Set during the Philippine’s Marcos dictatorship, this story by Jose Dalisay Jr. takes place in the garden of an isolated one-room school. As the children tend their vegetables, a group of soldiers appears and begins to pull them out. Their orders are to take or destroy all local food sources in retaliation for the killing of one of their number. The younger children are sent home, but the oldest (a fourteen-year-old girl) is ordered to stay to “cook and do the soldier’s washing”. Bravely, the teacher insists on staying with her. Themes include innocence, oppression, intimidation, helplessness, fear, responsibility, courage. More…
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Cinderella
Cinderella, perhaps the world’s best-known children’s story, has its origins in folklore. The version immortalized by Disney was first published in Charles Perrault’s 1697 book Stories or Tales from Times Past, with Morals, also known as Tales of Mother Goose. (Yes, Mother Goose was a man!) There are said to be over 1,000 variants of the story across the world. Perrault took the original framework, which has been around since the days of the pharaohs, and added the three elements for which his version is famous today: a fairy godmother, a pumpkin-carriage, and glass slippers. More…
Birthday Box
The main theme of Jane Yolen’s Birthday Box is the need to make the most of one’s life, no matter what happens. The protagonist (Katie) is puzzled by her dying mother’s final birthday gift – an elaborately wrapped empty box. She takes her mother’s mouthed words “It’s you” as meaning “It’s for you” or “It’s yours”. A year later, she realizes her mistake. The birthday box is a symbol of herself: beautiful on the outside, but still empty inside. Her mother’s challenge is to metaphorically fill the box. Not with things, but experiences and achievements. Other themes: compassion, thoughtfulness, motherhood, death. More…
Old Aeson
In this story by Arthur Quiller-Couch who wrote under the pen-name “Q” (No relation to the James Bond Q!), a very old man almost freezes to death outside a rich man’s house. The rich man takes the old man in and has him cared for. Nobody knows who the old man is or where he came from, and no one can understand his strange language. However, the old man has a mysterious power. He begins to suck the life out of the rich man, slowly turning him into an old man as he becomes younger and younger. More…
Twenty Minutes
There is a saying that your life flashes before your eyes in the moments before you die. In this James Salter story, the protagonist has twenty minutes to think about it. A woman riding a horse in the countryside is paralyzed in a fall. She estimates that she will die from her injuries if help doesn’t arrive within twenty minutes. As the minutes tick by, she recalls recent events in her life. Sadly, the picture they paint is not a very happy one. The central theme is, of course, death. Other themes: family estrangement, marriage, unfaithfulness, loneliness, desperation, unfulfilled dreams. More…