Sunday, February 28, 2010

Fairy Tales

As a child, especially as the first child in my family and for both sets of grandparents, I was read to very frequently and the recipient of dozens of books. The majority of those books and readings were from fairy tales or folk tales. I grew up in the golden age of Disney Princess mania, with a new character to love and admire every year. The influences of Ariel, Belle, and Cinderella were evident in the Halloween costumes, merchandise, and repetitive viewings of their films. One of my earliest memories is listening to my grandmother read a version of Cinderella to me before bedtime. In fact, every night before bed when one of my parents would ask what I wanted to read, 9 times out of 10 I would choose a fairy tale of some sort.
I am sure that I am not alone in this phenomena as I have heard many other girls say the same thing about their childhoods. I think that fairy tales have become such a large part of our culture, especially for young girls; it is almost expected and assumed that every little girl would want to grow up to be a princess. I think this is in part because the of the tradition of passing these stories down from one generation to the next. I am sure if I ever have a daughter I will enjoy reading Cinderella to her as my grandmother did to me. I think that fairy tales are also somewhat important in today's fast-paced society in that they expose children to elements of the fantastic and encourage them to believe in things of that nature; in some small way, fairy tales help to preserve an element of childhood for a little while.

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