The ACC Library and Information Services Office, in active collaboration with the English Guild of ACC, proudly invites everyone to join us in celebrating the 90th National Book Week!
This year’s theme, “Read, Dream, Celebrate,” highlights the timeless joy of reading, the boundless possibilities of imagination, and the shared triumph of learning.
This week isn’t just a celebration of books—it’s a celebration of your dreams, your creativity, and your passion for learning. So, pick up that book, ignite your imagination, and let’s make this National Book Week unforgettable.
Mark your calendars (November 19-29, 2024). Together, let’s spread the word, and get ready to Read, Dream, and Celebrate!
At the beginning of the story, a queen sits sewing at an open window during a winter snowfall when she pricks her finger with her needle, causing three drops of blood to drip onto the freshly fallen snow on the black window sill. Then she says to herself, “How I wish that I had a daughter who had skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair as black as ebony.” Some time later, the queen dies giving birth to a baby daughter whom she names Snow White. (However, in the 1812 version of the tale, the queen does not die but later behaves the same way the stepmother does in later versions of the tale, including the 1854 iteration.) A year later, Snow White’s father, the king, marries again. His new wife is very beautiful, but a vain and wicked woman who practices witchcraft. The new queen possesses a magic mirror, which she asks every morning, “Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?” The mirror always tells the queen that she is the fairest. The Queen is always pleased with that response because the magic mirror never lies. When Snow White is seven years old, her fairness surpasses that of her stepmother. When the Queen again asks her mirror the same question, it tells her that Snow White is the fairest.[1][5]
This gives the Queen a great shock. She becomes envious, and from that moment on, her heart turns against Snow White, whom the Queen grows to hate increasingly with time. Eventually, she orders a huntsman to take Snow White into the forest and kill her. As proof that Snow White is dead, the Queen also wants him to return with her heart. The huntsman takes Snow White into the forest, but after raising his dagger, he finds himself unable to kill her when Snow White realizes her stepmother’s plan and tearfully begs the huntsman, “Spare me this mockery of justice! I will run away into the forest and never come home again!” After seeing the tears in the princess’s eyes, the huntsman reluctantly agrees to spare Snow White and brings the Queen a boar’s heart instead.[1][5]
After wandering through the forest for hours, Snow White discovers a tiny cottage belonging to a group of seven dwarfs. Since no one is at home, she eats some of the tiny meals, drinks some of their wine, and then tests all the beds. Finally, the last bed is comfortable enough for her, and she falls asleep. When the dwarfs return home, they immediately become aware that there has been a burglar in their house because everything in their home is in disorder. Prowling about frantically, they head upstairs and discover the sleeping Snow White. She wakes up and explains to them about her stepmother’s attempt to kill her, and the dwarfs take pity on her and let her stay with them in exchange for a job as a housemaid. They warn her to be careful when alone at home and to let no one in while they are working in the mountains.[1][5]
Snow White grows into a lovely, fair, and beautiful young maiden. Meanwhile, the queen, who believes she got rid of Snow White, asks her mirror once again: “Mirror mirror on the wall, who now is the fairest one of all?” The mirror tells her that not only is Snow White still the fairest in the land, but is also currently hiding with the dwarfs.[1] The Queen is furious and decides to kill her herself. First, she appears at the dwarfs’ cottage, disguised as an old peddler, and offers Snow White a colourful, silky laced bodice as a present. The Queen laces her up so tightly that Snow White faints; the dwarfs return just in time to revive Snow White by loosening the laces. Next, the Queen dresses up as a comb seller and convinces Snow White to take a beautiful comb as a present; she strokes Snow White’s hair with the poisoned comb. The girl is overcome by the poison from the comb, but is again revived by the dwarfs when they remove the comb from her hair. Finally, the queen disguises herself as a farmer’s wife and offers Snow White a poisoned apple. Snow White is hesitant to accept it, so the queen cuts the apple in half, eating the white (harmless) half and giving the red poisoned half to Snow White; the girl eagerly takes a bite and then falls into a coma, causing the Queen to think she has finally triumphed. This time, the dwarfs are unable to revive Snow White, and, assuming that the queen has finally killed her, they place her in a glass casket as a funeral for her.[1][5]
Some time later, a prince stumbles upon a seemingly dead Snow White lying in her glass coffin during a hunting trip. After hearing her story from the seven dwarfs, the prince is allowed to take Snow White to her proper resting place back at her father’s castle. All of a sudden, while Snow White is being transported, one of the prince’s servants trips and loses his balance. This dislodges the piece of the poisoned apple from Snow White’s throat, magically reviving her.[6] (In the 1812 version, the prince becomes so obsessed with Snow White that he carries her coffin wherever he goes, until one of his servants, in anger, lifts Snow White from the coffin and strikes her on the back, causing the piece of apple to come out of her throat.[7]) The Prince is overjoyed by this, and he declares his love for the now alive and well Snow White, who, surprised to meet him face to face, humbly accepts his marriage proposal. The prince invites everyone in the land to their wedding except for Snow White’s stepmother.
