The cat and all the others are brought together by their shared care for the witch to defeat the dragon. The sum of their distinct personalities, when directed by love, is truly greater than the parts.

There’s only one problem left to solve. The broom is broken, and there’s only room for the witch and the cat. What is to be done? I won’t spoil it for you, but it is such a satisfying ending that you absolutely must watch it. Since when do I worry about spoiling a kid’s movie? When it makes me cry every time, that’s when.

so why do we love it?

When I asked my kids to share why they love this film, they gave me various reasons. The witch is pretty. The dragon is scary. The cat learns his lesson. But Nadia summed it up: “How beautifully they flew!” 

When creators pay attention to craft, character, and whimsy, they create something wondrous that will stick in a child’s mind. Sure, Room on the Broom has great lessons for kids about kindness, sacrifice, and friendship. But my kids will remember it because those things were presented as not only true, but beautiful and important.

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we’re going on a bear hunt: loss for little ones

were_going_on_bear_hunt

My children have all grown up reading the children’s classic, “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt,” so when it showed up on Amazon Prime as a 25-minute special we were all over it.

We expected a fun, endearing story, but we got more than we bargained for.

Published around 30 years ago and selling millions of copies (not to mention garnering quite a few awards), “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” as a storybook is a classic in its own right. This particular production was done by the same makers of the 1982 made-for-TV short “The Snowman,” a beautifully-animated, haunting classic about a living snowman who goes on an adventure with the boy who made him. Like “The Snowman,” this adaptation features delightful music and simple, clear characters. It also takes Oxenbury’s illustrations — arguably the best part of the story — and translates them to screen with vibrance and subtle detail. The landscapes grow broader, more immersive, and more ominous as the quintet of children continue on the hunt.

The traditional story by Michael Rosen grows in this way as well, and the creators have translated this sense of scope well, while expanding on the narrative with natural extensions of the drama. One of these extensions is the recent death of the children’s grandfather. The children make many references to the things Grandpa loved, and the main character (a plucky little girl named Rosie) is particularly sad about his passing, donning his old green scarf as they travel.

The central encounter of the story is, you guessed it, finding the bear. This is the pinnacle of the book and is followed by a mad dash back through the elements to get home to safety. The animated version, however, develops the story further.

Rosie, the adventurer of the group, gets separated from the rest of the group and discovers the bear on its own, sniffling with a cold. She displays genuine kindness toward the bear — combing its fur, giving it her grandfather’s scarf to keep it warm, and feeding it a honey sandwich. The bear, in turn, seems lonely and very willing to have a friend.

Of course, when the rest of the children find her they are frightened of the bear and dash away, pulling Rosie with them.

This is where my daughter lost it.

You see, Nadia is a tender soul on the best of days. Her entire summer consisted of finding and “befriending” wild animals, and the very thought of losing a friend like Rosie lost the bear brought her to the brink of tears. And at the end, when the camera panned back to the bear disappearing, dejected and alone, into its cave, she wept openly. My wife and I were stunned and saddened ourselves, and promptly gathered her up and comforted her.

Apparently, the onset of tears has been a trend with this adaptation, prompting quite a few parents to denounce it for ruining their Christmas celebrations. Of course, the book had the same general feeling at the end, with the final two-page spread featuring the bear lonely on the beach with its shoulders slumped. Nadia already knew he was sad, long before we watched this adaptation. It’s just that the adaptation brought that sadness home in a deeper way, enough that it really grieved her.

The fact of the matter is that any visual story removes a key boundary – that of the child’s imagination having control over the experience they have with the story. With a book (to a degree depending on illustrations) there is a separation in two areas: 1) their visualization of the dangers and sorrows the story speaks of, and 2) in their perception of the story beyond what it says. Basically, children have more control over the story in book form than in animated/visual form. This is something that we have to consider as parents.

For Nadia, the bear at the end of the book was sad, true, but she could follow up the story herself with her own imaginings that softened the blow. Seeing the bear truly sad at the end of the movie was pretty rough for her because it was framed by the creator’s imagination, not by Nadia’s.

Even so, as Linnea and I discussed it after we’d calmed our daughter down, we both agreed that we were grateful for the grief expressed and understood through this medium.

There’s a moment in the house toward the end of the story where Rosie tells her grandmother how sad she is. And her Grandma doesn’t respond by saying, buck up, it’s Christmas, it’s time to be happy. Instead, she says, “There’s nothing wrong with being sad, Rosie, it’s just a way to remember the happy times.”

And as the camera pans back to the bear, and his pawprints are washed from the shore with the tide, the song “Me and You” is sung in the background:

“All the things we did

still fill me up with butterflies

and I still flutter, I still shine

whenever I remember your sweet smile

My heart keeps beating,

and I’m still dreaming of me and you.”

This is a grief that is not despairing, but takes joy in what had been before, all the more in its passing. There’s a truth to it and a hope to it, even in the sadness. And for someone like me, who loves layers, the comparison of the loss of a present friendship with the loss of their grandfather is even richer.

As a dad, I love a happy ending. I love to remind myself and my kids that there is a deep hope to be had in the reality of a future life together with Christ and those we love. I see happy endings as a weapon against the darkness in our world, a reminder that joy comes in the morning, spring follows winter, and Christ did indeed defeat death once and for all. Of course, those happy endings must be earned. We can’t have the resolution of Act Three without the tension and crisis of Act 2. We can’t have Easter Sunday without Good Friday.

