So I wasn't sure if I should post this on the Main Board or the book list... It's a children's picture book, so I don't know that it qualifies as "What Helps," but I had a really emotional reaction to it. It struck me as the perfect metaphor for voicelessness.
Anyway, I checked this Scholastic DVD out of the library for my daughter. It was filled with witchy Halloween stories, and the second story in was Margaret Mahy's "The Boy with Two Shadows:"
http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Two-Shadows-Picture-Lions/dp/0006630707/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349209621&sr=1-1&keywords=the+boy+with+two+shadows.
The premise is: a witch is going on vacation. She wants to leave her shadow behind, so she sews it onto a little boy's shadow and persuades him to look after it for a little while. My jaw kind of dropped here, because it seemed like such narcissistic projection: "Here, hold all these negative feelings and negative self-image for me; I want to go enjoy myself and they're weighing me down."
Well then, the poor little boy is trailed everywhere he goes by
two shadows--his own shadow and the witch's shadow. What's worse, the witch's shadow is really restless and badly behaved and it starts to frighten and terrorize the little boy's shadow.
Finally, the little boy's shadow runs away in terror (there's the voicelessness), and all the little chap is left with is this big demonic witch shadow that isn't even his. It's kind of like, he loses his entire sense of self; it gets pushed out and replaced by someone else's nightmarish self-image.
He gets his shadow back in the end of course. I think the witch comes to reclaim hers (something a real N would never do) and then the little boy's shadow finally feels safe enough to return. But it was a good reminder that I've got to separate psychologically before I can hope to work on and focus on my core self.
Anyway, just wondering if anyone out there has ever seen this book? It's definitely worth a peek.
best wishes,
Kay x
