Santa: Evidence Wanted

I had another Christmas post planned for last week, but then...Baby decided he had other plans (that involved refusing to nap for a while).


Thomas Nast

But I did want to share this fascinating article from npr (which I found via this post by Maria Tatar, which includes other links to interesting and related articles). Researchers studied how easy it was to get children to believe in a fantastical creature, a made up "Candy Witch" who would swap candy for toys at Halloween. It certainly applies to children who believe in Santa Claus, a topic that has been more pertinent as Tony and I wonder how we'll navigate the issue when our son gets older, as well as fairy tales in general and how they are perceived.

The article states, "Children are generally pretty sophisticated when it comes to differentiating fantasy from reality, even though they often have rich fantasy lives populated by imaginary friends, fueled by fictional stories, and used to generate the diverse make-believe worlds that form the backdrop to imaginative play and pretense. As early as preschool, children begin to understand that appearances can be misleading." (emphasis mine)

In their experiment, they found that children were more likely to believe in the Candy Witch if they had evidence to prove it (such as overhearing their parents making a call to the Candy Witch and finding some candy swapped for toys). Also, younger children (around 3 or 4) were no more likely than slightly older children (up to 7) to believe-evidence was more important than age, until around 8, when belief in fantastical creatures significantly decreases. But not every child believed, even those told about the Candy Witch by their teachers and parents.



Norman Rockwell

So not every child will just accept everything told them, even young ones, or from trusted sources. Children observe and weigh evidence as they conclude what is or isn't real. Personally I think that Christmas movies, which usually tend to be all about how Santa Claus is real and portray believers as "good" and skeptics as villains, are a pretty significant influence as well.

Parents, how do you handle Santa Claus in your house?

Advice Wanted: Best Fairy Tale Books for Young Children

We were given a book of Disney nursery rhymes and fairy tales for Pearson. One story in there is that of "Little Red Riding Minnie." It tells of Minnie, who is going to take cookies and cough drops to her sick grandmother, and how the big bad wolf is out to steal the cookies (no hint of actually wanting to harm anyone). Rather than eating the grandmother, he just takes her clothes off the clothesline and waits for Minnie outside. Then, he accidentally eats all the cough drops instead of the cookies, and runs away with eyes watering.


It's kind of humorous if you think of it as a parody, only it's not meant as a parody-it's meant to be safe for young children. (For more on this, check out Gypsy's post and contribution to this article on why children's theater dumbs down fairy tales). I used to have my own opinions on not dumbing down fairy tales for children, but I have to admit, now that I have my own child, I kind of get it-I'm not sure I want to be reading him bedtime stories about people being eaten. Of course, he's still a baby, and as he goes through different phases of development, hopefully I'll adjust too. (And I have to remind myself of the dangers of shielding your children too much, as Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel remind us-it's better to educate your children about spindles than to pretend they don't exist, and keeping a teenager in a tower can't really keep them from growing up!)

I have my own collection of versions of "Beauty and the Beast", including some picture book versions, but other than that we don't have other fairy tale books for Pearson yet. He's still in the stage where in order to sit still for a book, it needs to have very little text on each page, and he needs to have a toy on hand to chew on, but I would love to get more fairy tales in his library. So, what would you recommend? I'm happy to start getting recommendations of books for when he gets older but would also like to have some on hand for now as well. I'm certainly not as familiar with children's books as I'm sure I'll get over the next few years, but one book I heartily recommend for kids of all ages (and adults!) is Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reverso Poems by Marilyn Singer, illustrated by Josee Masse. Each fairy tale is told from two different perspectives, with the second poem a reverse of the first, line by line-with only clever changes in punctuation to change the meaning. Long time readers may be sick of hearing about this book by now...(there is also a follow up, Follow Follow, that I have seen but don't own)

Article: Class Portrayal in Disney Movies (and Fairy Tales in General)

Just came across this interesting article by Allison Pond from Deseret News, 9 Ways to Teach Your Kids About Poverty Better Than Disney, that I found very interesting.

"A recent study from Duke University looked at the highest-grossing children’s movies and determined that they sanitize poverty and inequality by making them seem like no big deal.
“Parents think about how gender is portrayed, particularly in Disney movies,” Streib said. “But I don’t think they pay as much attention to how class is portrayed, and that could be another conversation starter for parents.”