The Queen, believing herself finally to be rid of Snow White, asks again her magic mirror, who is the fairest in the land. The mirror says that there is a bride of a prince who is yet fairer. The queen decides to go to the wedding and investigate. Once she arrives, the Queen becomes frozen with rage and fear when she finds out that the prince’s bride is her stepdaughter, Snow White herself. The furious Queen tries to sow chaos and attempts to kill her again, but the prince recognizes her as a threat to Snow White when he learns the truth from his bride. As punishment for the attempted murder of Snow White, the prince orders the Queen to wear a pair of red-hot iron slippers and to dance in them until she drops dead. With the Queen finally defeated and dead, Snow White’s wedding to the prince peacefully continues.
In 14th century Europe, King Stefan and Queen Leah[a] welcome their newborn daughter, Aurora, and proclaim a holiday for their subjects to pay homage to the princess. At her christening, she is betrothed to Prince Phillip, the son of Stefan’s friend King Hubert, in order to unite their kingdoms. The three good fairies, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, each bless Aurora with one gift. After Flora and Fauna give her beauty and song, the evil fairy Maleficent appears, angry at not being invited. She places a curse on Aurora: before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday, she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die. Merryweather uses her gift to change the curse so that Aurora will instead fall into a deep sleep until true love’s kiss breaks the spell.
Still fearful, Stefan orders all the kingdom’s spinning wheels to be burned. Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather devise a plan to hide Aurora in a secluded location and raise her themselves until her sixteenth birthday, to which Stefan and Leah reluctantly agree. The fairies move into a forest cottage, giving up magic and living as peasants; they also rename Aurora to Briar Rose.
On Aurora’s sixteenth birthday, the fairies send her to gather berries so they can prepare a surprise party. In the forest, Aurora sings to the animals, drawing the attention of Phillip, now a handsome young man. They fall in love without revealing their names, and Aurora invites Phillip to the cottage that evening. Meanwhile, Flora and Merryweather’s argument about the color of Aurora’s birthday gown attracts the attention of Maleficent’s pet raven, Diablo.[b] Aurora returns and tells her guardians that she has fallen in love. They reveal her true identity, which Diablo overhears, and tell her that she must never see the man again. Meanwhile, Phillip tells his father about the peasant girl he met and wants to marry, unaware she is the princess to whom he is betrothed. King Hubert unsuccessfully tries to dissuade him.
Shortly before sunset, the fairies bring Aurora to the castle for her birthday celebration. Maleficent appears and lures her to a tower room, where she pricks her finger on a spinning wheel that Maleficent conjures. The fairies place the sleeping Aurora in the highest tower, and put the entire kingdom to sleep until Aurora is awakened. While doing so, the fairies overhear a conversation between Hubert and Stefan, and realize that Phillip is the man that Aurora met. They rush to the cottage, only to discover that Phillip has been abducted by Maleficent.
At her domain, the Forbidden Mountain, Maleficent reveals Aurora’s identity to Phillip. She plans to lock him away until he is an old man on the verge of death before releasing him to meet Aurora, who will not have aged a single day. The fairies rescue Phillip and arm him with the magical Sword of Truth and the Shield of Virtue. Maleficent surrounds Stefan’s castle with a forest of thorns, but Phillip breaks through it. Outraged, she transforms into a giant, fire-breathing dragon. In the ensuing battle, Phillip kills Maleficent by thrusting his sword into her heart.
