Vanquishing the Selfish Giant

I'd been looking for online versions of some Oscar Wilde stories, and came across The Oscar Wilde Collection. Being deprived of bookstores has been particularly onerous of late, but I've enjoyed hunting up places like this where I can read old favorites...

So he crept downstairs and opened the front door quite softly, and went out into the garden. But when the children saw him they were so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter again. Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears that he did not see the Giant coming. And the Giant stole up behind him and took him gently in his hand, and put him up into the tree. And the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the little boy stretched out his two arms and flung them round the Giant's neck, and kissed him. And the other children, when they saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer, came running back, and with them came the Spring. "It is your garden now, little children," said the Giant, and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall. And when the people were going to market at twelve o'clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.

As much as I bemoan my lack of access to books, I cannot imagine the horror of having nothing...

Maud Newton has posted a fantastic list of various aid outlets to victims of Katrina:

In the hope that some preteen kid crammed into a cot next to his parents in the Astrodome will find similar refuge in books, I’m assembling a pile of old favorites to send the Katrina Literary Collective. If you’d like to offer bookish assistance to the hurricane victims, here’s how you can help:

* Publishers: donate free printing services or other assistance to a successful — but now stalled — inner-city literary project designed to refute the notion that New Orleans neighborhoods are all about violence and drugs.

* The Katrina Literary Collective is collecting and distributing books to victims of the hurricane. For more information, contact the Amber Communications Group at amberbk@aol.com. (Via email from Poets & Writers.)

* The Louisiana Disaster Relief Fund is taking monetary donations to assist libraries in Southeastern Louisiana. For more information, visit the American Library Association at ala.org. (Via Poets & Writers.)

* The American Booksellers Association has created a Bookseller Relief Fund to assist independent booksellers affected by Hurricane Katrina. Visit Bookweb.org. (Via Poets & Writers.)

* Booksxyz, an Internet bookstore based in Lafayette, Louisiana, donates proceeds from its sales to public education in the U.S., and is soliciting donations, via check or credit card, for public schools affected by the catastrophe.

* The Children’s Book Council is keeping track of other efforts to aid hurricane victims.