Lynda Barry on Fairy Tales

They can't transform your actual situation, but they can transform your experience of it. We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay. 

So wise. This is from the cartoonist Lynda Barry's memoir/exploration of images What It Is (Drawn & Quarterly, 2008). I so enjoyed the whole book, especially the part about the "transformational capabilities" of old stories. Barry's ideas reinforced my tentative plan to read the second graders a whole lot of fairy tales and folk tales this year. 

Comments

[Michele]

<3 <3

[Natalie, the Chickenblogger]

It's been quite some time since I think of Lynda Berry.
In middle school I read her comic strip... so strange and raw, and relatable.
How nice to be reminded of her.

[Susan T.]

Michelle & Natalie, thanks for your comments. I happened across the Lynda Barry title in the library, and just love it. I am going to look for more of her books, and for more books published by Drawn & Quarterly.

[tanita]

"...we create it to be able to STAY."
WHOA.
That's a deep truth. Have to think about that for a bit -- and look up her comics, since I've never seen any before. Thanks for something new and thought-provoking.

[Susan T.]

Tanita, I have really enjoyed a couple of Lynda Barry's books lately. This one (What It Is) and another, Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor. Both are about creativity and approach it in interesting ways. Syllabus led me to Ivan Brunetti's Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice (Yale University Press, 2011). Gosh, I love rabbit trails!

I am starting the year with the second graders with Paul Galdone's The Three Billy Goats Gruff. I really like what Lynda Barry says about fantasy and "being able to stay." So smart.