the magic tunnel

50-31 – The Magic Tunnel

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The Magic Tunnel by Caroline D. Emerson was one of my favorite books as a child, and it still resides on my bookshelf. I will take it out on occasion and thumb through it, reading bits and pieces and remembering what I loved about it.

It was multi-genre, taking on adventure, history and historical fiction, and time travel, and it probably influenced the direction of my interests more than I would have thought at the time. It had everything a voracious reader in elementary school could ask for.

I spent my elementary years in NYC – Queens with grandparents in both Queens and the Bronx. The brother and sister in The Magic Tunnel also lived in New York City, and in taking the subway, something I did with my uncle and on class trips, they found adventure in the past before NYC became New York. It was originally New Amsterdam, and in their travels, they met the original Dutch colonialists, the Native Americans already living in the area, and Peter Stuyvesant.

They explored the Dutch settlement and saw other aspects of Dutch colonial life and recognized much as what they had been learning in school as well as straightening out some misconceptions from that time period.

In the years after reading this, I immersed myself into history and science-fiction, still two of my loves. I also continue to have an unfinished novel from college in the same multi-genre way, combining time travel, adventure, and history. Without realizing it, I’m certain that The Magic Tunnel was a strong influence to begin and continue that story. Even today, I still come back to it and try to tweak and add elements, thinking maybe the story is relevant and can still go somewhere.

After college, I joined a re-enactment group to study and fully immerse myself in The Middle Ages.

I still love train travel, and am thinking of how to take a train trip for a writing excursion, although I’m not sure that I want to travel to another dimension or plane.

Published in 1964, it may certainly be dated and somewhat stereotypical, but it is still worth a look to see how our past was perceived and may have been perceived by two elementary age siblings just trying to get home.

This Week’s Theme: Reading

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I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but since the beginning of the year I’ve tried to maintain daily features and a weekly theme to tie my posts together a bit more.

I’ve also included my recent blogging classes – for the next two weeks I’ll be posting photos from Photography 101.

During Lent I’ve been posting a daily reflection, whatever stays in my head from my spiritual readings and thoughts. These are generally short but they’ve been open-ended, no agenda or word count.

As it hands, and as I mentioned in this morning’s prompt, it is Dr. Seuss’ birthday. He would have been 101 years old today, so this week I thought our theme would be reading, each day of the week a different genre. Today it is children’s books.

I have some favorites to share:

The Magic Tunnel by Caroline Emerson – kids, NYC subways, time travel, history.

It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles Shaw – white shapes on a blue background, great for the imagination and crafts with cotton balls. Good for laying in the grass liking up at the clouds. I also made a flannel board set to go with this book.

Castle by David Macaulay – the inner workings of building a medieval Welsh castle. All of his books are brilliantly written and illustrated and can be adapted for all ages. As a teacher I used them with preschoolers and middle schoolers. I recommend all of his works.

Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola – beautiful, gentle work, both secular and religious. In fact, at the retreat center I just returned from, he drew the mural in their chapel in 1958. Again, I recommend all of his works.

Tomorrow we’ll look at history and historical fiction.