Fairy Tales, Part II

Yesterday I shared Part I of our collection of children's picture books of fairy tales. Today I'm sharing a few additional titles I have selected for my kids (and myself!!) to read. Moving right into the subject of this post, we'll start with Rapunzel.

Paul O. Zelinsky used oil paintings to bring the story of Rapunzel to life. This tale originally appeared in 1812 (like several of the others, you'll have noticed) and Zelinsky sticks fairly tightly to the original. A husband and wife long for a child and finally discover they are pregnant. During the pregnancy the wife gazes over the wall of a sorceress and develops a strong craving for some of the rapunzel in her yard. For those curious, the plant looks like this:

The husband has enough of hearing about his wife's craving and he goes over the wall and onto the sorceress' land to steal some rapunzel. He is caught and in exchange for his life, he promises the sorceress the life of his baby. This story clearly has an awesome moral attached for pregnant women and their husbands.

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Faërie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons; it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted. - J.R.R. Tolkien

My favorite version of Beauty and the Beast comes from the artful hand of Jan Brett. The first edition of this story appeared in 1740 and since then it has seen its fair share of revisions. I can take Brett's. Beauty lives with her sister and merchant father in a grand house. Alas, the family fortunate is lost and the family flees to a house in the country. One day the merchant heads to down to see about one of his ships, only to discover it lost and himself left destitute. Depressed, he heads home to his daughters but gets lost along the way. He stumbles into the castle of the beast - who in this version has some manners - and the rest, as they say, is history. Typical Brett illustrations makes this book a charming read-aloud.

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Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adults themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. - C.S. Lewis

And finally, what's a post about fairy tales that doesn't include Cinderalla? (A sad post, that's what!)

The version of Cinderella which I selected for our family is illustrated by K. Y. Craft. Craft who takes her cues from from 17th and 18th century France when creating the rich page spreads we see in this book. This version of the story is cleaned up (i.e., no body parts are chopped off in any attempt to fit a glass slipper) but since I seriously doubt I'm going to locate that version in a picture book, I'll go with this one for the moment. Check out this page spread showing off the ballroom:

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It is something of an amazement to me, as I've been putting together these posts, at the number of anti-fairy-tale articles I found online. I'm not going to link to them because I think their arguments are flatly ridiculous. There is a growing movement to withhold fairy tales from our children, chiefly so that they will not grow disappointed with their reality. Is it likely that a young girl is going to marry a handsome prince these days? Likely no. However, is it likely that if she pursues excellence and maintains high standards than a man of honor will take note of her? I say yes.

A lot of people are wary of Disney for causing girls to dream of becoming princesses. You can let that bother you if you like but I don't think there is good cause. Girls tend to like pretty dresses - even the most rough and tumble girls I know and know of. We have in us a desire for beauty - not just in pretty clothes and grand castles - but in good character and genteel manners. Reading fairy tales draws us up and out of ourselves to think on things that are noble and good. Being drawn up when reading a story is far superior to being left in a dirty mire which is, in my opinion, the modern novel. Instead of being satisfied with what we see, shouldn't we want to have high ideals and goals? Shouldn't we want that our young boys would be brave and courageous? Shouldn't we want for our girls to make admirable decisions for themselves? (I'll remind the reader that both Beauty and Cinderella both make their own sacrificial choices. Yet when push comes to shove they stand for what is just in their individual situations. I find them admirable both in picture books and at the hand of Disney.)

I think we can see ourselves in fairy tales - both what we are and what we want to be. Furthermore, I think we should look for ourselves there. We might be delighted by what is discovered when we immerse our society in fairy tales once again.

And contrary to popular opinion, our children can handle these tales. They want to read them and should be told that it is right for them to do so. My boys are rivted to each of the stories I have shared with you the past few days. Sometimes I cringe when reading, wondering what they'll think of the evil characters and periodic death scenes. I am always surprised and gratified to discover that such stories excite them. When I say that they are excited, I do not mean to violence but in a way that leads to heroism! They read and then run off to pretend that they are fighting against bad guys. I always want them to look for evil and to counter it with good. Always.

I hope my children continue to love fairy tales and I intend to always encourage them. Why? Because I value noble hearts, brave deeds and sacrificial love. Fairy tales tell us about such things. Therefore they ought not to be so readily dismissed.


Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. - C.S. Lewis