The Grim Brothers Grimm

I've just had a baby. By just, I mean four and a half months ago, preceded by nine months of pregnancy. Prior to that I was a primary school teacher, six months of Year Six, four years of Kindergarten (I love the word "Kindergarten"- child garden - beautiful). So I have a fair bit of experience with children's books. (By the way, I would like to state that I am going back to work, the past tense was perhaps inaccurate.) 

So, I've been thinking a bit about what I read to my baby girl and have been stockpiling books for her to read when she's a bit older (another two months should do it- just kidding). I don't want to just force my favourite kid's books down her throat (my favourite picture book was "The Lorax" by Dr Seuss and my favourite chapter book was "Matilda" by Roald Dahl. In fact, that's my daughter's name- Matilda, not Roald), I want to expose her to all sorts of different types of books. To that end, she has fiction books, non-fiction books, picture books, bedtime books, story books, chapter books- all sorts of books- on the shelves in her room. She loves the book "Madeline" (so do I) and this generic book called "Big Blue Train" with lots of big bright colours. 

I've also been thinking about fairy tales. I'm not one to ban fairy tales because they're misogynistic or sexist or even just lame. When I was a girl, though, I did think fairy tales were a bit lame. I never understood why Rapunzel didn't just climb down her own hair, or Cinderella didn't just leave the wicked stepmother and find the prince for herself. BUT. I do know of a lot of parents who won't read fairy tales to their children because they think they are too violent and disturbing, and I have to say, I know where they're coming from. Let's have a think on Hansel and Gretel. Here we have two children, who are too costly for their parents to keep, so the wicked stepmother forces their lily livered father to ABANDON them in the woods. When the resourceful children use pebbles to find their way home, the stepmother forces the father to abandon them AGAIN, but this time they only have breadcrumbs, which are eaten by the birds, so they get lost. They find a gingerbread house in the woods, and eat it, but it is owned by a WITCH who has the house to ENTICE children so she can EAT them! She captures them and puts old Hansel in a CAGE to FATTEN him up, so that she can EAT him. Gretel is in some sort of slave type non-contractual agreement. Long story short (not really), the witch heats up the oven to COOK Hansel, but he pushes her in and she BURNS TO DEATH. The kids go home, the stepmother is dead so they all live H.E.A. The end. 

Right on. 

As an aside, I always thought that it was a little bit coincidental that the stepmother happened to also be dead when they got home. What I'm hinting at here, is that I always suspected the witch and stepmother were one and the same. Bitches. 

And another thing, if I was Gretel (or Hansel for that matter), when I got home I'd say "look Dad, I'm glad SM is dead and thanks for the invite home and that, but you did ABANDON ME IN THE WOODS TWICE. Remember that? Now GET BENT." And then I would go to DOCS. Talk about henpecked. 

So that's H&G. Then there's Snow White -stepdaughter better looking than stepmother, stepmother again abandons child to scary fate in scary forest, sends woodsman out to KILL her and cut out her HEART as proof of her DEATH but nice woodsman doesn't buy it, seven little people, sweeping , cleaning, happiness prevails, until evil SM talks to stupid mirror again and find out she's still alive so POISONS her with apple, and you know how it ends. Bloody horrific. 

Cinderella, another evil SM. More servitude, bitchy stepsisters, you know the score. 

In the interest of this post, I looked into more Grimm stories. It may interest my non existent reader to know that there are worse tales out there.

Take the happy little story of "The Jew Among Thorns". Let me summate: Servant is granted 3 wishes by dwarf: A gun that will shoot anything servant aims at, A fiddle that will make anyone dance who listens, and the ability to make anyone do anything the servant asks for. Servant walks down road, meet Jew who is listening to beautiful bird song, Jew says "what a beautiful bird, I wish that it were mine". Servant shoots bird, it falls into thorns below, Jew cries out and goes into to get dead bird. Servant's "humour" is tickled, once Jew is in thorns, he starts to play his fiddle. Jew must dance amongst thorns. Jew is scratched to buggery, servant cries "you have fleeced people often enough, now the thorns will do the same to you!" (???) Jew, in terrible pain, says "if only you stop your fiddling, I will give you all the gold I have", servant does, Jew gives servant money, servant pisses off, Jew runs off to the magistrate. Jew says servant stole money, servant calls him a dirty liar, magistrate believes Jew, servant sentenced to be hanged. His last wish is to play his fiddle one last time (damn), which he does, all can't stop dancing, magistrate says "if you stop fiddling, I'll spare your life", which he does. Servant struts up to Jew and says "now tell the truth and tell them where you got the money or I'll start playing again" and the Jew says "I STOLE IT, BUT YOU HONESTLY EARNED IT". (Capitals author's own). Jew is hanged as thief. 

Uh, what? Uh, WHAT? The involvement of the Jew in this story is only thus: Jew admires lovely bird, bird gets shot, Jew gets thorns up clack, robbed and hung for his trouble. I'm sure you can predict what I will have to say about this. Let's just say, I think I know why Walt Disney never turned this fairy tale into a cartoon. On second thoughts, from what I've read about him, maybe he should have. 

Ha ha ha.