Showing results by narrator "Phil Chenevert" in All Categories

This delightful little tale by Hans Christian Andersen follows the ridiculous path a rumor takes as it travels from hen coop to hen coop, spreading the scandalous tale of a whole barnyard of hens who in pluck out all their feathers to impress the cock. Indeed, There Is No Doubt about It! Scandalous!!

A researcher goes on an expedition to find "The Tablets of the Gods" which have plagued his dreams since his boyhood. He finds them, and the horrible truth of humanity's true purpose in the universe. This story, The Man Who Found Out is an example to me of pure cosmic horror in that the horror comes totally from knowledge which is (in-story) so terrible that it forever blights the minds of anyone who discovers it.

The Brave Tin Soldier, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier is a classic Andersen tale about a toy soldier with only one leg. His love of the aloof ballerina leads into many adventures where his bravery is tested severely but he always remains brave and steadfast.

The full title of Swift's pamphlet is A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burtden to their Parents, or the Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Publick."The tract is an ironically conceived attempt to "find out a fair, cheap, and easy Method" for converting the starving children of Ireland into "sound and useful members of the Commonwealth." Across the country poor children, predominantly Catholics, are living in squalor because their families are too poor to keep them fed and clothed.

This is the original story about a poor family that wished so earnestly for a child that the fairies heard them and answered with a tiny boy that could bathe in a teacup. Many adventures and scrapes indeed follow this tiny boy but in the end he finds the love of a beautiful tiny fairy.

An enchanted frog and his adventures with a beautiful princess - need I say more?

It is the last night of the year on a freezing night in London and the pitiful little match girl has not sold a single bundle of matches all day. But she can't go home without money so, what will she do? This sad tale by Andersen reaches into our very souls and hearts to evoke the deepest emotions in all of us. Her rescuer comes but the price is high. Very high.

This Father Brown mystery by Chesterton deals with a killer who is invisible. But how is it possible for someone to be invisible? To have people hear your voice and not see you? To walk right past their eyes and yet remain unseen? G. K. Chesterton explores not physics here but human nature, in this intriguing and quirky murder mystery.

Who ever heard of a plain and downright homely heroine? Isn't a heroine by definition beautiful? Well, Edna Ferber, in her well known style that later produced Show Boat and Giant, tells us about just such a heroine in this special short story. It is special to me because of her insight into the deep courage and faith of 'ordinary' people, people like most of us. And of course our failings and frailties and sometimes, the prince does not marry the right person. Yep.

A man returns to his home town from prison. He hopes to sneak in, pay a quick visit and vanish before people recognize him. But this may not be possible. What happens to a man's soul after years in prison? Ferber explores this poignant and sad subject in this story. But the ending is full of hope.

A poor queen with three beautiful daughters, but one is more beautiful than the others. She survives plots to kill them all, magic fairies, pirates and oh so much more make in this wonderful tale adapted from Hans Christian Andersen.

Lady Windermere's Fan is a four-act comedy by Oscar Wilde. Like many of Wilde's comedies, it bitingly satirizes the morals of Victorian society, particularly marriage. The story concerns Lady Windermere, who discovers that her husband may be having an affair with another woman. She confronts her husband but he instead invites the other woman, Mrs. Erlynne, to his wife's birthday ball. Angered by her husband's unfaithfulness, Lady Windermere leaves her husband for another lover. Or does she?

This is the handwritten book that Carroll wrote for private use before being urged to develop it later into Alice in Wonderland. It was meant to entertain his family and friends. When a sick child in a hospital enjoyed it so much, the mother wrote him saying it had distracted her for a bit from her pain and led eventually to Carroll expanding the story.

"The Telltale Heart", "Masque of the Red Death", "The Raven", "The Black Cat", and more.

The plot follows a crew of 10 trying to hunt the Snark, an animal that may turn out to be a highly dangerous Boojum. The only one of the crew to find the Snark quickly vanishes, leading the narrator to explain that it was a Boojum after all. The Bellman, whose only navigational skills consist of ringing his bell, is my favorite next to the nervous beaver who knits lace most of the time.

The well-known tale of the adventurous boy and what happens when he finds a magical lamp.

Thumbelina, by the beloved story teller Hans Christian Andersen, is about a tiny girl and her adventures with appearance- and marriage-minded toads, moles, and cockchafers. Her adventures are many and varied before she successfully avoids their intentions and, just when all seems lost, ends by falling in love with a flower-fairy prince just her size. A perfect ending!

I started to read a story once. It was a good one. There was in it not a single allusion to brandy-and-soda, or divorce, or the stock market. The dialogue crackled. The hero talked like a live man. It was a shipboard story, and the heroine was charming so long as she wore her heavy ulster. But along toward evening she blossomed forth in a yellow gown, with a scarlet poinsettia at her throat. I quit her cold. Nobody ever wore a scarlet poinsettia; or if they did, they couldn't wear it on a yellow gown.

This retelling of the old tale about the three bears who left their porridge to cool has some amusing twists and turns.

As I write this, I have before me on my desk, propped up against the telephone, an old rag doll. Dear old Raggedy Ann! The same Raggedy Ann with which my mother played when a child. There she sits, a trifle loppy and loose-jointed, looking me squarely in the face in a straightforward, honest manner, a twinkle where her shoe-button eyes reflect the electric light. Evidently Raggedy has been to a tea party" today, for her face is covered with chocolate.