“It’s hard to let go of that fairy tale entirely. Almost everyone still has that smallest bit of hope, of faith, that one day they’ll open their eyes and it will all come true.”
Just try to go a day without fairy tales. They are a part of our culture. Stripping away the decorations of tradition, fairy tales tell a story in its most basic form.
“They are talking about real emotions, telling true stories, through the medium of metaphor,” says best-selling author Jane Yolen. “These stories are so potent, they refuse to die.”
In a recent radio slot dedicated to the importance of fairy tales, adult listeners called in to share their favourite stories from childhood, and what they learned from them.
One caller from New York said that Hansel and Gretel showed him that as long as he kept his wits about him, nobody could get the best of him. Jack and the Beanstalk was the preferred fairy tale for a caller from Michigan, who learned that, if you think creatively, there is treasure within your reach. And a woman from Connecticut talked about the White Dove. “It taught me that where you lose the path in the woods is not where your story ends.”
Fairy tales are everywhere, inspiring everything from film and television shows to financial markets. Like the young woman who rose up from the ashes, Cinderella stocks defy the odds by soaring in value and becoming the belles of the investors’ ball.
These stories have entertained and educated countless generations. They may be set in a faraway time and place, but their lessons are perpetually contemporary. As such, they are an important aspect of every child’s education and development, and should be read and reread to children.
“Why do we continue to tell the same old tales, over and over again? Because we all have encountered wicked wolves, faced trial by fire, found fairy godmothers. We have all set off into unknown woods at one point in life or another,” Terri Windling writes in Black Swam, White Raven. “The trials our heroes encounter in their quests illustrate the process of transformation: from youth to adulthood, from victim to hero, from a maimed state into wholeness, from passivity to action. As centuries of artists have known, this gives fairy tales a particular power.”
So take your child on your lap today and, together, you can embark upon a journey into the magical world of fairy tales. Along the way, you will build a bond that no evil spell can break.
For classic fairy tales with an interactive twist, visit www.saturnanimation.com.