How class is represented in children’s movies matters, said Jessi Streib, lead author of the Duke study, because if kids believe that simply working hard ensures success, they could blame themselves or others who don’t achieve certain things in life and assume they are lazy.

“It can end up being a viewpoint that doesn’t allow for a lot of empathy or for understanding how social class actually works,” she said."

First of all, I find it kind of refreshing to be looking at Disney/popular kids' movies for something other than gender portrayals. And it's true, class portrayal is much more overlooked.
However, I'm not sure how I feel about all the points in the article. It's pretty difficult to lump all Disney movies together; we have almost a century's worth of Disney classics to choose from by now, and the article mentioned Snow White (1937) through Aladdin (1992).


“We damage children by only exposing them to happy endings. That’s not how life works, whether you’re financially stable as an adult or not. Failure is part of everybody’s life experience,” she said.

She noted that many stories for children don’t end well.

“If you look at fairy tales from Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm, they have terribly sad endings. That’s just part of childhood (and) growing up.”



"Little Match Girl" by Aya Tsai

Yet, it's an issue to look at because it's not just present in Disney movies, but tends to be an integral part of fairy tales. As the study points out, not all fairy tales end happily, but honestly, many of them have a protagonist who goes from poverty to wealth, and yes, it's unrealistic. In a way I think, we all know on some level that fairy tales-especially cartoon musical versions of them-are not meant to be realistic guides for life, and part of me thinks, "what's the big deal?" (I also tend to be defensive because I'm one of those kids that grew up on a heavy diet of Disney entertainment). Yet at the same time, there can be power in those movies we watch (and rewatch) as children that inspire us and can subconsciously influence us.

"Cinderella" by V. P. Mohn

When most fairy tales were being told, the prospect of actually rising through the social ladder of society was basically impossible. The idea of upward mobility was complete wish fulfillment. Yet now we have the idea of the American dream, and some examples of people who really did work their way up to success, which lends to the societal ideal that anyone who works hard can succeed and that anyone in poverty must just not have worked hard enough, which is a gross oversimplification.

The article states that showing the dwarfs happily mining is an example of over romanticizing the poor. But...the dwarfs fill barrows full of valuable gems every day, they're hardly living in poverty...even though they live in a tiny cottage in the woods and all share one bedroom. But that's one of those things that doesn't necessarily translate into logical examples. For a child, the idea of mining gems is more exciting for the idea of discovery and pretty shiny gems, not necessarily the money that would result (we don't see evidence that the dwarfs go and sell their gems either, but they somehow afford food).

The article also points to the scene in "Aladdin" where Aladdin and Jasmine are both talking about the difficulties of their lives and realize that they have more in common than they think-they both feel "trapped." Pond says it's quite a stretch to suppose their difficulties can be compared, with Aladdin going hungry and Jasmine seeking teenage independence. Yet there's so much more going on there-first of all, even as a royal, as a woman, Jasmine really would have had far less autonomy than a male in a royal position-I don't really blame her for freaking out about the prospect of being "given away" in marriage ("I am not a prize to be won!"). The characters are finding ways of relating to each other, especially as they realize that one thing they both lack is a loving relationship.


And while we should never use the idea that people in poverty just "get used to it" as an excuse to ignore the fact that so many people around the world lack basic human rights such as food, shelter, education, or fair wages, we also shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking that having enough wealth equals happiness. People in poverty can also be the most generous, and people with great wealth can often be discontent and unhappy. I think it's important to be challenged to be content with what we have, and to value relationships more than material possessions. I think, honestly, another danger middle class people can fall into is looking down on the wealthy-we think we have the right to judge celebrities much more harshly than other people, and tend to diminish any struggles they have, while we remain ignorant of the unique pressures people face in their roles of power and influence. We can even feel a sense of pride in the fact that we don't "squander our money" on "luxuries" when comparing ourselves to the most wealthy, while failing to realize that our daily lifestyles would be considered totally luxurious by so many around the world.

One thing I appreciated about the article was how it not only critiqued, but gave some helpful suggestions for dealing with tough topics with children (the tips could also apply to other child appropriate issues we come across in the fairy tale world, such as violence, scary villains, etc.)

It's an issue I haven't thought about much myself, I'd love to hear all of your thoughts!