Phillip finds Aurora and awakens her with a kiss, bringing the rest of the kingdom out of their slumber. The two descend to the ballroom, where Aurora reunites with her parents and happily dances with Phillip as the good fairies look on with joy.
The story begins with a widow and her son, Jack, who are poor and need to sell their cow for money. Jack takes the cow into town and is offered magic beans in exchange for it. When his mother sees he’s brought home beans instead of money, she throws the beans out the window and a great beanstalk grows into the clouds. Jack climbs the stalk in hopes of finding food. He comes across a town among the clouds and is helped by a magic fairy to find a giant’s castle (home to the giant who killed Jack’s father). Jack eventually steals a magic hen and gold coins from the giant. Jack also attempts to steal a harp but the giant wakes up from his slumber and chases after Jack, who runs down the beanstalk, and cuts it with an axe, causing the giant to fall and die. This serves justice to the giant and also teaches Jack to always behave and listen to his mother.
A long time ago there was a very big crab which crawled into the sea. And when he went in he crowded the water out so that it ran all over the earth and covered all the land.
Now about one moon before this happened, a wise man had told the people that they must build a large raft. They did as he commanded and cut many large trees, until they had enough to make three layers. These they bound tightly together, and when it was done they fastened the raft with a long rattan cord to a big pole in the earth.
The legend has it that before Theseus left for the palace of King Minos in Crete to kill the Minotaur, Aegeus, his father and King of Athens, asked him to change the sails of his ship from black to white on his return home so that he knew that he survived. Aegeus waited patiently in Sounio to see his son’s ship return and the color of its sails. Theseus, although he killed the Minotaur and got out of the labyrinth safely, he forgot to change his sails to white. Seeing the ship with the black sails, Aegeus thought that his beloved son was killed. Sadness and grief filled his heart and mind, and without waiting to get the news from the men on the boats, fell from the rocks of Sounio into the sea below… Since then, the sea is called Aegean in his memory. And his son, Theseus, became the King of Athens.
The labyrinth in King Mino’s palace was designed by a famous inventor and engineer, Daedalus. It is said that Athena herself taught Daedalus. King Minos commissioned to Daedalus and his son Icarus the construction of the labyrinth that would held the monster Minotaur. After finishing their work, King Minos imprisoned father and son inside the labyrinth, in an effort to prevent knowledge of his labyrinth from spreading to the public. Father and son were thinking hard on how to escape until Daedalus came up with an idea. They gathered a lot of feathers from birds and glued them together with wax thus, making four large wings. They tied the wings to each shoulder and fled from the island of Crete. Daedalus had warned Icarus not to fly close to the sun because the wax would melt. After passing the island of Delos, the boy, forgetting himself, flew high towards the sun. The hot sun softened the wax that held the feathers together and Icarus fell in the sea and drowned. Daedalus named the place where his son fell Icaria, in his memory.
In Greek Mythology, Minos’ son, Androgeos, has been “treacherously killed” while he was in Athens. Minos immediately sought revenge from the Athenians and as retribution he had them send to Crete several youths every seven or nine years to be devoured by Minotaur, a terrifying monster, half man half bull. The young Athenians were thrown into a dark maze, full of arcades and dead ends, wandering aimlessly, until the Minotaur would find them. Theseus, the son of the king of Athens Aegeus, did not endure this humiliation and demanded to be among the seven young men that were to be sent for the third time to the labyrinth. So, he arrived in Crete and met Minos’ daughter, Ariadne, with whom he fell in love.
Ariadne then gave Theseus a lame spinner (known as Ariadne’s thread) and advised him to tie his end to the entrance of the labyrinth and unwrap it so that he could find the exit after killing Minotaur. Theseus entered the dark arcades holding the mite and managed to kill the Minotaur by cutting off his head, thus ending Minos’ blood rage. Then he managed to return to the exit, following Ariadne’s thread. Theseus took Ariadne with him on his boat and began the journey to Athens. However, they made a stop on the island of Naxos, where they celebrated their love. While on the island, the god Dionysus appeared in Theseus’ dream and told him that he had to leave the island without Ariadne since she was meant to stay there and become Dionysus’ wife. Ariadne stayed in Naxos and married Dionysus, while Theseus returned to Athens. The two lovers never met again…
