Tuesday 17 April 2012

O is for Once Upon a Time...

Way back on F day, Gwen at Fulfilling Dreams wrote a post on writing fanfiction. I found this really interesting because my son had just that week started writing a Batman story. (I think I'm the happiest mother ever - how cool my son wants to do something I do!)
The Goodreads entry

It made me think of my first stories, and I guess - in a way - I wrote fanfiction too. The very first thing I remember writing was a story about Snow White and Rose Red... see fanfiction! (See... once upon a time... tenuous but it's there!)


Fairytales were the first stories I remember as a child. And I enjoyed them because they were great stories, not because of the merchandise that came with them. I loved listening to the rhythm and flow of the words, I loved the horror and fear and hiding under my duvet when the witch appeared. Nice, gory, but safe stories.

I loved the words happily ever after - although as I've never read the Grimm's originals, I don't know if those words even appear in them

These days, I'm led to understand, the wolves run away and survive, the witches and evil step-mothers are reformed - everything has been watered down and sanitised. It doesn't seem right, somehow!

And now it's your turn: what was your favourite childhood story - fairytale or otherwise?



42 comments:

  1. When I was a kid, I loved Goodnight Moon, Paddywack and Cozy, and Where the Wild Things Are. I wasn't really read fairy tales, but I watched Disney movies like crazy and The Little Mermaid was my favorite.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love reading Where the Wild Things Are to my son. He's still loves his bedtime story!

      Delete
  2. I loved Snow White as a child. I don't remember exactly what I wrote, but I remember write about everything.

    It is so very cool that your son likes to write! My daugher just finished her first novel. So I can relate to how proud you are...it's a great feeling. :)

    Michelle :)
    www.michelle-pickett.com/blog

    A to Z Challenger :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He's already told his English teacher, so it must be serious :-)

      Delete
  3. My favourite books as a kid were The Faraway Tree books by Enid Blyton. So much imagination and brilliance in them!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't remember those. I think I had a collection of stories, a vague memory.

      Delete
  4. My favorite stories were by Hans Christian Andersen. He wrote Thumbelina, The Ugly Duckling and The Steadfast Tin Soldier. By my favourite story by him was The Snow Queen. I fell in love with the children in this one; Greta and Kay:0
    Great feeling:) Great post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We've just bought our new niece the complete Hans Christian Andersen collection. I'm sure I'll be reading them to her in another year or two.

      Delete
  5. Grimm's stories ended rather grimly. Rapunzel, for example, was sent to live on a deserted island were crows picked out her eyes. But she had lots of babies.

    Anyway, for me it was Dr. Seuss. He expanded my imagination to new boundaries and taught me great ideals. The man was a genius!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I missed out on Dr Seuss too. My parents weren't big book buyers - it's still a mystery how I figured out people wrote books as a job!

      Delete
  6. I found a short story on my son's (the 16 yr old) laptop and was like holy cow, the kid's better than me! And my 6th grader comes up with better plot lines than I do!
    It does make a mom proud!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a double-edged sword though - I'm already imagining how I'd cope if he was more successful than me :-)

      Delete
  7. I was scared by Grimms Tales, petrified by Alice's shrinking medicine. I still have a copy of The Cradle Ship, though, which I believe my mother gave me in an attempt to explain the birds and the bees!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Cheshire Cat freaked me out. I had a book with a very peculiar picture of him!

      Delete
  8. My best of all was Cindarella, then Little Red Riding Hood, and Snow White. And there was a book called "Noddy." This one I think is from England, and then there was The Boy who cried wolf, and Toot the train, or something like that, and Rupert the bear. These were my little brothers books. I used to have to read them to him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah yes, Noddy - an Enid Blyton creation. I had quite a few Rupert annuals too.

      Delete
  9. Fun post! My favorite story from childhood was 'George and Martha', a story about a husband & wife hippo.
    I was curious about the 'happily ever after' in Grimm's. I have a 1963 version of the collection so I looked at the endings of all the stories (yeah, I'm not getting any writing done today). Twelve of the stories have some version of it, whether 'they lived happily till they died' (Briar Rose), 'they lived together as happily as possible' (Hansel and Gretel), or 'they lived long and happily together' (Rapunzel). Funny, I didn't find the actual words 'happily ever after' in any of the stories.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, that's really interesting - I think I'm most taken with 'as happily as possible' :-) Thanks for looking them up for me - I've put Grimm's on my TBR list, for that very reason... well, also because of Grimm's on TV at the moment!

      Delete
  10. Fairy tales are some of my earliest literary memories. Once Upon A Time will forever act as a gateway into another world.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That line really does prepare you fully for what's to come, doesn't it?

      Delete
  11. I'm not one who enjoys books that end with "and they lived happily ever after." I actually hate predictable endings whether in books or movies. When I wrote my book, my editor vehemently objected to the ending as it deviated from what she believed readers expect. Feather Stone, author of The Guardian's Wildchild
    Feather

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You must have enjoyed happy endings when you were three or four though? :-)

      Delete
  12. Can't think of a favorite story from when I was a kid. Favorite book was The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I recongise that title but can't remember anything else. I swear my childhood was a lot longer ago than it ought to be!

      Delete
  13. I liked Shrek because it turns a lot of traditional fairytales on their heads!

    ReplyDelete
  14. I hated the horror and fear of the Grimm Fairy Tales. My favourite stories as a child were Enid Blyton, especially the Caravan Family. It was all very tame as i remember but I was a 'sensitive' child. I've since read the theory and realise that I should have been able to cope with those stories to help enable me to cope with grown up life... Well that explains a lot!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, so far no wolves have dressed up as family members in order to eat me, so I'm not how much they prepared me for grown-up life :-)

      Delete
  15. I loved Disney's Sleeping Beauty and Splash with Tom Hanks, if that counts! ;-)


    Eat Live Move: Intuitive Eating from A to Z!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I loved Splash. I'd hate to watch it now, though - it bet it's one of those films that's dated a lot.

      Delete
  16. I remember my dad reading nursery rhymes to me when I was 2 or 3. And we used to listen to Peter and the Wolf on our record player.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I used to drive my mum barmy singing nursery rhymes at the top of my voice!

      Delete
  17. Hansel and Gretal was my favorite story when I was a kid. There is a Cajun version of Cinderella that I liked to have read to me when I was a kid, also.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think I had a little Ladybird book of Hansel and Gretel. I'm glad I chose this topic - it's reminding me of so much I'd forgotten :-)

      Delete
  18. There are so many from my childhood. I think Cinderella was my favorite. Although, I was a total Tom Boy, so I'm surprised. I'm a new follower. Thanks so much for stopping by my blog.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cinderella is the first panto I remember going to. Yes, a strange choice for a tom boy, it's probably the tamest of them all - no witches getting boiled, for example!

      Delete
  19. I'm still in the midst of reading the Grimm tales for the first time...but 'cause I foolishly decided I wanted to review each story as I got done with it, I stalled 'cause it would have meant going back to the start & re-reading/reviewing. So yeah, I'm still stalled!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hadn't realised how many there were! I hope you get round to finishing them one day :-)

      Delete
  20. My favorite stories were the "Max und Moritz" stories by Wilhelm Busch. They caused all sorts of mayhem and got away with it, until their last trick. I still have the book, printed in both German and English.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I haven't heard of them. It's great you still have the book. I'm hoping my favourite childhood books are lurking in my mum's house.

      Delete
  21. Hah, Betty McDonald's Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books...we'd run to the shelf in the school library to be able to check the book out! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love books that make children react like that to them!

      Delete

Please comment - I love a good chat!

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.