"Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?"
"I've been to London to visit the queen."
"Pussycat, pussycat, what did you there?"
"I frightened a little mouse under her chair."
Storybook Gardens of Wisconsin Dells, WI will not be reopening after what many thought was its annual winter hiatus. This morning, I read this article on the Wisconsin State Journal's website.
It's sad.
The Imaginary World, a site with a wonderful collection of storybook park ephemera (as well as other fun stuff), has an assortment of photos from the park's glory days. Unlike the realistic figures in The Gingerbread Castle and throughout Fairy Tale Forest, the characters of Storybook Gardens were stylized, cartoonish and whimsical, reminiscent of George Pal's "Puppetoons."
If you have a moment today, read a fairy tale. If you don't have that moment, rattle off a quick nursery rhyme. If you know a child, read a fairy tale to them when you see them - every time you see them. Teach them nursery rhymes, too.
But, in the words of Stephen Sondheim, "Careful the tale you tell, that is the spell - children will listen..."
