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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?
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.
ReplyDeleteI love reading Where the Wild Things Are to my son. He's still loves his bedtime story!
DeleteI loved Snow White as a child. I don't remember exactly what I wrote, but I remember write about everything.
ReplyDeleteIt 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 :)
He's already told his English teacher, so it must be serious :-)
DeleteMy favourite books as a kid were The Faraway Tree books by Enid Blyton. So much imagination and brilliance in them!
ReplyDeleteI don't remember those. I think I had a collection of stories, a vague memory.
DeleteMy 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
ReplyDeleteGreat feeling:) Great post.
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.
DeleteGrimm'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.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, for me it was Dr. Seuss. He expanded my imagination to new boundaries and taught me great ideals. The man was a genius!
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!
DeleteI 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!
ReplyDeleteIt does make a mom proud!
It's a double-edged sword though - I'm already imagining how I'd cope if he was more successful than me :-)
DeleteI 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!
ReplyDeleteThe Cheshire Cat freaked me out. I had a book with a very peculiar picture of him!
DeleteMy 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.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, Noddy - an Enid Blyton creation. I had quite a few Rupert annuals too.
DeleteFun post! My favorite story from childhood was 'George and Martha', a story about a husband & wife hippo.
ReplyDeleteI 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.
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!
DeleteFairy tales are some of my earliest literary memories. Once Upon A Time will forever act as a gateway into another world.
ReplyDeleteThat line really does prepare you fully for what's to come, doesn't it?
DeleteI'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
ReplyDeleteFeather
You must have enjoyed happy endings when you were three or four though? :-)
DeleteCan't think of a favorite story from when I was a kid. Favorite book was The Mouse and the Motorcycle.
ReplyDeleteI recongise that title but can't remember anything else. I swear my childhood was a lot longer ago than it ought to be!
DeleteI liked Shrek because it turns a lot of traditional fairytales on their heads!
ReplyDelete"Do you know the Muffin Man?" lol
DeleteI 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!
ReplyDeleteWell, 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 :-)
DeleteI loved Disney's Sleeping Beauty and Splash with Tom Hanks, if that counts! ;-)
ReplyDeleteEat Live Move: Intuitive Eating from A to Z!
I loved Splash. I'd hate to watch it now, though - it bet it's one of those films that's dated a lot.
DeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteI used to drive my mum barmy singing nursery rhymes at the top of my voice!
DeleteHansel 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.
ReplyDeleteI 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 :-)
DeleteThere 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.
ReplyDeleteCinderella 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!
DeleteI'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!
ReplyDeleteI hadn't realised how many there were! I hope you get round to finishing them one day :-)
DeleteMy 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.
ReplyDeleteI 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.
DeleteHah, 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! :)
ReplyDeleteI love books that make children react like that to them!
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