Fairies: Behind the Veil

Every book is a portal. Through it, we enter realms and times not our own. While there, we learn to see ourselves and our world differently, and come back changed: hopefully wiser, more courageous, more aware.

But not all worlds are created equal, and not all worlds have equal power to stoke the fires of wonder in our hearts. For centuries, children have known the power of the fairy realm to awaken wonder, excitement, dread, and joy. It's time to open the door to that realm just a crack.

The courses below will take your child on fantastical voyages to strange and wild places. They will come back changed: their hearts will be a bit wilder, but also quite a bit steadier. What they see will sober them as well as excite them, challenge them as well as delight them. And, after all, such things are the very business of growing into maturity without growing out of childlike wonder.

This version of the course, for students ages 13-18, will guide students through these challenges. In so doing, students will be equipped to face the challenges of our own world with both courage and joy.

Objectives

Students in this course will practice:

• examining the aspects of story (setting, plot, characters) to draw out deep meaning
• close reading and textual analysis;
• participating in rigorously text-based discussion of a story

Texts

• George MacDonald, The Light Princess (Rabbit Room Press, 2019).
• G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Ignatius Press, 1995)
• Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Square Fish, 2011)
• J.R.R. Tolkien, Smith of Wooten Major & Farmer Giles of Ham (Del Rey, 1986)
• J.R.R. Tolkien, Tree and Leaf: Including ‘Mythopoeia’ (HarperCollins, 2001)
• J.M. Barrie, Dear Brutus
• Eloise McGraw, The Moorchild (Aladdin Paperbacks, 1996)"