PUPPETS from Prague and Stories

now it's about quite a few days after Prague, a week in fact.
I liked the marionetts the most - the hand made (non churned-out ones, or the ones of Harry Potter, errr, like not quite related to Prague) that Czech artists make, they are beautiful and made me want to read lots of stories, so I got a book on Czech folk stories, which I've almost finished. I'm saving the last bit.

The best puppets are in a little shop almost under the Charles Bridge, on the other side. its pretty cool cos you can take photo's of them. At the back of the shop is a little elven workshop where the puppet makers make puppets and restore puppets. this is a picture of one of the puppets for sale, its about 60cm tall and made of hand carved hand painted wood. most of the puppets are derived from Czech myths. Maybe more on Prague another day. there is a lot.

today i got three books for 6 squids, pretty awesome, from a little bookshop near Holborn on Lambs Conduit passage, where there is also a great little gallery, who's name I cant remember.
so , these are the books I got :
The Sun's Babies - a book of stories, was printed in 1915 and written by Edith Howes It has wonderful little sort of random marks on the pages which are all sort of yellowish because its so old and there is a poem in the front, which goes like this:

THE SUN-MAN'S BABIES
The Moon-Man sent his stars to bed,
And turned a pitying eye
To where the Sun-Man sailed alone,
Across the eastern sky.

"Poor thing!" he said. "How sad to have
No children round your knee.
A thousand thousand stars are mine
How lonely you must be!"

The Sun-Man laughed a jolly laugh.
He pointed far below,
To where the shiny busy earth
Swung golden in his glow

"A million million babes are mine,"
He said, "on yonder earth;
My sunbeams wrap them all the day,
To me they owe their birth.

"A million million babes smile up
From dawn till day is done.
And when I say my last good-night
I kiss them every one"

And then I got a book called 'The Minnipins' by Carol Kendall, which was printed in 1959.
This is the poem at the beginning of the book

In the long far off
Of the land Outside
Brave Minnipins lived
And some of them died.

Lost are their treasures, buried deep.

Till the Dry Time came
And the world was sand -
Then Minnipins fled
T a wetter land.

Lost are their treasures; in the ground they sleep.

And nobody knew
That the Minnipins went
To the land of the River,
Where they live content.

Lost are their treasures, and the secret they keep.
------ Gummy, Scribbles (Collected Works)

and I'll divulge the 3rd book tomorrow....

Really its pretty cool to read history and stories. it would be good for humanity if all kids had a subject in school called 'history and stories' , that way perhaps we'd understand each other better and the world would be more accomodating orrrrr / and more grounded, sort of thing.

ADIOS. oh ja, and it would be easier for kids to remember history if it was more like a story, and there could be pictures too.