Request: Fairy tales

[mkcs]

I have always loved reading fairy tales. Lately, I've started reading them with my daughter. I'm finding it a bit difficult, because I'm not at all comfortable with many of the attitudes in them about social roles. I'm especially uncomfortable with the casual assumptions so many fairy tales make about women's lives being entirely centered around

Comments

[pleiadeslion]

I see what you're saying here.

Jeanette Winterson's children's book The King of Capri... I vaguely remember that having a surprising end of sots

Maybe one for when she's older, but I love the way Princess Mononoke isn't a love story.

[mkcs]

Thanks! I'll look into it.

[penguinsofalove]

Mulan's actually pretty good in my vague remembery.

[mkcs]

Is it a fairy-tale for reading, in any good version, though? I'm definitely thinking of getting a copy to balance out our male-heavy movie collection (Shaun the Sheep, Bob the Builder, Up, Ice Age, and Shrek).

[penguinsofalove]

I think there's a version in one of the feminist fairy tale collections I have. I'll look it out. And we have a copy of Mulan ;-)

[mkcs]

Thanks. Sadly, the book I was reading to Ada when the problem crystallised for me actually *was* 'The Practical Princess

[mkcs]

The Practical Princess is both a story and a collection of stories

[executrix]

http://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Girls-Women-Beloved-Sisters/dp/0393320464/ref=pd_cp_b_2

A contemporary equivalent is Jack Zipes, ed., "Don't Bet on the Prince."

[mkcs]

Thanks! I'll get a copy and see what's in it.

[rivet]

I always liked 'the goose girl' because she has her protection taken away and has to get resourceful but it's a little brutal at the end. The main boy is an irritation rather than a love interest, but intervention does come in the form of a father figure.