A Mommy Story

OK, so I’m a day late to the party, but yesterday kicked off the 37th season of Sesame Street, and the Lovely Mrs. Davis threw a blog party to celebrate the kick off. The big party game was to answer this question: What television, music, movie, or book from your childhood are you excited about sharing with your own children?

I had to think about this for awhile. There is so much from when I was younger that I still hang on to.

First, I’d have to say the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Aaron still has a large collection of them, and as a kid I checked every single one of them out of our library. Back before kids books were interactive with flashing lights and music (for the record, I hate those awful things), the Choose Your Own Adventure books were the first interactive books. You got to actually take part in shaping the story!

For those who never read them, it generally involved a page or two of text, followed by a question. Usually the heroes were stuck choosing what direction to go next, and the bottom of the page would read, “If the heroes turn left, go to page 53. If the heroes turn right, go to page 22.” One choice was always the better choice over the other, and the story had different endings depending on the choices you made.

I would read these books over and over, selecting different choices each time to see how it would affect the outcome. Sometimes I’d flip to a page and just take a peek to see if it would lead to certain doom – if so, I’d choose the other option. Yes, that was cheating. But these books made me feel like I had some say in the story, and to a child, having a little control over something is a special treat.

Next, I intend for my daughter to watch The Last Unicorn. I still have strong memories of watching this amazing animated movie as a child! Sure, there’s a little bit of language in it, and the animation is crude, but the story is full of so much emotion and beauty. Plus, the cast of characters is one you’ll never find in today’s sanitized children’s movies: Mommy Fortuna, the mad witch, Schmendrick, the young (and bumbling) magician, the outspoken Molly Grue, and the scary old King Haggard.

The story involves a unicorn, the last of her kind, leaving her forest to find out what happened to the others. Along the way, she learns a hard lesson that the rest of the world is not a safe place. She meets Schmendrick along the way, and they find their way to King Haggard, but not before Schmendrick accidentally transforms her into a human.

They discover that the king has used his fierce Red Bull (before the energy drink, people) to capture all the other unicorns and drive them into the sea, so that their beauty may be viewed by the king alone. While in her human form, the unicorn meets the king’s son, Prince Lir, and the two fall in love.

However, the king soon discovers she’s a unicorn and sends his bull to capture her. She is transformed into a unicorn again so that she can defend herself, but she now wants to remain a human and refuses to fight back. The prince is killed when he tries to defend her, and his death prompts her to fight back and drive the bull into the sea, freeing the other unicorns. However, she is now different from all of them, for no unicorn has ever felt love or regret, and she now carries both with her.

My retelling does the story a disservice, so if you’ve never seen it, I encourage you to watch this movie. It’s just as entertaining for adults as well.

Since this post is getting long, I’ll throw in at the end other things from my childhood that I plan to share with Cordelia and any other children we may have: the Muppets (of course), School House Rock, the movies The Last Starfighter and Explorers, Animaniacs (sure, it was my teen years, but they’re must-have!), and Sailor Moon (also teen years, but originally made in the 80’s in Japan).