Rapunzel Alternate Beginning

One great thing about the annotated tales over at Surlalune are that Heidi Anne Heiner has included the Grimms' notes with some of them. Not even my complete first edition of Grimm tales has that!

I was reading about Rapunzel and came across this interesting fact: the Grimms had found a version that seems like it blended Bluebeard and Rapunzel. The witch lives with a young girl, and entrusted all of her keys to her, but forbid her to go in a certain room. The young girl, of course, disobeys, and finds the witch sitting in it with "two great horns." Because of that, the girl is placed in a tower.

This tale still seems more reasonable than Bluebeard. The witch, at least, hasn't killed anybody in the process, and really has nothing to hide. And while it's still not entirely fair, at least a child should be expected to obey adults more so than a wife should be expected to have entire rooms in her house off limits.

Still, in both cases, female curiosity is punished. While it's upsetting for feminists, the punishments in both cases (locked in a tower/death) are just so extreme, maybe tales like these were sometimes meant to express frustration with societal expectations of women's complete obedience.

Also, on the subject of Rapunzel...my niece drew this for me for Christmas. My favorite detail is the "no tower" thought bubble coming from Rapunzel. Although many fairy tale Princesses are trapped in towers, servitude, or death-like sleep, their goal is universally escape!

Illustration-Anne Anderson

At Willow Web-Scary Folklore: Motivating Children's Behaviors

"Baba Yaga and Vasilisa"- Milo Neuman

Today I'm posting over at The Willow Web as part of Amy's Halloween series! Hop on over and join the discussion about the ways that modern parents still use folklore to motivate their children to behave-whether threatening monsters who will punish or benevolent characters who reward. We'd love to hear from you-what supernatural creatures did your parents threaten you with? What do you think of using folklore in parenting? 

Baba Yaga as a Mother Figure

Psychologists have long thought that the presence of witches, evil stepmothers, and ogresses in fairy tales are a result of splitting the mother into two versions-one good and one bad. It's hard for young children, as concrete thinkers, to understand that their mother who loves and cares for them can also be the one to scold them and sometimes lose their patience. Andreas Johns explores this concept more thoroughly as it relates to Baba Yaga as a mother figure.

All children must, as they grow, learn to find their identity as independent of their primary caretaker, which in most cultures in history has usually been the mother, or other females. Interestingly, in Russia, peasant families often lived together in large houses with extended family. Although children weren't raised completely communally and still had a significant relationship with their birth mother, aunts and cousins and sisters would have likely played more of a role in raising children than in Western cultures. This could help to explain the multiple, and contradicting, faces of a mother figure.

The correlation between Baba Yaga and a mother is often made clear. Sometimes the hero of the tale refers to her as "mother," sometimes the text makes specific contrasts between the hero's mother at home and Baba Yaga-as the one weeps outside her hut for her son, Baba Yaga brings the boy to her hut to harm him. One version notes that Yaga "spoke like his mother," for she listened to how his mother spoke and imitated it.

The parallel between Baba Yaga and the mother is even more interesting with tales in which Yaga attempts to cook the hero in an oven. The oven has similarities to a womb, according to psychoanalysts. Russian customs support this idea. To ease the pain of childbirth, one trick was to open an oven door. Also, a wedding custom of a certain province included riding around with a broom and an oven door, to symbolize the loss of a bride's virginity. A Russian proverb states "the oven is our mother." It becomes clear that Baba Yaga, in attempting to put the hero of a tale into an oven, is also trying to put him back into her womb. This could be seen as a way for mothers to express the frustrations of raising children, or possibly represents the idea of a mother trying to prevent a child from growing older. "In many ways Baba Yaga is a reversal or inversion of the hero's mother. The mother is good, gives birth to a boy, and feeds him; Baba Yaga is evil, wants to force the boy back into the oven (a symbolic womb), and eat him."

There is a tale type in Russia that is similar to "Hansel and Gretel", only it features a male and not his sister. I referenced it a while ago, especially as it relates to an old Russian custom of symbolically "baking" children. What does it mean that this tale, and related stories in which Baba Yaga attempts to cook and eat a child, feature predominantly male heroines? Johns concludes that the tales must explore the complications that rise specifically in a mother-son relationship.

