You may have heard about William Kamkwamba and how, no longer able to afford to go to school, he went instead to the library, and after a long time tinkering with pieces of junk managed to make a windmill to produce electricity for his village in Malawi.

I saw his great TED talks about it:

Now I see (via the excellent brainpickings.org) that the story has been made into an illustrated children’s book. And, what’s more, you can read it online.

Once again, Wood’s modern retelling of the Panchatantra stories is a rich, spicy broth, thought-provoking and constantly surprising.

The first story is the one about the monkey and the crocodile. It’s a tale I’ve come across before: crocodile gives monkey a ride on his back over the water. Then he tells monkey he’s going to eat his heart. Monkey says he’s left his heart back in his tree, so croc takes him back. Once there, of course, monkey reveals that his heart is in the normal place.

I knew the story from Paul Galdone’s picture book, where it is told very simply. Galdone’s illustrations are famously wonderful:

I see there’s also a version by Gerald McDermott who’s published lots of great trickster tales from around the world:

But Ramsay Wood’s is a much richer and multi-layered telling:

Crocodile doesn’t really want to do the dirty on his friend monkey, but his wife is jealous of the friendship and asks for monkey’s fig-sweetened heart. Monkey tricks his way out with the heart-in-the-tree ploy.

And when monkey escapes he reluctantly tells crocodile some other stories, which lead onto others, 1001-night-style. The first tale is about the donkey “without heart or ears”, a fable that is ancient in both east and west.

There’s lots more of Ramsay Wood’s book to go;  it’s a book to be savoured slowly…

Then we went to see Hugo at the cinema in Granville. It was dubbed in French, but that seemed OK as it’s set in Paris. I was just careful not to look at the lips too carefully.

It was great boxing day entertainment, though the 3D glasses didn’t do a lot for me. One of the things I liked about the film was the layered-ness of it. Behind the story is the real figure of Georges Méliès, who really did create wonderful silent films, disappear from public life to run a toy and sweets shop in Gare Montparnasse, and get rehabilitated in later life.

Then there’s the automaton. There were really automatons that could do such things, the Jaquet-Droz automata. These 18th century figures could really play music, write, draw pictures. I’m impressed that a company, Dick George Creatives, could recreate such a thing, and even get it to work:

(I’m the little boy with the red jumper and blond hair.)

But I do remember Ivor Cutler. You can see him here top left in this shot of the staff:

This picture (wrongly labelled) is from this film about Ivor Cutler. You can see the whole film here.

He used to take us in the school hall for movement and music. He would get us telling stories. He was surreal, sensitive, gently anarchic, always surprising. Once he said that he would give us packets of flower seeds if we would promise to sprinkle them between paving stones.

-o-o-o-o-

He also wrote some books for children. Like Meal One, with pictures by Helen Oxenbury:

One morning, Helbert woke with a plum in his mouth. He pulled it out and held it between his fingers for a good look: it was purple and juicy.

“Who put a plum in my mouth while I was asleep?” he wondered.

“Me!” shouted his mum, stretching her head out from under the bed with a great grin on her lips. “Hello, Mum!” he smiled.

…

Helbert stuck the plum back, chewed it and spat out the stone.

‘”Let’s plant it, Mum,” he said.

“Where?” she replied.

“Under the bed,” he laughed, sleepily, stretching his right arm.

So they both cruched under the bed and cut a hole in the floorboards…

At first the tree doesn’t grow, but together they address the plum stone:

O Stone! O Mighty Plum! Send forth roots and shoots. Grow with our love into a plum tree, with lots of plums!

When they go downstaires for meal one they gasp at what they see in the kitchen:

In the ceiling was a jaggy hole.

Throught the hole was a tree.

The roots of the tree hung over the table, spread with meal one.

There was a lound sucking gobbling noise.

But meal one is not lost. Helbert’s mother manages to set it to rights, by the simple expedient of turning the clock back an hour. Helbert again wakes up, this time with nothing in his mouth.

-o-o-o-o-

You can hear Helen Oxenbury talking about this collaboration here.

I’ve mentioned his astonishing book The Mouse and His Child before.

Only yesterday I read that his latest book, one for teens, Soonchild, is being published early next year.

‘You have so many legs,’ said Toad. ‘How do ‘you manage to move them all in the right order?’

Centipede stopped to think about it. He was not exactly sure. He tried to make his legs move in the order they usually moved in, but he found he could not. In fact, he realised, he could not move at all. He lay immobilised in the ditch, while Toad hopped away slowly, very pleased with himself.

This is not an ancient fable, at least I don’t think it is. It has given name to the “Centipede Effect“. As the psychologist George Humphrey wrote (about a poem version of the fable) in 1923:

“This is a most psychological rhyme. It contains a profound truth which is illustrated daily in the lives of all of us, for exactly the same thing happens if we pay conscious attention to any well-formed habit, such as walking.”

Le Coq et la Perle

Un jour un Coq détourna
Une Perle, qu’il donna
Au beau premier Lapidaire.
“Je la crois fine, dit-il ;
Mais le moindre grain de mil 
Serait bien mieux mon affaire. “

Un ignorant hérita
D’un manuscrit, qu’il porta
Chez son voisin le Libraire.
“Je crois, dit-il, qu’il est bon ;
Mais le moindre ducaton
Serait bien mieux mon affaire. “

Choix de Fables de La Fontaine, Illustree par un Groupe des Meilleurs Artistes de Tokio, Sous la Direction of P. Barboutau (1894) arrived in the post. It’s wrapped in plastic but I know what’s inside, because I’ve seen pictures on the Web. I’m not going to open it, because it’s a present for a Japanese friend who lives here in France. I think she will like it. The pictures are so subtle, understated. Grey, watery. (As it happened, some pearls also arrived in the post. But I’m not so interested in those.)

A cock scratch’d up, one day,
A pearl of purest ray,
Which to a jeweller he bore.
‘I think it fine,’ he said,
‘But yet a crumb of bread
To me were worth a great deal more.’

So did a dunce inherit
A manuscript of merit,
Which to a publisher he bore.
”Tis good,’ said he, ‘I’m told,
Yet any coin of gold
To me were worth a great deal more.’

Time for another fable. One of the things I like about these micro-stories is how they’re often in pictures as well as, or even instead of words. Going way back in history. Like this one, carved on a Buddhist stupa around 100 BC.

You can see the two otters (not very otterish I know) – they’ve just been fishing in the river and got out a great big fish. However they can’t agree on who should have it, or how it should be divided. One of them grabbed the fish first, the other one hauled it out. Finally they decide on even shares, but how to make sure they get exactly the same amount.

A jackal comes by and offers to arbitrate for them. They accept, and he makes his division: the tail for one otter, the head for the other. For his payment he takes off the body of the fish.

You can see the jackal in the picture twice: once advising, and the other making off with his part. He has given them fair shares. I’m not sure who the figure in the foreground is. Any ideas?

Interesting to see how the film without the drawings will work…

Here’s Scorsese talking about making the film. It certainly has a good look about it…