Of Magical Woods and Trees

This is the book that fired my imagination at the age of 9. That transported me like a magic bullet train into another reality, a world of pure creativity. That made me realise that mere words on a paper can be transformed into huge galaxies of existence that are pure fantasies in our minds. That was the start of a perpetual chain reaction of reliance on the written word for pure escapism. 

This book is the catalyst that fuelled the homage my mind pays to many different whistle stops to a plethora of worlds from infinite books that can only exist uniquely in my imagination. 

And I am elated that Big Bee is allowing herself to bravely step into this universe that only her mind alone can witness and experience. A pure fantastical cognizance that existed differently in each of our minds. Using only our individual instruments of reading and imagination. 

We bought the 3 books of Enid Blyton's acclaimed Faraway Tree series as Christmas presents for her last year. She completed all 3 of them in less than a fortnight. And she is now rereading the entire series again. This series was Hubby's and my favourite childhood books, and we spoke fondly of the characters and lands in the books with her. I am elated that she is as mesmerised by fairies and magical forests as I was (and am!). And I hope Little Bee would be equally enchanted in time to come. 

I am hoping Big Bee can harness all these reading into creative writing, and I am trying all means to help her express herself through writing. For a start, here was something she wrote last September before her aquaintance with the enthralling creatures of the Faraway Tree. Which was uncanny as she wrote about the tallest tree in the woods, very much like the Enchanted Wood. Enjoy this unedited version (and hence, pardon any grammatical mistakes)! 

Cover - very reasonably priced ;) 

"There was one very tall tree in the woods. It was the tallest! The birds always build their nest in that tree. It was so tall that even a giraffe could not eat the leaves of the tree. The other giraffe always laugh at the giraffe who could not eat the leaves of the tallest tree. If birds are too tired, they cannot fly up to the tallest tree. Not even a man can chop down that tree or even ten. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10."

"If they really wanted to chop down that tree it could take them four years. But nobody will waste their time doing that. One day, the newspaper wanted people to chop down that tree. It reads... (see picture above). (note from Mummy: I think I need to teach her more about the environment and sustainability!!)

Everybody wanted to chop down the tallest tree. Nobody could do it. Even animals wanted to chop down that tree. All the animals tried but they could not chop it down."

(...to be continued...)

She continued the story after I took the photos of her book last September, but I could not find the book to type out the completed story now, apologies! She had not written another story book since then, which was slightly worrying for me, although there were many journal entries and other written notices.

In this age of multimedia and multifarious distractions, I think it is highly challenging for us parents to channel our children's creativity into focused activities that will be constructive and beneficial for them, rather than allowing their minds to fall into a semi-comatose state with unhelpful TV shows, iPhone, Wii and computer games that even I am guilty of indulging the children with!