I am a bad, bad censoring mommy...
I Was flipping through one of my daughter's fairytale collections last night, seeing what was short enough to be read before bedtime and what wasn't, when I came across Hans Christian Andersen's The Red Shoes. I skimmed through it to see if it was the way I remembered it, and 30 seconds later the scissors came out. Because gaaaah. Way to teach little girls that wanting things is bad, getting them on your own is worse, and disagreeing with your elders will get you tortured and killed. ('Cuda knows that disagreeing with this particular elder will bring the Wrath of Mommy on her head, and that is quite sufficient.) I know Andersen had Issues, and I can handle the ones on display in The Little Mermaid and The Steadfast Tin Soldier, but I am not repentant about hacking The Red Shoes out of the book.
She's a good kid and is smart enough to handle most things that come her way, but that story in a book full of things she thinks are supposed to make her happy...just NO.
(Meanwhile, if I had time and mental energy, I could draw some fascinating contrasts between The Red Shoes and Lois Bujold's Sharing Knife: Beguilement, because Lord knows Fawn wants. And fails, and gets right back on her feet and applies all that formidable willpower to making things happen right...)
She's a good kid and is smart enough to handle most things that come her way, but that story in a book full of things she thinks are supposed to make her happy...just NO.
(Meanwhile, if I had time and mental energy, I could draw some fascinating contrasts between The Red Shoes and Lois Bujold's Sharing Knife: Beguilement, because Lord knows Fawn wants. And fails, and gets right back on her feet and applies all that formidable willpower to making things happen right...)