Kids making you crazy this Christmas? Of course they are: Santa's come and gone, your (ex) best friend gave your six-year-old a drum set and school is never going to open again.All you need is a little bit of magic to overcome those homicide/suicide impulses, magic that will stick around for a while after the spell has been cast.
Best bet is to let the kids up out of the basement, remove the duct tape, wrap them and yourselves up in something cosy and go to the LSPU Hall some afternoon in late December. That's when Andy Jones' puppet show, based on his book, The Queen of Paradise's Garden, will be casting its glamour over burnt-out parents and permanently wired children (God love 'em!). Click on the LSPU Hall link for information about tickets and times and so forth.
The story is a free adaptation by Jones of a Jack tale told by Albert Heber Keeping of Grand Bank, which he got from Billy Quann of Sagona Island. Billy Quann had it from . . . never mind. The tale goes back a long way, to "olden times, when quart bottles held half a gallon and houses were papered with pancakes."
(Of course, the kids are going to start up again sometime. It might be a good idea to have a copy of The Queen of Paradise's Garden to fend them off with. Follow this link to its place of purchase.)
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Andy Jones wears many hats — many heads, actually. Listen to an excerpt from Rattling Books' audio book edition (available as an audio CD or MP3 download) of Jones' Letters from Uncle Val (Uncle Val being an outharbour gentleman who finds himself adrift in the suburbs of St. John's).
Check out Rattling Books' new holiday prices: thirty percent off everything until Old Christmas Day (January 6).
