And now, here's a special little treat for you, because I know our readers love strange, weird, and wonderful things. A little old-timey horror music on the theremin, originally known as the Aetherphone. Here's the inventor explaining it. He starts playing your classic haunted house spooky music 15 seconds in so be patient. You'll laugh! Until next time...
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If you're reading THE DARK PORTAL, you may have come across a mention of "The Souling Song." If you haven't got to that part yet, you soon will! We thought you might like to hear what it sounds like. All story ghosts aside, E and I both find this song incredibly haunting. Below the audio is an old Victorian photo of some of the kinds of real, historical poor children who might have had to sing for a few pennies to buy something to eat. In this case, these were coalmine child workers.
To learn more about how life was for them, click the picture. It will take you to an article from the UK Daily Mail, by Annabel Venning, which discusses a recent scholarly book entitled Childhood And Child Labour In The British Industrial Revolution, by Professor Jane Humphries. Unfortunately, if you think that child labor - virtually child slavery - is the relic of a bygone age, brace yourself and click this grim infographic from the US Dept of Labor, which we came across in our research. It shows the prevalence of child labor in poor countries today. Chilling. (Once you open it, it will enlarge if you click on it.)
Greetings, my gargoyles! Today we're kicking off our Story Extras with a little Behind-the-Scenes about our new release, The Gryphon Chronicles, Book Three: THE DARK PORTAL, and where better to start than by taking a look at the setting?
So how do a pair of American writers end up writing a fantasy novel set in Wales? Well, that's easy. First of all Wales is just plain cool. Just ask Dr. Who. He returns to the Welsh city of Cardiff all the time. And if you don't think the bow-tie wearing Time Lord is really all that cool, then A) What's wrong with you, and B) Just look at their country's flag, the Red Dragon. Seriously cool.
But more importantly, using Wales as a setting was inevitable when you consider the fact that one half of E.G. Foley (ahem, that would be G) was OBSESSED as a kid with reading the great Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander (who was also an American, despite his Welsh name) over and over and over again.
G: Yes, the summer between fourth and fifth grade my family moved to a new state (from PA to New Jersey) and I was pretty devastated to leave my friends and grandparents and cousins behind. At our new home, I didn't know anybody, I didn't like it, and I did not know what to do with myself. In such situations, books can always come to a kid's rescue. I re-read Taran of Caer Dallben's whole saga five or six times in that summer, taking breaks only to try during that loooong summer to train my dog to do Dog Agility tricks, but she really wasn't into it. At all. LOL. So I just went back to reading. So, Wales was always a draw, and as I started researching it, I grew all the more intrigued. I thought I would just show you a little of what I found so you can see it for yourself and perhaps picture Jake's next adventure better in your imagination. First of all, you do know, right, that Wales is, um, attached to England. If you didn't know that, you might want to duck before "Old Sack," the headmaster ghost, whacks you in the noggin with an eraser from all the way up at the chalkboard. Wales is the dark greeny bit on the map below.
Jake's Welsh estate of Plas-y-Fforest is in the northern half of the country, in the mountains of Snowdonia. Nowadays, people flock to Snowdonia National Park to go hiking and camping, birdwatching, fishing, and communing with nature. Isn't it magnificent? Click here for more pictures and info about the region.
Moving on, when you read the book, you'll notice that the kids visit the town of Llanberis. So why don't we go visit it, too? Let's take the train. :)
Now make sure you realize that when you're looking at the video of these lovely woods through which the train winds, don't forget, there are probably pixies living in the trees. Just sayin'.
Now then, as you noticed in these pix and vids, there are all sorts of mountains in Snowdonia. In a future blog, we're going to looks at what's UNDER them. You are gonna love it.
Before I wrap this up, I must mention one of the most remarkable aspects of Wales and that is of course it's unusual place names. Wales boasts having the longest name of any village in the world. Behold: Here's the full name and below it, a little audio player so you can hear it the name is pronounced. (Hopefully the audio will work.)
If you find yourself as charmed as we are by Wales and want to enjoy it more (short of a holiday there, like Jake and friends!) then you should look for this Hugh Grant movie of a few years ago, set in Wales. Really cute! I believe at one point in the story he is as puzzled by the Welsh place names as I am!
And finally, because we know our readers are smart and like learning new things, here's a friendly Welsh fellow called Jason Shepherd who will teach us all how to say hello and goodbye in Welsh.
Well, my friends, Da Bo! Until next time. Please visit again for more Story Extras about THE DARK PORTAL! Hope you enjoy the story. xo, G. and E. too :)
Wowee! Want to get a little taste of what it must be like for Jake to take a ride on Red up into the sky? Check this out! Somebody strapped a tiny camera on a real live eagle. Ok, it's not a gryphon, for real, but you've got the eagle head there! You just have to use your imagination. I can't believe how smoothly the eagle flies. Amazing!!! Enjoy ~ G. :) Hello, gang! Well, earlier we had mentioned we'd chat a little about some of what was real versus pure fantasy in JAKE AND THE GIANT. I'm guessing you already know which category Professor Higgins's Rosetta Stone Babble-Gum falls under. *gg* But guess what? Many of the inventions and inventors Jake and company encounter at the Invention Convention were actually real. Thomas Edison's first phonograph. The earliest prototype of moving pictures. Dr. Schliemann's discovery of the the city of Troy (really!) and the golden Mask of Agamemnon. All real. Newly discovered dinosaurs, Egyptian mummies. Also real was Sir Francis Galton, the cold-eyed man who invented the dog whistle and later became known as the father of eugenics. Don't even get me started on that one. One of the other real things we discussed in a previous post was the discovery of the Tune ship, an ancient Viking vessel, on the shores of the Oslo Fjord in 1867. This discovery was the real-history model for our Professor Langsund and Miss Astrid's Viking ship - including the little ship museum they house it in right on the college campus. But here's a brain teaser for you. Bet you thought we made up Archie's Super Sub-Compact Camera, right? It sounds made up, but it was actually real! Check this out. Photography had really come of age by the Victorian period. Scientists had worked out a lot of the physical and chemical shortfalls of earlier models. Cameras, not unlike early computers, used to be the size of rooms. So, for Archie, the boy genius and inventor extraordinaire, it wasn't a big stretch for us to give him a camera. But were the Victorian cameras so sophisticated and small or were we taking some steampunk liberties with our creativity? Well, you might be surprised to know, that mid to late Victorians had perfected the camera to such a degree that hand held versions were readily available. Archie could have easily fit a collapsable camera into his toolbag or satchel. It was just a few inches across. Pretty neat, huh? I know we found it surprising because you usually picture Victorian photographers with huge clunky cameras on tripods that can't easily be moved and make you sit there for five minutes without smiling before it goes off - you know, where the photographer went and ducked under a cloth and then there'd be a big blinding puff of the flash going off. But that sort of camera was from previous decades. Innovation was moving fast. Cameras became widely used by detectives who would conceal them in a pocket watch, a walking stick, behind a shirt button, or even in a hat. Cameras for the first time in history, became important tools in crime solving. Enter Sherlock Holmes... Of course, as often is the case, people will always figure out a BAD way to use new technology. Since almost anyone with the means could purchase a camera, it was the first time in history that creepsters could run around snapping photographs of famous people or ordinary people for that matter whenever or wherever they wanted. It's just like the photographs in those rag magazines at the grocery checkout where people are caught in embarresing situations. Like this guy who was caught with his head off. They used to call these loons, "Kodakers lying in wait." Now we call them paparazzi. Some things never change, Eh? |
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