France

Materials from France

Sleeping Beauty

Amidst light, shadow, and magic emerge the drama of a king’s decision, an angry thirteenth fairy, a prince undaunted by a wall of brambles, and a lovely princess, fast asleep. For at that moment, a thicket of briars grew tall and wide around her court and castle, enveloping it with mystery. A legend began to spread.

Polo: The Runaway Book

When the resourceful dog sets aside his brand-new book and drifts off to sleep, a curious little creature makes off with it. Polo follows in hot pursuit, setting the stage for a new series of adventures—into the sky, to a mysterious cloud made of cotton candy, through fun-house mirrors, on hot air balloons, across a desert and into the jungle.

The Adventures of Polo

Equipped with a backpack full of supplies, Polo sets off on a little boat–and on a series of delightful adventures that take him across (and under) the ocean, to an island and a frozen iceberg, to space and home again, with a world of magical encounters along the way. Polo’s journey is packed with incident and expression.

Three Perfect Peaches: A French Folktale

The king offers his daughter’s hand in marriage to the young man who can produce three perfect peaches.

Cinderella

Kind Cinderella, forced to wait hand and foot on her cruel stepsisters and stepmother, has almost forgotten that she, too, was once a lady with fine clothes and a soft bed to sleep in. But when Cinderella is left at home on the night of the royal ball, her fairy godmother turns pumpkin into coach, mice into horses, lizards into coachmen, and Cinderella’s rags into a beautiful ball gown. At the ball, Cinderella captures the prince’s heart, but must flee before the stroke of midnight. Now the prince must find the true owner of the delicate glass slipper Cinderella has left behind.

Sleeping Beauty

When the king and queen throw a banquet in honor of the birth of their daughter, they invite all of the fairies, but one, Skura, who attends the feast, seeking revenge. She curses the baby, but her evil intentions are undone by the good fairy who instead promises years of sleep.

 

What’s Coming for Christmas?

You can see it in the way the snowman’s eyes sparkle. Hear it in the voices of carolers echoing in the streets, and in the sounds of children trimming the tree. You can feel it in the warm fire dancing in the hearth. Meanwhile, the mother hen hushes her chicks, the pigs’ little tails curl in excitement, and the sheep nod knowingly as all wait in eager anticipation for a joyous Christmas surprise.

Truce

On July 29th 1914, the world’s peace was shattered as the artillery of the Austria-Hungary Empire began shelling the troops of the country to its south. What followed was like a row of falling dominoes as one European country after another rushed into war. Soon most of Europe was fighting in this calamitous war that could have been avoided. This was, of course, the First World War.

But who could have guessed that on December 25 the troops would openly defy their commanding officers by stopping the fighting and having a spontaneous celebration of Christmas with their “enemies”?