Toy Story 3 Takes Lid Off Make Believe

UNDER THE PILLOW, in a cupboard, or stuck on a treetop trying to escape … where has my lost imagination gone? Now that I’m grown it tends to disappear on a regular basis. Sometimes I find it in strange places. At other times, it’s a movie like Toy Story 3 that brings back the ability to pretend.

Imagining when I was a child was natural and key to my existence. The forest fairies I would visit and the house builder I pretended to be with my alphabet blocks enriched my world. Boxes were trains and ribbons were roads I traveled on with my tiny toy cars and dress up dolls.

Creativity can get snuffed out early when school begins and we learn to colour inside the lines. By the time college rolls around, the stumbling blocks of reality and adult pursuits put a lid on the toy box as well as the imagination. Boundaries are set and mental dives into impossible realms rarely occur.

That’s why adults and kids alike will relate on so many different levels to the characters in Toy Story 3 and its brilliantly conveyed plot about a boy whose toys must be given away before he leaves home for college.

It took a thriving imagination to write such works as Toy Story, Alice In Wonderland and Harry Potter. It also took creative thinking to discover the world wasn’t flat, develop a safety pin, make the first fire and turn the first wheel. There is incredible value in quantum leaps of the mind. This is what cracks boundary walls, allowing the light of new ideas to seep through.

After seeing Toy Story 3, the stuffed toys and inanimate objects (pictured above) I have hung onto for years took on new meaning. It is not that I think they are secretly alive. But I did give them a much needed dusting and wished them a very good night before drifting off to sleep.

You can read the children's story I wrote several years ago about inanimate objects coming to life called Couch & Company HERE.

Copyright by Penelope Puddlisms

When Too Many Leaves Fall

THE EARTHQUAKE CATASTROPHE in Haiti, the boy soldier carried to his final resting-place in a coffin draped with a Canadian flag, the random death of an aid worker in the wrong place at the wrong time all bring to mind our fragile existence. Whether by natural disaster, manmade trauma or strange twist of fate our time on earth is uncertain and probably not fixed.

It would, indeed, be reassuring if we could depend on gracefully passing away at a ripe old age the way Freddy the leaf did in The Fall of Freddy the Leaf by Leo Buscaglia.

Buscaglia’s lovingly told story about the circle of life has been appreciated by all ages for nearly three decades. In the classic, Freddy has the good fortune to experience all the seasons the way only some of us do. Nonetheless, the tree and leaf metaphor is a timeless treasure that sensitively illustrates the interconnectedness of life and death. It speaks of a higher purpose and offers a simple yet comforting perspective of the inevitable. The book can be a useful tool to discuss life and death issues when questions arise during difficult times. Over the years, it has helped many through the process of grieving.

Of course, the extent of grieving is unfathomable in Haiti when one hears an unimaginable estimated 50,000 lost their lives within minutes when the earth grumbled and shook. Naturally, all hearts go out to the victims. The incredulous psyches of people everywhere have been deeply shaken.

These recent events, coupled with perpetual earthquake predictions in BC due to its fault lines, bring home the value of every moment and the uncertainties. Our place in time and in the universe is a riddle we have yet to solve. But along with the mystery and misery, precious moments inscrutably go by for anyone who cares to savor the fleeting miracle of being alive.

Postscript September 9, 2010:

Since the original writing of this article, it has been reported that as many as 200,000 people might have died in the Haitian earthquake.

Long & Short Of The Pete & Pickles Tale

I’M A GROWNUP known to enjoy a good children’s book now and then. This Christmas, I was gifted with a picture book that compels me to write the first review I’ve done in a while.

Pete & Pickles by cartoonist Berkeley Breathed of Bloom County fame instantly caught my interest because of its quirky characters, crisp writing style, and bold illustrations filled with creative detail that jump off the page.

Also, the birth of the book’s theme and its hand drawings with a possible blend of digital art are relatable to me because they are kid-inspired.

Just as my daughter’s watercolor drawings moved me to evolve the Penelope Puddle character, Breathed was inspired by his daughter’s crayon sketch coloured at a safari-themed restaurant. Not only did Breathed flesh out his daughter’s art, he expanded her thoughts about the characters to create the story in his book.

Pete & Pickles tells the tale of a fastidious and lonely widowed pig (Pete). Pete has a respectable fear of drowning, a worry that probably many kids and even some grownups (such as myself) can relate to.

Pete is lured out of his comfort zone by a good-natured elephant (Pickles). Pickles is a messy adventurer with a huge imagination that eventually sweeps them both into fantastic and fancifully faraway places.

In Penelope Puddle’s world, it is a sidekick umbrella that sparks the imagination. In Breatheds’ story, it is the elephant that clearly sparks imagination, luring practical Pete outdoors into unruly fun and adventure. Yes … from my perspective, Pickles IS, indeed, Pete’s “sidekick umbrella”.

Nonetheless, the pair develop a mutually beneficial relationship because Pete rescues Pickles, a circus elephant who has no one to care about him until Pete, grudgingly at first, comes along.

Some moms and dads might view the near-drowning and widower aspects of the story as somewhat “dark” for 6-year-olds and under. Other parents might not want their children delving into the book until they are nine years of age. However, if handled age-appropriately, a glimpse into love lasting beyond death, the warmth of a budding relationship, learning to overcome fears and challenging oneself could all likely supercede any concerns.

There are subtle moral lessons and nuances to Pete & Pickles that will appeal to both young and old. My main observation is, however, that long and short noses CAN get along and complement one another in the end.

Copyright by Penelope Puddlisms