Fairy Tale Novels by Regina Doman

I first became aware of Regina Doman and her Fairy Tale Novels through fellow blogger Elenatintil, whom I found on NarniaWeb.

Authored by Catholic home-schooling mother Regina Doman, the Fairy Tale Novels are a series of books that take classic fairy tales and retell them in a modern setting. Currently there are 4: The Shadow of the Bear (Snow White and Rose Red), Black As Night (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), Waking Rose (Sleeping Beauty) and The Midnight Dancers (the Twelve Dancing Princesses). The latter has yet to make it to my bookshelf, by the way. 

The Shadow of the Bear, Black As Night and Waking Rose follow the lives of two sisters, Blanche and Rose Brier. The first book splits the focus pretty evenly between the two sisters; however Black As Night is solely Blanche’s story as Waking Rose is Rose’s.

Pros

I enjoyed these books. While not absolutely astounding pieces of literature, they were enjoyable, good reads; definitely worth the money spent on them. Doman has a good grasp of character and a talent for making situations feel real. In particular, I loved Fish/Benedict Denniston. Now there is a character after my own heart: a slightly sarcastic fellow with a quick-fire wit and a tongue to express it.

One of the greatest things about these books is the wholesome worldview they present. The characters and author insist upon the beauty of living your life for God. Morality isn’t stifling and holiness isn’t drab.

Cons

While I enjoyed these books, I did find a few areas where I thought they were lacking.

1. Important parts of the fairy tales skipped over
2. “Catholic”, not “Christian”

1. The fairy tale “Snow White and Rose Red”, has many themes. One is compatibility in companionship: a theme that is very well expressed in The Shadow of the Bear. But there are other themes, themes that got left behind. In the fairy tale, the girls live in the forest where they know every creature, every flower. They are comfortable in their environment; they wander where they please, taking no thought for their safety, because they know nothing will harm them. Even Snow White, the shy and quiet sister has no fear of the forest or the inhabitants.

In The Shadow of the Bear, the girls are new arrivals to the city. They have few or no friends, and Blanche is anything but comfortable with her environment.

There are, of course, many lessons to be learned from those who are adjusting to their environment. But they are not the lessons of this fairy tale.

Also, the encounters with the “dwarf” (a major part of the original fairy tale) felt like it was squeezed in.

I had the same trouble with Waking Rose. It just didn’t feel like Sleeping Beauty.

One of the reasons Black As Night was my favorite out of the three was that it truly was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs retold in the modern world. All the major points of the fairy tale were represented, and several quiet nods to the source material peppered the background.

2. The biggest trouble I had with the fairy tale novels is that the characters and worldview are defined as “Catholic”. Not once in the first three books is the word “Christian” used. It’s always “Catholic”. Is the wholesome outlook Doman presents Catholic, or is it Christian?

Oh, I call myself Presbyterian, and I am, fiercely and completely. But Presbyterian comes after and only after Christian. The “Christian” part defines my life, and is my worldview. “Presbyterian” is for those little details, which sometimes give more trouble than the big, important ones. To me, acknowledging our unity in the redeeming blood of Christ seems like it ought to come first, before we proclaim our allegiance to a particular branch of the visible church. 

 I am planning on getting The Midnight Dancers when I get a spare $25, and Alex O’Donnell and the 40 Hackers when it comes out. And I would love to see Doman write something in a different genre, outside of her comfort zone.

 

Waste Weeds

This is for April. Different topic than my usual essays, but enjoy.

Usual Disclaimer: I am not a physician, nor do I have any training as a botanist or an herbalist; it’s merely a fascinating hobby of mine. Peterson Field Guides: Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants and Herbs by Steven Foster and James A. Duke was my main resource for this post. By the way, I love that book.

Wasteland is defined as “A barren or desolate land” by the Webster Comprehensive Dictionary Encyclopedic Edition and “ An area of land that is desolate or barren and not used” by my friendly computer dictionary. Sometimes land becomes barren through natural causes, like a fire or something; very often it is a case of human disregard for the balance of creation. Most plants don’t seem to want to grow in such areas, and really, who can blame them? Today’s wasteland is lacking in nitrogen, one of the three things plants need to survive (the other two are phosphorus and water). However, there is a group of hardy plants that do grow, and often thrive, in waste places.

Members of this group (in Southern Indiana) are dandelions, wild onions, golden rod, Jimsonweed, common nightshade, Heal-All, and Lady’s Thumb. As our land was a former corn/soybean field, I am on nick-name terms with these and other waste weeds. For what seemed like a very long time, hardly anything else would grow here.   

Mom calls them nitrogen-fixers or darn pests, depending on her mood. I call them very interesting. Despite being pests and growing on the most depleted of soils, most of these waste weeds have great medicinal value. For example: Dandelion flower tea have been used for malaria and lung ailments. Tea made from the leaves is used for high fevers and a poultice of the same relieves snake and spider bites. The leaves of lady’s thumb can be made into a tea for stomachaches, inflammation and sore throats. Goldenrod root can be used for burns; the flower tea for fevers. Of course, jimsonweed and nightshade both have healing properties…if you don’t mind the highly toxic nature of the plants.

