Publications List:
THE GROWING MIND |
Adventures with Bingo Borden: Pegasus
Adventures with Bingo Borden: Pegasus
The Growing Mind Series, produced for children, contributes to Agora Publications’ goal of bringing philosophy to life. The human mind manifests an organic process, incorporating several stages of realization, creation, and development. Although there is no formula or set pattern for the growing mind, two separate phases can be identified: mythos and logos. Philosophers such as Plato, Hume, Kierkegaard, and Sartre blend these two phases into dialogues, stories, novels, and plays, but most often one or the other of these aspects of philosophy dominates over the other. Imagining dominates in mythos, serving to bring ideas to consciousness from the depths of human life. The images found in myths, stories, poems, and a variety of other artistic forms require interpretation, analysis, and explanation in order to connect with logos, where logic, argument, explication, and critical reasoning dominate.
The Bingo Borden stories lie mostly within the realm of mythos. Preschool children can listen to them and appreciate and enjoy them long before they learn to read and think more deeply about their meaning. As they grow, they can listen again and again to these stories, find additional layers of meaning, and explore some of the profound questions of human existence. When they learn to read, they can progress to the next level and delight in seeing and understanding in print what they could previously only hear. The choice of words and conceptual structure in the stories contribute to building a child’s vocabulary and to modes of thinking that prepare the way for mature states of mind.
Pegasus
Winter vacation in the Caribbean turns into a major adventure when Bingo and her dog Flecki are caught on a boat in a storm and blown out to sea. On a remote island they meet Miranda and Belinda, good witches who teach Bingo how to unleash magical powers she never knew she had. She learns how to name and tame a horse that grows wings, and then she receives her first serious assignment. A monster called Chimera threatens the residents of the island. With the help of her flying horse, Pegasus, Bingo carries out a plan that will free them from this threat.
Audio Samples:
Quote:
The sun had already been up for about an hour when Bingo awoke with the smell of Miranda’s special cakes. She jumped out of bed, put on her clothes, and rushed over to make the tea — her job in Miranda’s kitchen.
Belinda said: "Eat plenty of breakfast, Bingo, because you have much to do today. I was already up on the high meadow, and you have a surprise waiting for you there."
After another delicious breakfast, Bingo ran up to the high meadow to see the surprise. When she came out of the forest and looked for Pegasus, at first she could not see him. Of course she was looking for a big brown horse with wings, but she could not believe what she saw. There on the meadow was a giant white horse with wings as white as snow. Pegasus had turned white over night! Bingo ran over to him, rubbed his muzzle, and patted him on the neck. "Pegasus, those are the most beautiful wings in the world!"