Discussion Question: London Olympics & Children's Authors
Discussion Question: London Olympics Opening Ceremony
I am a sucker for the Olympics. For me, it’s not so much about the sports or the medals - although I enjoy watching those swimmers shoot through the water like torpedoes as much as the next girl - but the pageantry. The opening and closing ceremonies are not to be missed. Since I’m quite an Anglophile, I was especially excited to see the show London would put on for the rest of the world. I rambled a bit about the opening ceremony over in my other blog, but today I wanted to think about a specific portion of the show - the section dedicated to British children’s literature.
In case you missed the show, here’s the lowdown. Somewhere in the middle segment there’s a tribute to the NHS (National Health Service) in which an army of doctors and nurses push luminescent beds, each containing a child drifting into sleep. As the kids dream, the great villains of British literature appear in their nightmares:
Captain Hook (Peter Pan)
The Queen of Hearts (Alice in Wonderland) and Cruella de Vil (101 Dalmatians)
The Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was also wheeling around - but I don’t believe that was a book originally, was it? But of course, the Lord of Evil towering above all the rest was Harry Potter’s He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named…
VOLDEMORT!!! (and the Queen again)
So who can defeat all these evil baddies in the dream world? Well, we all know there’s only one woman for the job:
MARY POPPINS!
Actually, a whole flock of Poppins…
So this was an unusual but very fun moment in the opening ceremony, but as they moved on to Mr. Bean and his cell phone shenanigans, I was left thinking to myself, “Something’s missing. What about the other great British authors???”
So I’d like to open the floor to you:
WHICH BRITISH AUTHOR / CHILDREN’S SERIES WOULD YOU HAVE LIKED TO HAVE SEEN IN THE LONDON OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY?
Here are the titans of English lit that I wish could have been included…and my thoughts on why they weren’t.
1. ROALD DAHL
Roald Dahl wrote so many classic books for kids, and the only mention he got was a brief clip of Willy Wonka in one of the many film montages. He was such a great writer - even today, he’s in my Top 10. But he doesn’t have a single iconic villain, so it would have been difficult to include him.
Although this Wonka definitely appears in MY nightmares…
2. RUDYARD KIPLING
While he’s never been a particular favorite of mine, I know that Rudyard Kipling is a very popular British author. I think his popularity has been steadily decreasing, though, as the world’s opinion of colonialism has changed to make it a Very Bad Thing. But like Dahl, he doesn’t have an iconic villain. Shere Khan’s a tiger, but a tiger doesn’t have the instant recognition factor of Voldie or Cap’n Hook.
3. A. A. MILNE
How could they leave out Winnie the Pooh and his friends??????????
(Same problem as the first two - no villain.)
But he’s so popular that I thought they’d surely give a nod to the Hundred Acre wood gang at some point in the show.
So that’s who I would have liked to have seen in the opening ceremony. Who do you think should have been there?