Johns says incest could be one of the complications of the mother-son relationship that this tale explores. I'm always wary of psychologists who automatically assume the meaning of every fairy tale relationship must be sexual, and statistically, far fewer boys are molested in childhood than girls (as far as we are aware, it's a difficult issue to get data on). Still, the fact is, incest does happen, even between mothers and their sons; even what isn't common still needs to be dealt with.

Another explanation for the emphasis on the mother-son relationship, and one that I think is more widely applicable, is the fact that, as children establish their own identity as mentioned above,it is more difficult for a son to separate himself into a separate gender than the one who raised him. This causes unique issues, and is sometimes expressed in negativity about the female gender (and probably part of the reason that even today, doing something "like a girl" is considered doing it poorly, while "being a man" has good connotations.

However, how does this line of thought compare to Western tales? Although we have Gretel, it isn't her that the witch wants to eat. Although you could really look at the Rapunzel tale as being a story about a mother trying to stunt her daughter's growth into a woman.

Also interesting to note: Russian lullabies tend to be especially morbid, often singing about the death of the child. Read more on the topic here, but here's a sample:

Bye-bye, bye-bye,

Quickly die,

On the morning will be frost,

And you’ll go to the grave-yard.

Grandfather will come

And will bring the coffin.

Grandmother will come

And will bring the grave clothes.

Mother will come

And will sing the prayer song.

Father will come

And will take you to the graveyard.

Art by Antonina Medvedeva

Grimm's Grimmest

I don't know about you, but when it comes to reading new fairy tales, sometimes it can be intimidating to pull out a large copy of an edition of Grimms' complete fairy tales. Where to even start? It's not the sort of book you usually read cover to cover.

In fact, my copy of complete Grimm tales I use mainly for reference. I find it helpful to discover books in which tales are separated by categories such as themes or country of origin, which is why I was pleased to discover Grimm's Grimmest, edited by Marisa Bulzone, in my library. Not only did it introduce me to several tales I wasn't as familiar with alongside some of the classics, but the best part was the introduction by Maria Tatar.

She provides a little history of the Grimms and their process of collecting but also editing the tales to suit, what was then, modern tastes. Although the Grimms (and the general culture of the time) abhorred any mention of sexuality or pregnancy, altering the tales to remove such references, they actually tended to increase the violence when it was part of a character's punishment. Seemingly shocking and harsh punishments for what we might consider to be small misdemeanors were characteristic of not only the Grimms' collection but other children's literature of the time, such as Strewwelpeter.

Page from the book-Illustrations by Tracy Arah Dockray

For example, the short and haunting story "The Willful Child" would have been more or less typical fare for the time:

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Once upon a time there was a child who was willful and would not do what her* mother wished. For this reason, God had no pleasure in her, and let her become ill. No doctor could do her any good, and in a short time the child lay on her deathbed.

When she had been lowered into her grave, and the earth was spread over her, all at once her little arm came out again and reached upward. And when they had pushed it back in the ground and spread fresh earth over it, it was all to no purpose, for the arm always came out again.

Then the mother herself was obliged to go to the grave and strike the arm with a rod. When she had done that, the arm was drawn in, and at last the child had rest beneath the ground.


*In the introduction, Tatar clarifies that in the German, the child is given no specific gender

Tatar also cited psychology and the fact that "children are rarely squeamish when they hear about decapitation or other forms of mutilation. Typical Saturday morning cartoon fare shows that grisly episodes often strike them as hilarious rather than horrifying." It's true that some of the stories, even with their gruesome aspects, I found mostly entertaining, such as "The Three Army Surgeons." Yet others were truly hard to read-I don't think anyone can read "The Willful Child" above and not find it disturbing on some level (and this collection didn't even include "How Children Played Butcher with Each Other," which I find the most horrifying).

For while we tend to think of fairy tales as simple, sweet children's stories, Tatar reminds us that they are also the precursors to other genres, such as urban legends and horror.

Yet, there are different categories when we look at violence in tales. There is violence that is punishment for a truly horrible villain-which we tend to be more comfortable with; children in America are familiar with the scene in which Gretel pushes the witch into the oven, whereas we have largely forgotten some tales that are still part of general knowledge in Germany today, such as "Juniper Tree" which involves a mother decapitating her son and feeding his flesh to her unknowing husband (and, another perfect example of cultural differences in approaching fairy tales!).

