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Scary mother: Piper Laurie in Brian De Palma’s Carrie.

Amy Chua, Yale Law professor, daughter of Filipino-Chinese immigrants, is generating a bit of controversy with her new book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Her book tackles the question, How do Chinese parents produce math wizards and music prodigies? The answer begins with a list of things Chinese mothers don’t allow their kids to do:

• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin.

Read Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior in WSJ.

“Some might think that the American sports parent is an analog to the Chinese mother. This is so wrong,” Chua writes. “Unlike your typical Western overscheduling soccer mom, the Chinese mother believes that (1) schoolwork always comes first; (2) an A-minus is a bad grade; (3) your children must be two years ahead of their classmates in math; (4) you must never compliment your children in public; (5) if your child ever disagrees with a teacher or coach, you must always take the side of the teacher or coach; (6) the only activities your children should be permitted to do are those in which they can eventually win a medal; and (7) that medal must be gold.”

David Brooks at the NYT replied with a column, Amy Chua Is A Wimp. I have not read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother but its title (and the excerpt) leads me to suspect that Brooks is a little irony-challenged. The author has obviously cast herself as the super-villain of the piece.

Personally I think the over-emphasis on building a child’s self-esteem produces a lot of dimwits with an exaggerated sense of entitlement.

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This reminds me of a poem by the great English poet (and librarian) Philip Larkin.

This Be The Verse

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

While you view this educational video that solves that niggling problem “What should we do with all our parents’ Reader’s Digest Condensed Books taking up so much shelf space in the house?” we shall announce the winner of the Weekly LitWit Challenge 4.4: Classes, Books, Teacher’s Dirty Looks.

The winner, as chosen by the readers (If you didn’t vote you can’t complain) iiiiissssss: Cacs.

Congratulations, Cacs! You may claim your prize—a copy of John Irving’s Last Night in Twisted River signed by John Irving—at the usual place starting Monday, January 24. We would bar you from joining any more LitWit Challenges, but we hated the “Give others a chance” rule when we were in school and we’re not about to impose it. Everyone, you’ll just have to beat Cacs. Your motivation: Be the Cacs-sackers.

The next LitWit Challenge is coming up. We figured we’d let you have a weekend to work on your entries to see if the quality is improved or diminished by the time pressure. As newspaper folk know, desperation enhances invention.

The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.

“In the film Fight Club, the real name of the protagonist (Ed Norton’s character) is never revealed. Many believe the reason behind this anonymity is to give “Jack” more of an everyman quality. Do not be deceived. “Jack” is really Calvin from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. It’s true. Norton portrays the grown-up version of Calvin, while Brad Pitt plays his imaginary pal, Hobbes, reincarnated as Tyler Durden.” Read Fight Club: The Return of Hobbes by Galvin P. Chow in Metaphilm.

Our conversation turned to the fairy tales we had loved as children. One of the first things my mother read to me was Little Red Riding Hood, using different voices for the girl, the wolf, and the grandmother. Later I read Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment and went, Hmmm.

Neil Jordan and Angela Carter collaborated on the film The Company of Wolves, based on the story in Carter’s book The Bloody Chamber. The Company of Wolves takes off from Little Red Riding Hood; it starts with Granny knitting a bright red shawl for the girl and warning her to stay away from men with monobrows. If you have not read Angela Carter, stop reading this and find The Bloody Chamber at once. The entire collection is awesome but the one that will blow your eyes out the back of your head is the title story, a retelling of Bluebeard.

Photo: The Wolf Who Cried Boy by Robert Langenegger. See Robert’s lightboxes exhibit at Finale Art File at the La Fuerza compound, Pasong Tamo, Makati.

Another childhood favorite was The Little Mermaid, which I enjoyed reading under the covers with a flashlight when I was supposed to be sleeping. Do not believe the Disney-fied version: The Little Mermaid is a dark and tragic tale. I’ll never forget the description of the mermaid after she had traded her tongue for a pair of human legs: with each step she felt like she was walking on knives.

Then there were Rumpelstiltzkin, a bizarre tale about a little man who could help you do the impossible—if you knew his name, and Rapunzel, which bothered me because I couldn’t imagine the prince rappeling up the tower using her hair. And The Six Swans, in which six brothers are placed under an enchantment and their sister must sew a special shirt for each brother in order to restore him to full human form. Also, she must not utter a single word for six years. She finishes five of the shirts on time but the last one lacks a sleeve, so her youngest brother spends the rest of his life with a wing instead of a left arm.

The Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer (Otesanek, Alice) has some gorgeous claymation shorts based on fairy tales. And Jim Henson’s The Storyteller series is wonderful, particularly The Soldier and Death which was based on a Russian folk tale, and Fearnot, the boy who left home to find out about the shivers.

Oscar Wilde wrote one of the loveliest, saddest fairy tales in existence: The Happy Prince. Here’s the cartoon adaptation that made us all cry when we were little.

The Happy Prince, Part 2

The Happy Prince, Part 3

QC school nurtures heritage tree in the Inquirer. Thanks to Fabia for the alert.

Everyone who went to St. Theresa’s QC knows that acacia tree. You had to take care when walking by at certain times of the year—falling caterpillars. When the fire trees were in bloom the field turned orange. Gorgeous.

There was an even bigger, older-looking tree in the high school department—giant gnarled roots coming out of the ground. It looked like a particularly cranky Ent. Is it still there? I hope it survived the typhoons.