Not only are these plants of medicinal importance, many are edible too: young dandelion leaves, goldenrod seeds, wild onions, plus many, many others…our modern, post-supermarket tastes may not appreciate them, but they are edible.

Isn’t it amazing? These plants we term “pesky” help restore nitrogen to depleted land, have beautiful flowers, and are also capible of feeding us and restoring our bodies to health. God really did know what He was doing.

 

The Big Issues Reach Education

I know I said I would get this up awhile ago, but I have a really great excuse. It took more thought and prayer before it seemed polished enough to go up. Any rate, here you go. Bear in mind that these are the observations of an 18 year old, who does have a tendency to beat the life out of an issue after everybody else has moved on.

Who’s In Charge of Education?

I know, the above seems like a homeschooling tag line. It’s shouted everywhere: at conferences, in books, magazines, even on toys!  A lot of the time, I think homeschooler are swept away by the benefits (real and imagined, ’cause there are both) and forget the true reason why this route was started. And of course, different people had/ have different reasons for home education. But…is the question of which particular group of sinners ought to have charge of education really the main issue?

Where I’ve Come From

Recently I’ve had the experience of remembering the real reason my parents home-educated me. For them, it was always about providing a godly education that was also the best possible education. They hoped and succeeded to supply my brother and I with the schooling that would equip us for whatever we chose to do with the rest of our lives. They also made it their goal to insure, as far as parents can (and have the right to), that we would be grounded in our Christian faith and personal love of our Saviour, being able to carry this faith into all areas of our lives. They wanted to teach us how to love God and live according to a higher standard while living in this world. Other goals were to give us a love of learning and the ability to learn on our own.

We didn’t really use one set curriculum; although our style was very similar to that of Sonlight in that we were allowed to look all sides of an argument and make up our own minds. However, we had to able to prove that our view point was biblical and defensible. (An interesting trivia fact is that on some minor issues, MA’s opinion and my own are vastly different. Bring up the question of whether Beowulf is Christian or not and you as well may pull up a chair or go away.)

Worldview, a class that required that we pull back from outside influences (even Mom and Dad’s!) and examine what we really believed, was a major part of high school. I’m going to have to pester Mom some more about either publishing or posting her worldview class; it was really top-notch.

Socialization

I’ve often been asked where I got my socialization. The entirety of my answers can be boiled down to: basically the same place you got yours. Church, family, friends, neighbors, shopping, doctor’s offices, book stores, biking down local roads, volunteer work, jobs (babysitting in my case, handyman type stuff in MA’s), people who have helped us with our various auto breakdowns, tae kwon do, swim team, riding lessons, basket making classes, the list goes on longer than I think I have any right to bore you. Just because I didn’t spend several hours a day in a public school doesn’t mean I was isolated! Where ever Mom went, MA and I went with her; and believe me, she went everywhere. To this day, there are people who start to worry if Mom goes somewhere without us.

The only part of the socialization question that I don’t dispute is that I never had to deal with school politics. From the politics that crept into the homeschool groups we were part of, I’m rather glad of it. I didn’t–and still don’t–like being either thrust aside or feeling like I had to fit into a pigeon hole in order to be accepted. I really, really like the liberty to be plain old organic, multifaceted me.

My Views on What Education Should Be

Well, after 6 years of pondering this, one world view class, and listening and reading a literal ton of stuff about this, I can answer that I am 100% satisfied with the education I received and the philosophy behind it. In particular, I loved

• How much we relied on the Bible; not commentaries on the Bible, not philosophies that had the tag line “Biblical”, not the latest from X teacher: the Bible.
• Learning at my own speed. Within reason, I could go faster or slow down in each particular subject.
• Interest-driven high school. Some things were mandatory and not subject to any change: Worldview, history, literature, logic. Others were mandatory but were shaped around our interests: math, science and foreign language. For example, Science was molded around my interests: botany, astronomy, human anatomy, stuff that didn’t require a whole bunch of math skills [Hint: the only B's on my high school transcript are on algebra and geometry.]
• History and literature: reading from primary sources and not hearing a lecture about a book or time frame before I studied it.
• Being allowed to struggle to find the answer myself instead of just being given it.
• A wrong idea being challenged instead of just corrected.
• The freedom to decide whether or not I wanted to go to college.
• My imagination being nurtured and encouraged. As someone who hopes to earn a living off her imagination, I’m so very grateful that my parents and other mentors took the time and really went out of their way to encourage me in this area.
• Having a very formal style of education like the classical model we used.
• Having a very relaxed setting in which to do our very formal, classical education.
• Not being preached at all the time or continually being hit over the head with the Bible. This gave me the freedom to enjoy the Bible and proper preaching.

What would I do differently? Well, if I get married and have children (in that order), I would like them to learn the Children’s Catechism and the Shorter Catechism when they are little. But this isn’t really something my parents refused to do with us, they just didn’t know about those things at that time and I know that the Lord has a reason for the timing He gave us.

