The first tale I discovered is titled The Twelve Dancing Princesses. A King is introduced with twelve beautiful princesses. Every morning, the princesses shoes suggest that they have been dancing all through the night. In an effort to find a solution to this mystery, the King declares that any man who can successfully solve this mystery and find where the princesses travel within the span of three nights will win a hand in marriage from one of the princesses. If three nights expire without a solution the man will forfeit his own life. Immediately, several men attempt the challenge and fail. Eventually, a man who is a soldier attempts the challenge after a conversation with a wise old woman. The old woman gives the man an invisibility cloak and warns the solider to stay away from the wine produced at the end of the night. After taking this advice, the soldier is able to track the princesses to a secret, underground castle with princes. The princesses dance the night away with these underground princes, and the solider collects artifacts that give evidence of his findings. After three nights of following the princesses, the solider explains the mystery to the King and is awarded the hand of one daughter in marriage. This tale contains some material that I believe is slightly inappropriate for young readers. I feel that a 4th or 5th grade reader would enjoy this take on Cinderella.
The Dog and the Sparrow is a very violent tale of a small sparrow. The beginning of the tale opens with a sparrow meeting a starving dog. The emaciated dog is in dire need of assistance. The dog asks for meat, bread, and rest. The sparrow returns these requests with meat from the butcher, bread from the baker, and finally the sparrow rests on a pole while the dog rests. While the dog is sleeping, a carter carrying wine on his carriage runs over and kills the dog. The tale then becomes a story of revenge as the sparrow empties the carter's wine casks, severely injures his horses, and destroys his house. After the sparrow destroys the carter's house, the wife of the carter entraps the small sparrow in between her arms. "Shall I kill it?", questions the wife. The carter decides that the sparrow deserves a firmer punishment and swallows the small bird. As the bird struggles to escape, the carter calls for his wife to strike the bird. The wife misses the bird and kills the carter. As a dog lover and sensitive pre-service teacher, I would not entertain the idea of having this book within the walls of my future classroom library. Under the careful supervision of an adult, I feel that this story may be fun for an appropriately aged child, but I do not believe that age is contained within elementary school.
The Wolf and the Man is the last tale I will share from this enormous text. A wolf and a fox, caught together in the woods, have a conversation about combatting man. The first individual they see is a discharged soldier. The fox informs the wolf that this was a man. The second individual to walk into the woods is a small boy. The fox tells the wolf that this is not yet a man. The last individual to appear is a grown man with a gun. The fox prods the wolf to attack the man. The man's gun is not loaded, and he fires gunpowder into the wolf's face. The man then unsheathes a knife and swings at the wolf. The wolf interprets these actions in a retelling to the fox as a stick with something that blew into his nose and a sharp rib produced from the hunter's body. "'Now, you see,' said the fox ' what a braggart you are. You throw your hatchet so far that you cant get it back again." I find this text to be slightly more accessible to a young reader. Discussions could cover the misinterpretations of the wolf's experience. Ultimately, however, I find this text to be inappropriate for an elementary classroom.
I find it interesting that, in the time these works were produced, literature of this nature was deemed completely appropriate for children. I admit that censorship of children's literature can be taken to extremes. Creating perfect balance of multicultural ideologies and sociopolitical outlooks is almost impossible when crafting a book. Should every book that a child is exposed to contain a happily married, white, middle class family with 2.5 kids and a dog? Absolutely not. This literature is unfortunately no longer applicable to the elementary landscape. I would expect school administrators to be very unhappy with such a collection. The literary value of this collection may serve as a wonderful foundation for language structure, 19th century vocabulary, and a representation of classic folk tales. In conclusion, I would love for interested readers of a mature audience to explore the dark and gripping fantasy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Elementary students and parents of elementary students - stay away!
I like that you give a little history about the author at the beginning of the blog. I like the first story, your description of it made me interested in reading it for myself. It is interesting to see all of the different takes and spins off of Cinderella that have been created. The Dog and the Sparrow story sounds gruesome as you explained and I agree that it would not be appropriate for young readers or a classroom environment. It is nice to see a variety of fairytales and the reality that some are not appropriate for children while the more traditional and famous ones are in our culture and current society.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be really fascinating to do a unit in a high school class comparing this collection with the tales we grew up knowing and loving, but I completely agree that I wouldn't want it anywhere near an elementary classroom. The Dog and the Sparrow story in particular sounds absolutely horrific. As far as censorship goes, I tend to think that censorship of children's literature should never occur, but I do think there's a difference between censoring children's literature and choosing not to include (or talk about) a book in a classroom or home.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Have you seen the National Geographic website on some of the original Brothers Grimm stories? It's pretty good: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/grimm/
I was excited to see your review of the fairy tale anthology by the Brothers Grimm and very interested in your choice of fairy tales. I appreciate the background information you provided on the authors' work to give insight to their collection. The first story sounds like a tale I would naturally gravitate to and could envision sharing in an elementary classroom. The two latter tales seem very dark and inappropriate for young readers. We can all agree that these tales would not end up in our classroom libraries! However, as an extension, I believe a solid analysis of this collection would be fascinating to compare the children's literature of the 19th century to modern children's literature with ever increasing rules on censorship in the classroom. This would make for great discussion and the evolution appropriate text for young readers.
ReplyDelete