The Light Princess: An Illustrated Fairy Tale

Fairy tales teach children important life lessons, and The Light Princess by George MacDonald is no exception. The main lesson taught by this story is that one needs a balance between gravity and levity, or that there can be no true happiness without knowing sadness as well. This fairy tale is aimed at slightly older children, around age ten, so they might begin to understand this lesson. Younger children would not be able to understand this as well, but it may stick with the older kids. I feel that this is a particularly important life lesson, and my illustrations try to make this idea more memorable and appealing. In an increasingly digital world, the lessons taught by traditional fairy tales continue to be relevant. The lesson in this story, that one cannot be happy without knowing sadness, is a particularly critical one. Besides showing a message, illustrating The Light Princess gave me crucial experience with book illustration. Deciding what parts of a story to highlight, laying out a book, and sticking with one project for a long time are all aspects of this industry that I had not dealt with before. Hopefully my illustrations will bring attention to this fairy tale and George MacDonald\u27s stories and remind readers about the joy and importance of reading books

The Carnivalesque in George MacDonald’s The Light Princess

In this article, I apply Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of carnival to an analysis of George MacDonald’s The Light Princess (1864). First, I define the concept of ‘carnival’ as explained in Bakhtin’s Rabelais and his World (1965). The subversive characteristic of the carnival which Bakhtin writes of is paramount in fantasy literature, of which The Light Princess exemplifies various elements. Brian Attebery says, “fantastic literature, as a literature that provokes reinterpretations of ‘reality’ and the boundaries of what is known and accepted, plays an important role in Bakhtin’s criticism” (117). Second, I provide an overview of various critical responses to the ideological function of carnival, applying a special focus on how children’s literature criticism benefits from carnival by referring to critics such as John Stephens and Maria Nikolajeva. Finally, I examine ways in which MacDonald uses the carnivalesque mode to convey his ideas of social reform

The Performance Text of “The Light Princess” with \u3ci\u3eAdela Cathcart\u3c/i\u3e Frame

For this performance and text, the previous adaptation of “The Light Princess” by Cara Strickland was revised and adapted for performance by Dr. Joe. Ricke based on research conducted by Abby Palmisano and Blair Hedges. It was performed in the Butz-Carruth Recital Hall of Taylor University on the evening of Friday, June 3rd