Soot Sprites

Hayao Miyazaki is one of my favorite animators. I particularly love his latest movies - Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle (I haven't seen Ponyo yet). In Spirited Away, we see the small round black creatures in the boiler room which I later found from his older movie (My neighbor Totoro), to be soot sprites or "travelling soot". Wikipedia describes them as shy, slightly frightful creatures that live in abandoned buildings such as old houses. Julia is fascinated with them and I'm glad I found a convenient make believe substitute for her to play with. Here below the "soot sprites" in our new house are "flying" and hiding in Julia's closet. (They don't like too much noise so we need to be quiet..shhhh.) The hanging cat is her version of "Totoro" as well". Children's imagination never cease to amaze me.