"If you want your children yo be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."
- Albert Einstein
We all go through phases. Like when I was three I wore pink stretchy pants and only pink stretchy pant. I then upgraded to hammer pants... no I was not a child of the 80s but my sisters were. I now wear jeans. I also had the yogurt phase. I LOVED yogurt... then the 'I can't stand to even LOOK at yogurt,' and now I only will eat vanilla yogurt... true story. Well, I have finally embraced my new phase... retold fairy tales.
When I was younger I was completely against any type of fantasy. My reading phases are kinda obsessive, where I will only read one type of book. I think I read every fiction book about World War II, the American Revolution, westward expansion, and then the Civil War, in that order. And while I was in those particular phases it was like swimming up stream to get me to read something else. Then Harry Potter happened. I hated HP and refused to read it, because everyone else was. I'm kinda a nonconformist in that sense, but it served me well in the Twilight saga area. My roommates literally dragged me kicking and screaming to the second movie. By that time I had come to love HP, and had finally understood how evil Voldemort really was. He turned Cedric Diggory into Edward Cullen... *shudder* But I'm getting ahead of myself... I discovered Harry Potter. Which I have fully embraced.
Yeah... It's not the best pic, but you get the idea
This opened the fantasy door for me... just a crack. I was still being stubborn, like usual. I then took a Children's lit class at BYU, which was one of my favorite classes of all time. And guess what? My teacher was in love with fantasy. We were required to read two fantasies. It was the genre I dreaded the most. Until (yes there is a point to this story), I picked up a retold fairy tale. I fell in love... secretly. I admit I was ashamed that I had turned my back on the possible and had wandered into the impossible. I had fallen for prince charming, over and over again. I reveled in the rambling adventures and wanted to do my part to bring down the evil antagonist. And I felt giddy over the happily ever after. It took me all the way to the end of this summer to be an out in the open fantasy lover. Like I said, I'm stubborn.
When I finally admitted it to my mom, because the fist step in overcoming something is to confess it, she told me her Grandmother use to read her fairy tales to help her fall asleep. I guess Grandma Caroline was a great storyteller and could spin the most magical yarn. Without even thinking my mom could rattle off her favorite tale of Rose Red and Snow White. I guess it runs in my blood. Why fight genetics?
Some might think it silly, but I have learned that,
"Fairy tales are more than true; not because they they tell us that dragons exists, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."
-G.K. Chesterton
I'm a believer of happily ever afters.
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