Cindy Marie Jenkins

Paige Lindsey White and Mark Bramhall

See also:
*Debbie Devine and Jay McAdams profiled in our People Issue

Take a look at what passes for children's theater in this country and one might well conclude that childhood constitutes a warm and fuzzy eighth dimension of tooth-aching sentimentality and genteel innocence. Never mind that two of the most disturbing news stories of 2012 only underscored the somewhat grimmer horror and uncertainty that sometimes confronts kids in our own universe.

And while December's Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which claimed the lives of 20 young children and six adults, garnered the lion's share of headlines, even more troubling was a report from the Office of Research at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in May that revealed this country continues to have one of the highest rates of child poverty in the developed world. Of the 35 wealthy countries studied by UNICEF, only Romania has a rate that exceeds the 23 percent child poverty suffered by Americans.

The truth is that if the world is a violent and unforgiving place for the most vulnerable and powerless members of society, there's precious little evidence of it in the sometimes condescending, primary-colored, see-no-evil fantasies that dominate our children's stages. It's a cultural disconnect that may be about to change, at least if the 24th St. Theatre's Artistic Director Debbie Devine and Executive Director Jay McAdams have their way.

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Tessa Stuart

Dino eggs are nestled inside the incubator, with the extra large cans of Mastodon Chunks arranged in a neat pyramid formation beside a display of Barbarian repellent and caveman candy (looking suspiciously similar to beef jerky).

"It's been a really long last month getting everything ready," May Pescante says from behind the cash register at the Mar Vista Time Travel Mart.

The storefront, attached to the writing and tutoring center 826 L.A., officially opened Friday evening with a party hosted by Hello Giggles, the website co-founded by Zooey Deschanel. Good-looking, bespectacled people sipped beers in cyro-cozies while perusing the Time Travel Mart's offering of anachronistic novelties and the tutoring center's library.

Mar Vista's Time Travel Mart is the newest addition to the constellation of 826 centers around the country. The organization began in San Francisco, where its first center, 826 Valencia, was founded by local teacher Nínive Calegari and author Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Zeitoun); the organization has since expanded to include locations in Boston, Chicago, DC, Michigan, New York and Seattle.

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Wikimedia Commons

The problem with wanting to help the so-called less fortunate on Thanksgiving is that it's usually the only day of the year most people feel like volunteering. While researching this year's roundup of Thanksgiving-related volunteer opps, we discovered a number of local nonprofits that are already filled to capacity -- not with hungry people, but volunteers.

Nonetheless, most organizations still need help actually procuring the meals, so if you suddenly find yourself willing and unable to lend a hand on Thanksgiving, consider making a donation to any one of your favorite charities instead -- chances are they can use your help. And of course, if you still feel like doing some good for your fellow humans, remember that every single person needs at least one good meal, every day of the year.

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Dahlan Netsch

Retired Brigadier General Richard Pierce dressed as Major-General Charles Gordon, circa 1885, carrying his trademark bamboo cane.

"Bloody hell, men!"

Boom. Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. Boom.

Three men in tan uniforms lie inert on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Their remaining comrades radio for help and cower behind their jeep, trying desperately to shoot the Germans hiding in the bushes.

The canon sounds again, causing the crowd to gasp and giggle. More men fall, and the laughter picks up. Death is hilarious.

Back-up troops in maroon berets overtake the remaining Nazis, who surrender as POWs and trudge away with their arms in the air. A few hundred people break into applause, and one by one the corpses sit up, look around, retrieve their helmets and weapons and dust themselves off.

At the 26th annual Old Fort MacArthur Days Living History timeline event, held this past weekend in San Pedro, military buffs and re-enactors of armies from the ancient world to present day converge and geek out. Here, time collapses and death ceases to exist. War becomes artifice -- a performance -- wherein a celebration of aesthetics trumps any discussion of morality or mortality. The air is thick with gunpowder and barbeque smoke, the restrooms are labeled "LATRINES" and the elaborate facial hair puts Echo Park to shame.

Amidst the educational displays and encampments decked out in memorabilia both real and re-created, Polish nobility in bejeweled fur hats and yellow leather boots prepare to defend Vienna in 1683 while rubbing elbows with a man in a modern white furry ghillie suit, worn by snipers hiding in the snow. A woman in a homemade mint-green 1860s Victorian summer outfit, featuring a hoop skirt, a bolero jacket, crochet gloves and a straw skimmer hat, greets a khaki-uniformed army nurse, stationed at Jungle Hospital #2 in the Philippines, circa 1942.

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Brave and her mother in a ferocious staring contest

With her flame-colored ringlets, Merida, the barely adolescent heroine of Pixar's 13th feature, looks like a wee Rebekah Brooks, maybe a pint-size Florence Welch. Despite these resemblances, Merida remains an original: Brave, set in the Scottish Highlands in the 10th century, is the animation studio's first film with a female protagonist, a defiant lass who acts as a much-welcome corrective to retrograde Disney heroines of the past and the company's unstoppable pink-princess merchandising.

