Mariah Carey.Photo: Kevin Mazur/GettyMariah Careywants you to know she’s eternally 12. “Can you please write this down?” she asks. She can explain this seemingly impossible hitch in the space-time continuum. (For the record, and according to the Gregorian Calendar, she’s 52.) First, the self-described “Queen of Christmas"doesn’t do yearsbut lives “Christmastime to Christmastime.” More importantly, as she puts it, 12 is the age of her spirit.It’s also the age at which she started receiving the tough but valuable — and eventually, profitable — life lessons she lays out in her new children’s book,The Christmas Princess, which hit stores Tuesday.Mariah Carey’s The Christmas Princess.The book’s heroine is a 12-year-old named Mariah, but it’s not autobiographical. “It’s a fairy tale,” Carey says — though some details do sound similar to how she has described her childhood. Little Mariah’s house is a “shack,” unlike the other homes on the street. The staircase has sharp, exposed nails in the boards. The character’s mom is named La Diva. (Carey’s mother, Patricia, was an opera singer.) There are some other overlaps as well.“That’s the age when I learned I was definitely ‘other,'” she says. She was living in a small town on New York’s Long Island with her mother, who is white, and her father, who is Black. “It would’ve been great to actually be a chameleon, but I didn’t have the tools for it. Meaning we didn’t have money.“Carey began composing poems and songs to process her feelings. “Writing saved me,” she says. Her childhood experiences inspired the lyrics of songs such as her 1997 album track “Outside”: “Standing alone/Eager to just/Believe it’s good enough to be what/You really are/But in your heart, uncertainty forever lies/And you’ll always be/Somewhere on the outside.“Mariah Carey.Gotham/GettyOf course, Mariah being Mariah,The Christmas Princessis holiday-centered. It was even inspired during a recent festivity. Carey remembers that aha moment: “It was two years ago at Thanksgiving, and I was making a pot of greens. They were so good we named them the Anointed Greens. Cooking for my friends and family, everything that I was doing at the time, I thought, ‘Wow, this is so different from when I was little.’ “She says the allegory’s key message is in how Little Mariah survives the bullies — including the blonde girls with board-straight locks who can destroy an entire room with a toss of the hair.“Her music rescues her,” Carey says, bringing up another parallel between Mariah and Little Mariah. “It’s not a Prince Charming who comes in. She saves her own day.”
Mariah Carey.Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty
Mariah Careywants you to know she’s eternally 12. “Can you please write this down?” she asks. She can explain this seemingly impossible hitch in the space-time continuum. (For the record, and according to the Gregorian Calendar, she’s 52.) First, the self-described “Queen of Christmas"doesn’t do yearsbut lives “Christmastime to Christmastime.” More importantly, as she puts it, 12 is the age of her spirit.It’s also the age at which she started receiving the tough but valuable — and eventually, profitable — life lessons she lays out in her new children’s book,The Christmas Princess, which hit stores Tuesday.Mariah Carey’s The Christmas Princess.The book’s heroine is a 12-year-old named Mariah, but it’s not autobiographical. “It’s a fairy tale,” Carey says — though some details do sound similar to how she has described her childhood. Little Mariah’s house is a “shack,” unlike the other homes on the street. The staircase has sharp, exposed nails in the boards. The character’s mom is named La Diva. (Carey’s mother, Patricia, was an opera singer.) There are some other overlaps as well.“That’s the age when I learned I was definitely ‘other,'” she says. She was living in a small town on New York’s Long Island with her mother, who is white, and her father, who is Black. “It would’ve been great to actually be a chameleon, but I didn’t have the tools for it. Meaning we didn’t have money.“Carey began composing poems and songs to process her feelings. “Writing saved me,” she says. Her childhood experiences inspired the lyrics of songs such as her 1997 album track “Outside”: “Standing alone/Eager to just/Believe it’s good enough to be what/You really are/But in your heart, uncertainty forever lies/And you’ll always be/Somewhere on the outside.“Mariah Carey.Gotham/GettyOf course, Mariah being Mariah,The Christmas Princessis holiday-centered. It was even inspired during a recent festivity. Carey remembers that aha moment: “It was two years ago at Thanksgiving, and I was making a pot of greens. They were so good we named them the Anointed Greens. Cooking for my friends and family, everything that I was doing at the time, I thought, ‘Wow, this is so different from when I was little.’ “She says the allegory’s key message is in how Little Mariah survives the bullies — including the blonde girls with board-straight locks who can destroy an entire room with a toss of the hair.“Her music rescues her,” Carey says, bringing up another parallel between Mariah and Little Mariah. “It’s not a Prince Charming who comes in. She saves her own day.”
Mariah Careywants you to know she’s eternally 12. “Can you please write this down?” she asks. She can explain this seemingly impossible hitch in the space-time continuum. (For the record, and according to the Gregorian Calendar, she’s 52.) First, the self-described “Queen of Christmas"doesn’t do yearsbut lives “Christmastime to Christmastime.” More importantly, as she puts it, 12 is the age of her spirit.
It’s also the age at which she started receiving the tough but valuable — and eventually, profitable — life lessons she lays out in her new children’s book,The Christmas Princess, which hit stores Tuesday.
Mariah Carey’s The Christmas Princess.
The book’s heroine is a 12-year-old named Mariah, but it’s not autobiographical. “It’s a fairy tale,” Carey says — though some details do sound similar to how she has described her childhood. Little Mariah’s house is a “shack,” unlike the other homes on the street. The staircase has sharp, exposed nails in the boards. The character’s mom is named La Diva. (Carey’s mother, Patricia, was an opera singer.) There are some other overlaps as well.
“That’s the age when I learned I was definitely ‘other,'” she says. She was living in a small town on New York’s Long Island with her mother, who is white, and her father, who is Black. “It would’ve been great to actually be a chameleon, but I didn’t have the tools for it. Meaning we didn’t have money.”
Carey began composing poems and songs to process her feelings. “Writing saved me,” she says. Her childhood experiences inspired the lyrics of songs such as her 1997 album track “Outside”: “Standing alone/Eager to just/Believe it’s good enough to be what/You really are/But in your heart, uncertainty forever lies/And you’ll always be/Somewhere on the outside.”
Mariah Carey.Gotham/Getty
Of course, Mariah being Mariah,The Christmas Princessis holiday-centered. It was even inspired during a recent festivity. Carey remembers that aha moment: “It was two years ago at Thanksgiving, and I was making a pot of greens. They were so good we named them the Anointed Greens. Cooking for my friends and family, everything that I was doing at the time, I thought, ‘Wow, this is so different from when I was little.’ "
She says the allegory’s key message is in how Little Mariah survives the bullies — including the blonde girls with board-straight locks who can destroy an entire room with a toss of the hair.
“Her music rescues her,” Carey says, bringing up another parallel between Mariah and Little Mariah. “It’s not a Prince Charming who comes in. She saves her own day.”
source: people.com
