Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label Royal Children's hospital

Sometimes fairytales aren't

When looking for Australian fairytales I used title as my first classification method but this was not always successful.  I initially included ‘Up the Moonpath’ a story by Macdonald in Childhood in Bloom and Blossum. This was a souvenir book of the Children's Hospital bazaar complied and edited by Joshua Lake and published in 1900. On page three the editor suggests that ' This book is a contribution to the Children's Hospital by the Art and Literature of Melbourne.'   Image of Children's Hospital ( circa 1909) Though fairyland is presented as being at the end of the shimmering moonpath that ‘ ran across the lake and faded out to a faint glow in the distance, just under the moon ’ and is peopled with ‘ bright little people l ’ it is not really fairyland but a book about the death of a child and fairyland is a metaphor for heaven.  Ita takes her place in fairyland (heaven) and another little ‘King’ arrives to take her place in her mother’s be