The oft-repeated phrase in “Bear Hunt” gains new meaning in the context of loss and grief:

“We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it. We’ve got to go through it.”

In the realm of very young children’s stories and their counterparts in movies and TV, happy endings are pervasive, and for good reason. I’m glad for happy endings! However, I have noticed that the most formative stories my children and I encounter are not happy from cover to cover, even when they end well. They have struggle, they have sadness, and they stick with us because they are true. Our own stories and realities have struggle and sadness, even when they end happily, and children know this. How then, do we help our very young children to begin to understand and encounter these things?

By experiencing stories like “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” with them.

This and other similar stories (like Charlotte’s Web or Old Yeller, and even A Series of Unfortunate Events) are boons to parents, because they handle sad or scary elements with gentleness and candor. They don’t look away from Good Friday in a rush to avoid the pain. Rather, they are present in the truth of it. In a way, they too are weapons against the darkness, a way to see things as they are, through the lens of truth.

As we watch stories like this together and take the time to discuss them (sometimes in tears together), we display to our children the truth of things like fear, anger, and grief, and ultimately help them to understand these feelings and concepts in a safe way.

In watching this one in particular we were able to affirm to Nadia that it was right to be sad about the loss of a friendship, about loneliness, and that it was good for her to feel this way. We let the feeling rest a little while, and we rested in it with her, knowing the sadness of it together. And this understanding informs her further understanding when we talk about how Jesus’ death on the cross made a way for us to be with Him forever, and about the truth of a place where loneliness will be no more. 

This is the gift of sadness in story, and we owe it to our children to show them stories that are true, to walk alongside them, and to let them feel the tension that draws us all to the truest of happy endings.

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workshop: against frictionless community

I recently sent in the second draft of my second Candlelight Carols script to my colleagues in Chicago.

I’ve been learning to love “seconds,” the revitalized or “new and improved” version of my initial offerings.

When I first wrote a script for a professional event (2016), I had experience writing stories and scripts, but I understood little about working with the people who actually make them a reality – those enigmatic wonders, actors. Thankfully, my now-good-friend Matthew understood this right away and decided to help me out. The number of times we went through and made changes was incalculable, but the end result was a better script.

I learned rules about stage direction, transitions, best practices, character motivation and development, and relinquishing control. I became a better writer in the process.

workshopping = werkshoppin it

This time, coming around to 2018’s script, Matthew suggested we “workshop” it – a way of saying, let’s get all the issues addressed earlier and mostly at once. He gathered a group of stellar Chicagoland area actors and I hiked on over from Indiana to join them. It was incredible.

I always rewrite my work as part of my process – reading through and picking out the flaws and issues, retooling the story, adjusting word choice, etc. But my eyes are always my eyes, and when you’ve created something (story, song, children, etc.) you are necessarily biased toward that thing or person. Having five actors read through and critique my work was exhilarating, because it showed me my blind spots. The more I write, the more I’m recognizing my need for this, and my need for community input into the process. 

And to be honest – it was fun! As long as neither side is holding too tightly to their ideas, workshopping anything is worth it.

Then I went home and let the script age for three weeks. This is just part of my process, best explained this way – whenever you age something, it gets more complex and interesting. Sometimes it starts to stink. But if the core of it is sound it will age well. I needed time away from my story so that when I went back to it, I could see it with fresh eyes. By doing this, combined with a strong record of its triumphs and failings from the actor’s workshop, I was able to pinpoint where it smelled bad and fix the problems.

Now, I expect a couple more drafts, but I do feel confident now that the story is stronger – more potent, shall we say – because of this process, and because there is clarity and strength in a community.

Vitality and friction in community

I’m finding this to be true in daily life, too, not just in my writing. Living with my parents, grandma, and sister on a day to day basis has made me more empathetic and understanding, and has changed me in ways that I didn’t even realize I needed to grow.  Living in a community in Indiana that has its own quirks and flaws has developed in us a deeper commitment to the things that really matter, while helping us to let go of the things that really, really don’t.

The last ten years of my life I don’t think I ever would have considered moving back to my parent’s house and my childhood community a good thing – in any sense. I would have deemed it a failure to launch, or a removal of independence, or the loss of an identity. It is none of those things. It’s had its hard points, of course. But we’ve been noticing, over and over, just how RIGHT it is for us. We need a community that challenges us in ways we would never be challenged alone. God made us this way. And the result of it is something better than any of us could produce alone.

It’s not because the people in my community think and talk like me – it’s because they don’t. It’s because they tell me when I do something weird or write something oblique. It’s because they have different values than me, and feel the freedom to share them, and because I’m learning to be okay with that. We’re all sharpening each other in the process, because the process carries the necessary amount of friction.

My writing is better in friction-filled community,  and so am I.

A word about Carols…

Friends, the story for Carols this year is about two brothers who end up on opposite sides of World War 1. I’m in love with the characters. I can’t wait for you to meet them. I’ve been researching and writing and editing all summer, let alone workshopping and development with Matthew and the creative team there. I’m so excited about it!

If you want to come and see it live, the performances are on Friday, Nov 30 (8pm) and Saturday, Dec 1 (2pm & 7pm) and you can get tickets starting October 15 here.