Also, I don’t think I will want to use Math U-See. But honestly, that’s about all I’d do differently. I don’t believe the things I believe because my parents believe them or because I was told to; I believe them because I am convinced they are right and they work.

 

 

The Big Issues & Me

Once again…this post will probably be subjected to the edit button several times.

I have found myself dwelling on The Big Issues that homeschoolers face for quite some time now. The Big Issues being (among others) education, homeschooling support groups, courtship vs dating, modesty, the role of women and home churches. Of course, these issues touch more than just homeschoolers, but being a homeschooler, I can see how these affect homeschoolers better than I can guess how they affect other kind of schoolers.

There are probably many reasons why these things keep popping into my head. The main reason is because during the first half of my year I recommitted myself to Christ. By this I mean I decided — or rather the Lord decided that I couldn’t just be a nominal Christian adult. If I truly believe that God created me and that Christ died to save me from my own sin, then I have to be passionate and whole hearted about it, like my wonderful parents. I’m not saying I wasn’t passionate about my Faith as a child, just that I have to treat the meat the same way that I treated the milk.

Another reason would be that, as an adult, I am seeing things differently now. You might say, a little more clearly and a little more logically.

Yet another Big reason is that I am rapidly becoming a red-hot Reformed & Presbyterian gal. I know “Calvinists” aren’t very popular with the main evangelical crowd (which appears to include the majority of homeschoolers), but I truly do want to show people that you can be chosen without being the “Frozen Chosen”. There isn’t a A for Arrogance in T.U.L.I.P., despite what many people on both sides of the board seem to think.

Part of fully embracing my Reformed & Presbyterianess is going back to the beliefs I established as a quasi-Calvinist/Baptist/whatever we were and re-examining them. Do I really believe what I said I did four years ago? Are the beliefs where I simply pointed to a leading modern teacher accurate to our true standard, the Bible? How has God used life to correct my errors?

So I have decided to use my once a month blog essay to work out and set down what I believe on each of these issues[education, homeschooling support groups, courtship vs dating, modesty, the role of women and home churches]. I want to start with them because these are the ones that I have been dwelling on. Some of them are going to take more courage then others, so bear with me and I might just be coherent. No grantees, though.

One thing I want to say loud and clear before I begin is this: I, in no way shape or form, regret the sheltering Mom and Dad gave me during my formative years. I do not believe I could go through this period of refining with any kind of grace without the rock-solid foundation you two gave me; and for that I thank God and I thank you. 

March’s topic: Education, to be posted later this week. Hopefully.

Ahhhh!! It’s 12:30 and I’m still pounding keys! Whatever happened to “I’m so tired I can’t think”? Oh never mind, I know what happened: Words. They’re not so slightly intoxicating for me. Okay, now I’m rambling…

Edit Number One: ^ My natural reaction to being serious for what I consider a long time. And despite what the time record thing says at the top of the post, this is February’s essay; unless tomorrow morning I consider it to be grossly unessay-like.

 

A President’s Covenant

I’m setting myself the goal of doing a two page length essay every month. (At least, two pages is the goal.) I hated doing these in school, consequently I’m not very good at them. Let me rephrase: I liked writing reports that didn’t have to be longer than a page. Any longer then that and Mom would really have to make me do it. I guess I favor short and (hopefully) snappy. Since today is President-elect Obama’s inauguration, I guess I should do one on the ceremony. To do that, I’ll have to watch it, so I’ll post this now and edit it later with the essay.

A President’s Covenant

“That big swear,” Warbeak tells Matthias in Redwall. She is referring to swearing on her mother’s egg, but her words describe the Oath of Officeexceedingly well. It is a mighty big swear.

The man taking the oath makes a covenant with God to protect and defend the American people. He covenants to uphold justice, integrity, truth and liberty. In effect, he covenants to be a man after God’s own heart; for is God not a God of justice, integrity, truth and liberty?

The oath-taker asks for God’s aid, acknowledging that he is not the highest authority, that he is not infallible and that he cannot do this of his own strength. If the man believes what he is saying, it is a big swear. If he does not, God help him.

The oath is not just a covenant with God. It is also a covenant between a leader and the people who elected him. Our president covenants with us, saying he will defend us, he will honor and protect our laws, and he will maintain justice. God’s aid is sought out is to fulfill this covenant.

But today was not just about the oath, although that was a major part of what took place. Our new President gave a speech and what a speech it was! President Obama was certainly not afraid to give this nation a shake-down speech. If he is as good as his word, there will a lot of changes.

In his speech he told us that, while we should never apologize for our wealth, we cannot continue to abuse it. We have been selfish and greedy and now it is time to stop. Responsibility must be learned. He basically told America to wake up, acknowledge the flaws within us and work to correct them. No arguments from this small-town girl!

As his term progresses, I might and probably will disagree with some of President Obama’s methods for change; but he will have my deep respect for being willing to act. God bless and guide our new President!

Well, that wasn’t two pages but it will have to do. This post will probably be subjected to the edit button several times.

Hannah