Week 13 Essay: Children's Stories

Because so many of these fairy tales were already familiar to me, they definitely reminded me of my childhood. The Cinder-Maid was a retelling of Cinderella. The Language of Animals seemed like a version of Snow White with a male main character. Johnnie and Grizzle was a clever version of Hansel and Gretel. Even the stories that I was reading for the first time seemed like good children's stories because they had a clear moral and dealt with silly concepts.

I think that children especially enjoy stories about characters that they can relate to. Often, these are stories about other children like Johnnie and Grizzle or Thumbkin. As a child, I definitely enjoyed fantastical stories where I got to use my imagination like The Cinder-Maid and Beauty and the Beast. I think just about any story can be good for children to read so long as the content is appropriate for their ages.

Cinderella was my favorite princess growing up. I loved how she had a relationship with the adorable mice. In The Cinder-Maid, she had a relationship with the little bird that granted her wishes. I also loved the idea of a prince seeking me out specifically to become his wife, and that is exactly what happens to Cinder-Maid.

Growing up, I loved the imagery in Hansel and Gretel. The idea of living in a gingerbread house highly appealed to me. The story of Johnnie and Grizzle definitely stayed true to that. "The door was made of butterscotch, the windows of sugar candy, the bricks were all chocolate creams, the pillars of lollypops, and the roof of gingerbread."

Another story aspect that I enjoyed as a child was the idea that anything is possible. This is portrayed in Beauty and the Beast when Beauty has the courage and faith to believe in the Beast, and she gets rewarded when the Beast transforms into a handsome young man.

 

(Image information: "Beauty and the Beast" by John Batten 1916.)