Tracy Arah Dockray-illustration for "Juniper Tree"

Then, sometimes, the protagonist is treated cruelly by the villain. This elicits sympathy from the reader and further establishes which characters we're rooting for and which ones we're against, and many of our most loved heroines in American culture fit into this category-Snow White and Cinderella, for example.

Then there's a different sort of story in which the violence doesn't seem to serve a purpose at all. In tales like "The Death of the Little Hen," the stories lead from one tragedy to another, with no happy ending. They seem pointless and depressing, but Tatar reminds us that if nothing else, these tales point to the harsh cruelties of peasant existence, where diseases spread rampant, mothers often died in childbirth, and poor harvest meant going truly hungry. Fairy tales blend truth with hope. Although the common perception is that fairy tales are all hope and no truth, that's a misconception; but it would also be misleading to present all Grimm tales as the creepy, depressing ones found in this volume either. We can point to the darker aspects of fairy tales but they are not the complete picture.

Albert Weisgerber-"The Death of the Little Red Hen"

I have to point out though-I was very disappointed that the book jacket description claims that the Grimms' "Aschenputtel" was "the original Cinderella story." It's a common thing to mistake Grimm tales for "original," but for someone responsible for creating a book description to make such a gross error, especially when Perrault's version is not only older, but arguably more famous? Whoever wrote it clearly didn't read Tatar's introduction, which not only referenced Perrault's "Cinderella" (with the year, 1697), but compared and contrasted the Grimms' version with Cinderella tales from around the world-some of which show forgiveness for the stepsisters and some of which are incredibly violent in their punishments. On the one hand this shows that violence is not limited to German or Grimm tales, but on the other it shows that violent aspects are not necessary for the tale type.

Cultural Approaches to Fairy Tales

One of the books I've been reading lately is French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Le Billon. Although at first glance it has nothing to do with fairy tales, one passage intrigued me. The book is about one woman's story of moving her family to France and encountering firsthand some of the cultural differences between the French and North Americans-mainly concerning food, but how we train our kids to eat is reflective of our general ideas about children and parenting; and beliefs about children and parenting will have a lot of influence on our ideas about fairy tales-what is appropriate for children, how to introduce them to kids and encourage them to interact with the tales, etc.

When Le Billon's two daughters were 3 and 5, she tried to find children's books for them that would be the equivalent of the many American child-appropriate books. She asked for fairy tales in the bookstores, and was given translations of the famous Grimm and Andersen tales, but as many of us are aware, the average Grimm or Andersen tale would not be considered appropriate for such young children in America.

So she asked her native French father in law, "Back home, childhood is viewed as a really innocent time. There are lots of books about magic and make-believe. The French don't seem to have the same sorts of books."

Her father in law's reply was, "Kids aren't innocent. They're like little animals. If they aren't disciplined, they'll never learn to behave!"

Though that statement may seem shocking, it reflects the general attitude the French have about parenting, and about their children's entertainment. And the French are, in general, very loving parents-but they tend to parent more authoritatively (not authoritarian) then their American counterparts, who have grown more indulgent as a rule.

The book didn't go into more detail about the culture of childhood and what would be considered appropriate verses inappropriate in France, but it reminded me that the attitudes I have about fairy tales and children which I assume are "modern" are really very "American" as well. We often look at the historical emergence of childhood culture as a way of understanding how fairy tales would have been told and received differently in the time of the Grimms and before, but sometimes I forget that even among modern, similar cultures, there can be striking differences.

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Maria Tatar and Jack Zipes-American fairy tale scholars

Even in the blogging world, I think most of us fairy tale bloggers are American (shout out to Amy Elize Brown of Asleep in the Woods, way to represent the Brits!). Even some of the biggest names in current fairy tale scholarship, like Jack Zipes and Maria Tatar, are American-with Marina Warner, another Brit, being an exception. Of course there's the whole language barrier, but it makes me wonder-what other books on fairy tale history and evolution are being published in other countries that we aren't aware of because they're not being translated into English? (Speaking as one of the, sadly, many Americans who is not fluent in any second languages). And my guess is that they would have very different opinions on many of the things we discuss-when it comes to evaluating different versions of fairy tales, and looking at the messages they contain, in addition to beliefs about child appropriateness.

I think most Americans would be shocked at the Frenchman's statement above that kids are little animals. And I think we might define "innocence" in kids a little differently, and believe me I've worked with kids enough to know they're not perfect!-but that's a whole other discussion.

