Beyond the Door Blog Tour
What have I learned about the world from
myth as a writer and a reader? Since writing Beyond the Door and The
Peculiars I’ve been thinking about why myth matters. During this tour I’ve blogged
in the U.S and U.K. about six things I’ve learned from mythic stories that have
inspired me. The links are below in case you missed any! Today I’m sharing some
of the books that have inspired me.
Favorite
Mythic Stories
When I was small my mother read me stories
from The Tall Book of Make Believe (http://www.amazon.com/Tall-Book-Make-Believe-Jane-Werner/dp/0060265051)
and Andrew Lang’s classic fairytale books. When I went to the library I always
headed straight to the fairytale section. Those early stories had a huge impact
on me. For years I remembered snatches of a story about a girl who jumped rope
(skipped) with fairies. She could jump through a key hole and land on a
spiderweb without breaking it. It was
years before I found it again: Elsie
Piddock Skips in Her Sleep (http://www.amazon.com/Elsie-Piddock-Skips-Her-Sleep/dp/0763607908/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1401811730&sr=1-1&keywords=Elsie+Piddock+skips+in+her+sleep).
So why did these early stories stick with
me? I was taken with the idea of enchantment, of a world just beyond on our
own, of creatures like elves or fairies that exist separately from us and have a
deeper connection to the earth. Myth and fairytales speak to longing. They can
be dark, but they are also evocative. What the best stories awaken in us is
yearning and recognition: Yearning for something longer ago, further away, or
yet about to be. Recognition of something we have never met, but have always
known.
I didn’t and still don’t like fairytales or
myth that don’t take the fantastic seriously…so satires of fairy and myth don’t
work for me. You’ll also notice most of the myth and fairytales I love don’t
come from the Greek tradition. They’re northern European. And I’m a huge fan of
the illustrations of Arthur Rackham (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rackham)
and Charles Vess (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Vess). In no particular
order, here are some of my favorites:
T.H. White: The Once and Future King, Gillian Bradshaw: Hawk of May, Jane Yolen: The
Wild Hunt, Susan Cooper: Dark is
Rising series, Terri Windling: The
Wood Wife, Tolkien: Lord of the Ring
series and Leaf by Niggle, C.S. Lewis
Chronicles of Narnia, Neil Gaiman: Neverwhere and Stardust, Philip Pullman: Golden
Compass.
With his love of
learning and the game of Scrabble, Timothy James feels like the only
person who understands him is his older sister, Sarah, and he’s fairly
certain nothing interesting will ever happen to him. But one night,
while his parents and sister are away, the door opens, and mythical
creatures appear in his own living room! Soon, a mystery of unparalleled
proportions begins to unfold, revealing an age-old battle of Light
against Dark, and Timothy must embark on a quest to prevent the Dark
from controlling the future and changing the past. But he can’t complete
the quest alone. Timothy has to team up with his sister and the school
bully, Jessica, to face an ancient evil, and in the process, this
unlikely trio discover they are each more than meets the eye.
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