Plan B Forum

read Rapunzel today.

what do you guys think about reading the old fairy tales to kids. the old scary faerie tales, not the Disney crap.

they are a bit harsh but I learned them when I was a kid, I had a copy of grimm s faery tales when I was a kid, I don t know where that went. oh yeah I do....

anyway , I ve read a couple to a kid lately, and she is mesmerized and wants me to read them all. we vr read Red Riding hood and Rapunzel so far. hansel and Gretel tomorrow.

she is only three but doesn t seem bothered by the harshness and scariness of the tales. the wolves and witches don t scare her...

we don t watch much tv. she gets cranky when she is sleepy and I ll put Paw Patrol on for her, or spongebob, but generally I just leave the news or nature or last of the summer wine on while we do other stuff..., legos, drawing, puzzles, letters and stuff like that

anyway, I think the old faery tales are ok.

what do you think? I m curious.

Wes--it depends on the kid and the age, but for the most part I agree with you; I think the original fairly tales, from Grimm to Hans Christian Andersen, have a bit of rawness and horror that older kids enjoy (but then my kids liked horror flicks at 3). However, there were some I would not read; I recall one of the books we had included Bluebeard, which I did not see as suitable for kids; I also skipped some of the rhymes (like flinging a red hot poker at Taffy's head or the man who jumped in the bramble bush and poked out both his eyes). Even the Disneyfied stories started out more along those lines--I recall my kids liking the part here the queen found out the box contained a pig's heart (not snow white's), and they loved the mean witch in Sleeping Beauty. But over the years Disney chose to strip that horror out of its cartoons--so the "evil" stepsisters and stepmother were more comic than evil in Cindarella, and Captain Hook became a buffoon rather than a challenge to Peter Pan.

flinging a red hot poker at Taffy's head

I understand that's one of Hen's favorites...

LOL!!

I thought of that when I wrote it.