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Many parents and educators around the world probably have a very different attitude towards what children should and shouldn't be exposed to, and what they're able to handle. Much of the violence and sex of early fairy tales wouldn't have been hidden from children in earlier societies, and perhaps that's still true in many current cultures. For example, although Americans find the romance in fairy tales troubling in that we're worried our kids will become too consumed with finding a significant other, French parents have a different attitude towards children and romance-they actually encourage it, asking them who there "amoreuse" (boyfriend/girlfriend) is and thinking that young children in "relationships" are cute. Therefore, I'm guessing the fact that fairy tale characters tend to get married as part of their happily ever after is not necessarily troubling to them. Clearly, the entertainment available to French children (or not available, as mentioned above) contrasted with American children's books speaks volumes to the different values these cultures have.

Illustration-Eleanor Vere Boyle, "Wild Swans"

And this is just the difference between two relatively similar cultures-so often in fairy tale studies, European and American stories get lumped together under the term "Western"- so even outside of other major cultures, which we expect to have contrasting worldviews, we have to remember how vastly different each similar country's philosophies can be! Honestly, in this world of mass media and globalization, I tend to be very ignorant of how distinctly different two very developed countries can still be on such basic things as attitudes towards food and parenting. I would love to hear from readers and other bloggers around the world on this topic-how do people in different cultures handle fairy tales and telling them to their kids?

Princess and the Peanut

These books aren't new, Heidi Anne Heiner of Surlalune shared both of them back in 2011, but I just came across these two children's books that use the concept of "Princess and the Pea" to explore allergies.

The Princess and the Peanut: A Royally Allergic Tale by Sue Ganz-Schmitt and illustrated by Micah Chambers-Goldberg, 2011

The Princess and the Peanut Allergy by Wendy McClure and illustrated by Tammie Lyon, 2009

From this review:

"According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 3 million American children under the age of 18 suffer from food allergies. Dr. Scott H. Sicherer of New York's Jaffe Food Allergy Institute estimates that about 1 percent of schoolchildren are allergic to peanuts. Allergic reactions vary from minor to severe to fatal. Even the ingestion of an infinitesimally small amount of a peanut-laden product may prove fatal. Furthermore, administration of epinephrine, an antidote injected to reduce symptom severity, is not always effective. Also, food allergens easily cause social anxiety in children as they must always be alert, at their young ages, to ingredients.

Spontaneous consumption, such as food sharing at lunch, may also present hazards. Children want to blend with their peers, but food allergies make them stand out with a self-conscious difference. One of the best ways to sensitize public awareness to the dos and don'ts of interactions with allergic children is through believable stories such as The Princess and the Peanut Allergy." 

H.J. Ford

I really like this concept for a "Princess and the Pea" retelling. The story itself is about extreme sensitivity, and children with allergies could relate to the princess who suffers under circumstances that a typical person wouldn't even notice. Allergies can be hard enough as an adult, but how hard is it to have to deny children things like birthday treats? Tony is senstitive to gluten, so over the past few years I've gotten a small glimpse into the world of having to either request alternate foods or watch other people eat what you can't, and it can be hard. Other people may view it as an annoyance when they're not allowed to bring peanut products into certain spaces, or might assume you're high maintenance if you don't eat things that are provided at parties or meetings. To a child who struggles with potentially dangerous consequences just for eating or even inhaling certain foods in the air, being able to compare yourself to a fairy tale princess might be a small consolation.

Delicious to most, deadly to some-image from here

Fairy Tales and Fear

An anonymous commenter recently wrote in response to my post on Fairy Tale Endings that people tend to forget, when criticizing fairy tales for being dark and violent, how dark much of classic children's literature is. And it's true-maybe not picture books on the whole, but I remember having a conversation with a friend years ago about how many children fantasize about being orphans. We see this trend in children's literature, as many childhood heroes are indeed orphans-from Hansel and Gretel in their parents' attempts to abandon them in the woods, to well-loved characters such as the Boxcar children, Mary of "The Secret Garden", or the children who enter Narnia (again not technically orphaned, but separated from their parents and I don't think any reference is ever made to their parents except to explain them away at the beginning of the books).

