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MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Program 06-06-18-A

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Celebrate Midsummer's Eve this year with a visit to the fey folk. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll have an hour filled with stories of changelings and other-kin, Fairy Courts and green children. We'll conjure up a world of enchantment, but beware! There are no Tinkerbells in the world. Faerie legends and the modern faerie revival, coming up.

SEGMENT 1:

Keith Donohue's novel is "The Stolen Child." He tells Jim Fleming the book's about a boy who's stolen by fairies and the boy who replaces him in the human world. The story explores children's fears of growing up and our fascination with imagined other worlds. And we hear the song that inspired the novel.

SEGMENT 2:

Charles de Lint has pioneered a new contemporary mythic fiction. His new novel is "Widdershins." De Lint and his wife, MaryAnn, talk abut blending fairy lore with other traditional beliefs, and they sing a bit of a song they've written. Also, Eddie Lenihan tells a story told to him by the foreman of a road construction crew in Ireland. Lenihan is the author of "Meeting the Other Crowd: The Fairy Stories of Hidden Ireland." He tells Steve Paulson that even in Catholic Ireland, belief in Fairies and the old magic is still common.

SEGMENT 3:

Writer Holly Black and illustrator Tony di Terlizzi have created the "Spiderwick Chronicles," a series of chapter books for children, and "Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You." They tell Anne Strainchamps that they wanted to find a way to re-introduce all the old fairy folklore to a new generation of children who are hipper and more jaded than their predecessors.

CD copies are available at 1-800-747-7444. Ask for program number 06-06-18-A.

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Books:

• Keith Donohue, The Stolen Child (Doubleday)
• Holly Black, Tony DiTerlizzi, The Spiderwick Chronicles (Simon & Schuster)
• Charles De Lint, Widdershins (Tor)
• Eddie Lenihan & Carolyn Eve Green, Meeting the Other Crowd: The Fairy Stories of Hidden Ireland (Tarcher/Putnam)

Music:

• "Da Day Dawn," by Boys of the Lough, on MIDWINTER NIGHT'S DREAM (Blix
  St. Records)
• "The Stolen Child," by The Waterboys
• "Huldreslatt - A Wood Nymph's Tune," on DEVIL'S TUNE (NorthSide)
• "Thomas the Rhymer," by Steeleye Span, on NOW WE ARE SIX (Shanachie Records)
• "Fairly Shot of Her," by Clannad, on A MAGICAL GATHERING (Rhino)
• "Puck's Speech," and theme music from A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (20th Century Fox)

Distribution dates:

week of 07/16/2007 - hour 1 week of 06/18/2006 - hour 1

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Questions and comments can be addressed to: flemingj@wpr.org

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