December 9th: Mrs P

Now, here's a marvelous, fulsome, odd and at times perplexing website. On it, Mrs P, a kindly Irish grandmother figure played by actress Kathy Kinney, offers up her own storytelling wrapped around the reading of such public domain stories for children as Alice in Wonderland, Aladdin, and Cinderella. You may remember Kathy Kinney as a character actor on numerous television shows. Most notably, she played the over-the-top yet often subtly complex Mimi on The Drew Carey Show. In 2008, Kinney moved on to this internet-based experiment in storytelling. When you visit Mrs P's library, you will find books, stories and poems all classified according to age. Click on a link and the video will zoom you into Mrs P sitting in her rocking chair. She then recounts a humorous anecdote from her life before opening the book to read. Kinney is a very talented woman and her delivery is compelling but, let's just say that, well, the romantic polar bears who turn up at the end of Carroll's The Walrus and the Carpenter, are a tad baffling given the context of the site. Please do go check it out and tell me what you think.