"Hansel and Gretel", John B. Gruelle

Partly, getting rid of parents is the only way to create a child-centered world; a realistic book about children would be pretty limited if they had to ask their parents for permission before going on spectacular adventures. Through orphaned characters, or characters whose parental figures are the enemy, the children can achieve independence and become the central figures of the story, moving the action along instead of responding to a world where all of their actions are dictated by parents and school teachers.

Dark Chamber of [Snow White's] Evil Queen, Tours Departing Daily

Fairy tales deal with our primal fears, such as abandonment, or being prey to wild creatures. G. K. Chesterton defended the scarier elements of fairy tales by saying, "All this kind of talk [of keeping fairy tales away from children] is based on that complete forgetting of what a child is like...if you kept bogies and goblins away from children they would make them up for themselves...One small child can imagine monsters too big and black to get into any picture, and give them names too unearthly and cacophonous to have occurred in the cries of any lunatic...fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed."

Well known authors have reflected on their remembrances of fairy tales in childhood-Samuel Taylor Coleridge remembered reading is father's copy of Arabian Nights over and over again, and how he looked at the book "with a strange mixture of obscure dread and intense desire." Charles Dickens recalled being terrified by his nurse's tales, yet returned to those same tales by alluding to them repeatedly in his works.

Source

Michael Kotzin discusses Dicken's use of fairy tales in his essay, "Charles Dickens and the Fairy Tale as Social Commentary." He says that, in childhood, Dickens recognized the dual aspect of fairy tales-fun and terrifying-and reused those same ideas in his adult writings as he discovered that the real world was the same way. He saw horrors that were the natural, unavoidable way of things-disease and natural disaster-but also horrors that were inflicted by people, or society in general, and used fairy tales satirically to criticize political beliefs or groups of people.

Dickens used fairy tale images to make the ordinary extraordinary-in writing a personal letter about the beauty of the buildings in Paris, he tells a friend that "the Genius of the Lamp is always building Palaces in the night." Using fairy tales as a common frame of reference, his works can have a childlike wonder to them. But though he used fairy tales in fun, he also used them in serious ways at times, in making social commentary. He saw in fairy tales the potential to connect with real world scenarios. He "drew upon fairy tale motifs, narrative patterns, and fairy tale-type characters and settings to help people sense romance in the everyday world and grasp the need for moral improvement. His popularity then and now owes some legacy to the magic and mystery of the traditional fairy tale." (Remember, Dickens is the one who is often quoted as having wanted to marry Little Red Riding Hood as a child.)

William Christian Symons

But of course, you can go too far; you shouldn't push violent and gory stories at very young children. It's one thing for an academic to argue about the value of preserving folklore the way it originally was, and another thing for a parent to be awakened by a child who had a nightmare because of a story they read before bedtime.

But at the same time, fairy tales are wonderful because they provide us with different ends of the spectrum-the terror of tapping into our fears, but the wonder and enchantment of the supernatural, and the possibility of happy endings.

What are your recollections of reading/watching fairy tales as a child, in terms of how scared you were?

How Disney Parks Affect How We View Fairy Tales

I'm back! The trip was fantastic. Exhausting, as I expected, but totally worth it!

After some days of performance we spent a very anticipated day in Disney World's Magic Kingdom. If you think about it, the experience of Disney Parks-from the rides to the shows and characters-are really just a different way of storytelling. In high school I watched Disney's "Snow White" and realized that, if I had ever seen it before, it was so long ago I barely remembered it. But I thought I had seen it-I was familiar with the characters, music, and basic plot. Such is the effect of riding the ride, seeing the characters march by in parades, looking at the merchandise, etc.-viewers are still familiar with the Disney versions of fairy tales even if they've never seen the movie. The rides are such a short, truncated version of the Disney movies-they remind you of the major scenes of the movie in five minutes or less, keeping that specific version prominent in your mind, especially if visitors to the park aren't regularly reading/watching other versions.

The last time I was in Disney World was five years ago so I got to see the new Fantasyland addition for the first time. And as a lifelong Beauty and the Beast fan, it was incredible to see scenes from the movie in life size.

We got to eat in the Be Our Guest restaurant, which allows you to dine in either the library (which looked nothing like the library in the movie, didn't even have any books), the West Wing, or the ballroom. We also walked through the hall of armor and got to take pictures by the stained glass window.

