The Literate Kitty

Fairy tales are made of magic. I wonder how many of you are sitting there right now, nodding (with the large, up-and-down head movements which signify your enthusiastic agreement, or maybe with those small, I'm-incredibly-uncomfortable-in-my-own-skin head bobs which indicate a more-cautious accord), compared to the number of you with a pained look plastered across your faces. "Fairy tales?", the skeptics among you are thinking. "Didn't we leave those behind in grade school?" Well... yeah, most of us probably did... but why we did that is what I'd like to know. Look at it this way-- most books do a decent job of throwing "real life" in our faces. It may not be the real life you or I have (and in the case of murder mysteries or horror stories, that's a really good thing ), but you know what I mean. It's either the stuff we do, or the stuff we see on TV or in the news. Fantasies, on the other hand, are sort of like grown-up fairy ta...

Let’s say you were making a soundtrack for the story of your life.  Chances are, sooner or later you’d find yourself browsing the Beatles’ repertoire. ( Seriously, those lads from Liverpool had something to say — -well, sing—about almost everything... down to oddly-colored submarines and walruses, if you’re so inclined. )  But back to the soundtrack. Think about the exuberantly-fun “ Twist and Shout,"  the infectiously-catchy “ Here Comes the Sun,"  or the melancholy  “ Yesterday ”—each sort of perfectly expresses a thought or emotion or feeling most of us identify with, no matter our age, sex, race, etc. That kind of timeless, universal work is so powerful that the Beatles have achieved a kind of immortality. Only time will tell if Urban Fantasy—itself so full of immortal characters and powerful imagery—will enjoy a similar longevity. The best of it definitely captures our imaginations, though, making us laugh, sweat, and occasionally cry... all while rooting f...