Where have all the fairy tales gone?

 

Imagine a scene on the Antiques Roadshow where the presenter is asked to select the "best" from this selection of The Frog Prince. Which one would you select and why?

Now what about these two - one is a board book with moveable parts and one has flaps.

I was chatting with a very skilled and very knowledgeable Teacher-Librarian this morning. She has been sharing fairy tales with the kindergarten groups in her school library. Some children are unfamiliar with even the most well-known of the tales. Some children only know the Disney version. Many have never been read any fairy tales. I talked about this issue in relation to Nursery Rhymes. These used to be read in the first year of school then they moved 'back' to the preschool with the expectation that preschool teachers and staff would share nursery rhymes dare I say - regularly. Sadly, I am not sure we can make that assumption but now I want to think about Fairy Tales. Perhaps some are read in preschool and perhaps some are read in families but I'm sure this is not universal and so I think it is important for schools - Kindergarten, Grade One and Grade Two to keep sharing Fairy Tales and later to explore all the variations from different cultures.

My friend from Kinderbookswitheverything has a terrific collection of fairy tales from around the world. Here is her Pinterest. Here are her Cinderella books. And Red Riding Hood. 

Now go back to the title of this post. I am sure most school libraries have collections of fairy tales - both single volume picture books and anthologies. They took up a few shelves in my former school library [398.2]. But my friend has noticed there are very few new editions of fairy tales listed on bookseller sites especially those scrumptious single story picture books that used to be easy to find. I am not talking about all the fractured versions (there are heaps of those) because to have any idea about a fractured version a reader needs to be familiar with at least one version of the original. These single editions also need our best (international) illustrators so they become books to cherish and revisit and include as gifts.

Here are some single story picture books I really like but nearly all were published many years ago and so are sadly out of print:

With older children you could also discuss stories that are not actually fairy tales. I have seen so many mentioned on lists - Peter Pan; The Pied Piper of Hamelin; The adventures of Pinocchio; Alice in Wonderland; and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. 

There are still some beautiful Fairy Tale anthologies: The Macmillan Fairy Tales Collection from 2021 [9781529041569] but with over 450 pages this is a huge book; First Fairy Tales by Margaret Mayo, Helen Stephens from 2020 [9781408342510]; and Brothers Grimm: The Most Beloved Fairy Tales by Manuela Adreani from 2019 [9788854413559].  

Finally, here are some copies of Sleeping Beauty that hopefully demonstrate why some versions of famous fairy tales may not give our kids the best reading or visual experience.