I was thrilled that my buddy for the week was my very good friend Christy, a 17-year old young woman with Down Syndrome, who was actually the junior bridesmaid in our wedding. Long time readers may remember some of her fairy tale artwork or when I blogged about the experience of watching Disney's Sleeping Beauty with her and her reactions. 

Two Beauty and the Beast illustrations done by Christy for me in years past

One thing that was new to me this trip was the whole experience of meeting characters. It was never something my family was really into (the picture of me with Belle and the Beast is an exception). They train each actor with knowledge of the movie they are in, having them mention trivia about their character during your visit, so it  really enhances the feeling that they are real characters with a life even beyond their Disney movie.

Meeting the princesses and heroes was fun for the students in our group, but I really enjoyed visiting Gaston. First of all, we weren't actually in the line, his shift was almost over, so we were just watching. But he saw two adorable girls with Down Syndrome, one in a wheelchair, and when he was done with the people in the line, he came over to us and brought our students over to him! In general the cast members at Disney seem to have a soft heart for people with disablities, but a special thank you to Gaston!

Christy asked him why he was so mean to the Beast. Gaston replied that he wasn't mean; he was the nice one (because he had a nice face). He also had this whole theory-which is actually something that fans and critics of the movie have brought up before-that the Beast was really an imposter, because where did he come from? If he was the Prince, where were his parents, i.e. the reigning King and Queen? How is he a Prince if he apparently has no kingdom? He also called the Beast Belle's dog, and twice insulted my shirt, saying it was horrible:

I was wearing this tank top from Hot Topic last year, no longer available

Hearing Gaston's point of view was interesting for me, and really made Christy think. The rest of the day she kept asking questions, "Why did he say he didn't like your shirt? I don't understand" (even after repeated attempts at explanation) and "Why did he call the Beast a dog? Is the Beast a dog?" She struggles a bit with abstract thinking, but that's what's so great about exposing kids to the fact that, while he might be lying, Gaston would have a different point of view than Belle or the Beast. Christy was great though, continued to challenge him, and when Gaston was showing off his muscles she whipped out her own biceps:

Then, the highlight of the trip: meeting Elsa and Anna. So, Christy has loved Sleeping Beauty for years, but like most other young girls has become OBSESSED with Frozen lately. She knows all the words to all the songs and will tell the plot of the movie, in depth, to anyone who will listen (as well as those who are tired of listening...). So we knew we had to use our fastpasses to skip the three hour line (!!!) to see the characters. 

Now I'm pretty sure Christy doesn't think the characters are actually real, she will ask which people do the voices for some of her favorite cartoon characters and she's seen different plays so she's aware of the concept of actors playing parts. But even if she logically knows, partly, the characters aren't the ones from the movie, she takes them very seriously. All day long she was practicing what things to say to Elsa-she was going to tell her she was her favorite Queen because she has powers, she loves snow, and all her favorite parts of the movie. When it was finally her turn, she excitedly greeted them each by name like they were long lost friends, and ran up to Elsa and gave her a hug. It was so precious I was actually crying as I was snapping pictures...

Here is Elsa noticing her own face on Christy's shirt:

 Anna noticed that Christy also happens to have a gray streak of hair, and was very excited, jumped up and down and said, "we're twins!" Christy LOVED it, the rest of the evening when we saw people from our group she would tell them, "Guess WHAT!! We saw Elsa and Anna, and she saw my HAIR!! We're TWINS!!!"

 I can only imagine what effect this kind of meeting has on a child afterwards. If they were already fans of the character, now he or she will go home and be even more connected to the movie. Christy now has a personal connection with her heroes, who called her by name and noticed similarities between them. She also got a souvenir Frozen storybook from the gift shop and was showing it to everyone, and the next day poring over it in the airport.

And unfortunately for us, meeting the characters in a believable way makes it even harder for kids to accept that the Disney version of a fairy tale is NOT definitive. I didn't bother trying to tell older versions of the fairy tales on this trip; with this audience of mostly concrete thinkers it would be more confusing than anything else, and I didn't want to ruin their special day. Although another day of the trip we were on a lake that had several swans swimming, and Christy was very excited, saying, "It's Swan Lake!" (she's really into ballet too) and we named all the white swans Odette and the black ones Odile.

I'd love to hear from other people-how have your experiences in the Disney parks affected you/young people of your acquaintance, especially in how you thought of fairy tales?