As a child, Merida (voiced by Kelly Macdonald), the first-born of King Fergus (Billy Connolly) and Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), is given a bow and arrow for her birthday by her hulking father; soignée Mom, who has already begun instructing her daughter on the proper comportment behooving a royal lady, registers her disapproval. Growing up to be a fierce archer, Merida will have to do constant battle with Elinor's gender indoctrination ("Princesses do not chortle"), especially when the queen announces that the time has come for suitors from three rival clans to compete for her daughter's hand.

"I'd rather die than be like you," Merida roars to Elinor, perhaps the most radical line ever uttered in a Disney production -- and one that highlights just how different the headstrong redhead's predicament is from those of her recent screen sistren. Where fellow bow-and-arrow expert Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games and the titular princess of Snow White and the Huntsman are each one point in love triangles, Merida, resolutely asexual, is nonetheless entangled in the most complicated, all-consuming love- and hate-filled dyad of all: that between a teenage daughter and her mother.

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Tina's Mouth: An Existential Diary (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

"I'm an alien (but my parents are Indian.)"

Tina Malhotra's journey through a high school existential crisis was difficult. Bringing her world to life was just as wrenching.

Author Keshni Kashyap and illustrator Mari Araki spent four years working on the graphic novel Tina's Mouth: An Existential Diary, which was published in January. Kashyap was trained as a filmmaker and Araki is a surrealist painter. The pair had to teach themselves the comic form while melding the book's substantial text with some 1,000 drawings.

"I'd rather kill myself than do another graphic novel [about Tina]," Kashyap says flatly. "It was so hard to do." Besides, "The world is such a rough place right now. I don't really want to write about privileged teenagers anymore."

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Liz Reinhardt

There better be some chocolate gelt waiting for me if I spin this dreidel for ten whole seconds...

"Saben, watch my curveball!" Aaron says, throwing his dreidel out with extra oomph so that he can relish the crisp way it cuts across the table in an arc. "It's all about flicking the wrist."

Soon Max Rubin, age 8, butts in, claiming to be the greater authority on technique, as his dreidel spun for 27 seconds during their practice trial, while Aaron's only lasted 26.

"My real secret is I like the green one," Max explains, indicating the neon dreidel he's chosen to practice with. "The brighter colors reflect the light, so when it spins it'll reflect off light and make it spin better."

It's the first Sunday in December, and the top floor of the parking garage at Sinai Temple in Westwood is packed with Jews of all ages, schmoozing with their neighbors, noshing on pizza and jelly donuts, and practicing for Dreidelmania's main event: an official attempt to break the Guinness World Record for most dreidels being spun simultaneously, as previously set by Temple Emanuel in Cherry Hill, N.J., where 541 people successfully spun together in 2005.

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Akashic Books

That's right, kid. Hold it.

Remember when Go The F**k To Sleep, that children's bedtime story for adults, was released earlier this year? How it hit Amazon's #1 spot before it was even printed? If you don't remember it's probably because you're losing your mind due to lack of sleep. If you've ever found yourself faced with what author Adam Mansbach poignantly characterized to me in an interview as the "rage" one feels when attempting to put a little one to bed for the evening, you can take advantage of the chance to meet Mansbach tonight at the Grove or tomorrow night in Santa Monica.

I don't have kids, but I can still relate to this book. Why? Because I was once a bratty kid, I suppose. And because it strikes fear in my heart. Several years ago, my mother placed "The Mother's Curse" on me. In a frightening tone, she pointed her finger straight at my heart and recited, "May you one day have children exactly like you."

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L.J. Williamson

Only imperial stormtroopers are so precise.

​ Is there any venture that can't profit from a Star Wars tie-in, no matter how tenuous the connection?

Despite the goofiness factor of zoo-hosted "educational" talks about topics like the similarities between koalas and ewoks (Um... they're both fictional? No. They both carry spears? Wrong again. They both have fur? Ding ding ding!), nothing stopped excited children and fanboys alike from stacking into long lines, starting at the Zoo Drive offramp, at the L.A. Zoo's Star Wars day to snap photos with even bigger fanboys and girls than themselves, including members of costuming groups 501st Legion and Rebel Legion.

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A. D'Alessandro

Walt Disney told songwriters the Brothers Sherman: 'This song is going to send your kids through college.'

Let's face it, It's a Small World was always mom's favorite ride. If you thought the time she picked you up at high school with rollers in her hair was embarrassing, accompanying her on Small World was even worse; ripe with its foreign jolly girly dancing dolls.

However, at Friday's D23 Expo panel, It's a Small World: Celebrating 45 Years, the Disney company presented an insightful look at the globe-trotting theme ride that was worthy of a smart extra on a Criterion Collection DVD. A real eye-opening event for any Grumpy dwarf. The best part: Listening to "It's a Small World" co-songwriter Richard Sherman and the ride's costume designer Alice Davis recall hysterical stories about Walt Disney, who sounded like the flip side of Jack Benny (check out this hysterical clip of Benny and Disney doing a sketch together).

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