Beauty and the Beast

This week's story is "Beauty and the Beast", an immensely popular folk tale that first appeared in print in France bout 250 years ago. Like most popular folk tales, the story has many versions in many different cultures. It has inspired a number of novels, plays, films, a TV series and a Nintendo game (Donkey Kong). The most successful film adaptations were the 1946 French movie directed by Jean Cocteau, and the 1991 Disney musical edition. "King Kong" was also based on this legend.

The Disney animated feature, of course, has been transformed into a successful stage musical, and we recently attended an outstanding production of it at the Little Theatre of Winston-Salem, featuring some of Zephyr's friends in the cast.

D.E.A.R.

Drop Everything and Read! On April 12th stop what you are doing and read for 5 minutes to celebrate Drop Everything and Read day.

Zephyr, by the way, has finally left North Carolina and caught up with us in Chicago, just in time to complete Act!vated Storypark, a new fun activity feature which will be on our website (soon!) based on some of our folk tales, and created with Roller Coaster Tycoon.

Happy Listening,

Dennis (father), Kimberly (Beauty) and Zephyr (the Beast)