Yesterday and Today in the World of Children's Books Part 2

1. Yesterday and Today in the
World of Children’s Books
Part 2
LIT 012
Jovy D. Elimanao-Mihm, MAEd (English)

2. By the end of the session,
expect to
• Discover how popular fairy tales have
changed through the many adaptations
• Work with a partner and pick one children’s
story
• One of you should discuss the short
background of the story you picked while the
other will have to do the storytelling

3. Significant European
Contributors
The 19th Century as the
Golden Age of children’s
literature in Europe

4. What do Rapunzel, Hansel
& Gretel, and Cinderella
have in common?

7. Charles Perrault
• French author who
laid the foundations
for a new literary
genre, the fairy tale
• his works were
derived from pre-
existing folk tales
• He started writing
at the age of 67

8. Charles Perrault
• He published a
collection of folklore
stories in 1697
under the title
"Tales of Mother
Goose".
• The collection
included eight fairy
tales

9. Charles Perrault
• Le Petit Chaperon Rouge
• Little Red Riding Hood

10. Charles Perrault
• La Belle au bois dormant
• Sleeping Beauty

11. Charles Perrault
• Cendrillon
• Cinderella

12. Charles Perrault
• Perrault actually wrote the stories 200
years before the Brothers Grimm who are
widely credited for them
• Moral tales that prompt reflection on the
dilemmas presented to the protagonist
• Perrault's original tales have lost much of
their grisly detail today

13. Charles Perrault
• Little Red Riding Hood - the 'wolf' is a man who
intends on preying on young girls who wander alone
in woods
• "From this story one learns that children, especially
young lasses, pretty, courteous and well-bred, do
very wrong to listen to strangers, And it is not an
unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with
his dinner“
• "I say Wolf, for all wolves are not of the same sort;
there is one kind with an amenable disposition –
neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame,
obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the
streets, even into their homes. Alas! Who does not
know that these gentle wolves are of all such
creatures the most dangerous!"

14. Charles Perrault
• Sleeping Beauty - In Giambattista Basile’s tale
(which is the actual origin of the Sleeping
Beauty story), a king happens to walk by
Sleeping Beauty’s castle and knock on the door.
When no one answers, he climbs up a ladder
through a window. He finds the princess, and
calls to her, but as she is unconscious, she does
not wake up. He carries her to the bed and
rapes her. Then he left.
• She awakens after she gives birth because one of
her twins sucks the flax (from the spindle) out
of her finger. The king comes back, and despite
him having raped her, they end up falling in
love.

15. Charles Perrault
• However, another big problem: the king is
still married to someone else. His wife finds
out and not only tries to have the twins
killed, cooked, and fed to the king, but also
tries to burn the princess. Luckily, she is
unsuccessful. The king and the princess get
married and live happily ever after (despite
the fact that he raped her).
• Perrault’s adaptation of Basile’s updated
adaptation of the story (a much tamer
version) is probably what was used for the
Disney adaptation, as they are much more
similar

16. The Grimm Brothers
• Wilhelm and Jakob
Grimm, German
authors have used the
Black Forest
(Schwartzwald) in
Germany as the
setting of their stories
• Unlike the early
writers, including
Perrault, they wrote
with peasant’s
language than for the
aristocratic

17. The Grimm Brothers
• They are widely accepted by the lower
classes due to their “unkempt” language
• Most of their stories where crafted using
the way German peasants told the tales
• Jakob, a linguistic professor at the
University of Berlin, devised a system for
transcribing dialects from interviews with
peasants

18. The Grimm Brothers
• The stories have existed long before they
were born in Germany in the mid 1780s
• The fairy tales were part of a rich oral
tradition − by women seeking to pass the
time during household chores
• Quest to save the local traditions and
stories from extinction because of
industrialization
• Nursery and Household Tales, or Grimm’s
Fairy Tales was published in 1812

19. The Grimm Brothers
• The stories were not intended for kids
• The stories routinely included sex, violence, incest, and copious
footnotes.
• Worse yet, they didn’t even have illustrations.
• Initially aimed at adults, the early editions of Nursery and
Household Tales contained remarkably dark elements.
• In its original version, for example, Rapunzel gets pregnant by
the prince after a casual fling.
• In Cinderella, the stepsisters cut off their toes and heels to try
to fit into the slipper.
• These sort of scenes (and many others) were eventually
revised once the stories became popular among children.

20. The Grimm Brothers
• Rapunzel gets knocked up by the prince before
they escape, and the evil sorceress figures it out.
The sorceress cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and
throws the wilderness. When the prince shows
up to see her out, the sorceress dangles
Rapunzel’s cut-off hair to lure him, and tells
him he will never see Rapunzel again. He jumps
out the window in despair and is blinded from
the thorns below. He wanders around aimlessly
(he is blind). Rapunzel gives birth to twins. He is
eventually guided back to her when he hears
her voice. Her tears restore his sight. They
return to the prince’s kingdom and live happily
ever after.

21. The Grimm Brothers
• Cinderella - One of Cinderella’s evil stepsisters cuts off
her toes, and the other her heel so they can both fit
into the tiny glass slipper. The prince is notified by
little doves that there is blood on the shoe. Once the
stepsisters realized that they should try to win favor
with Cinderella (after all, she will be queen), they
attend her wedding, only to have their eyes pecked out
by birds.
• SOME OTHER SIDENOTES ON THIS STORY: Cinderella
doesn’t have a fairy godmother. Rather, she plants a
tree by her mother’s grave and prays under it every
day. She finds her dresses to wear to each ball under
the tree (there are three in the story). She is helped by
animals, specifically birds, not mice. Also, she doesn’t
just lose her shoe because she is in a rush. The clever
prince covers the steps in pitch to make her stick to
them, but she only loses a shoe in the process.

22. Hans Christian Andersen
• The Great Danish
storyteller
• Most of his stories
includes the
character’s natural
charm and
bittersweet magic
• writing innovative
and influential fairy
tales

23. Hans Christian Andersen
• The Ugly Duckling

24. Hans Christian Andersen
• The Emperor’s New Clothes

25. Hans Christian Andersen
• The Little Mermaid

26. Hans Christian Andersen
• His stories told of great loves and hopes
that are unrealized but justifiably rewarded
in another life
• Tales leaves an ache in the heart that
pushes the readers to think of “what might
have been”
• His work also has traces of being erotic
• Fell in love many times, but never married
• directed his unrequited affections at both
men and women

27. Hans Christian Andersen
• The Ugly Duckling, a metaphor for the
awkwardness of childhood and the
blossoming of adulthood tells about
Andersen who was tall and ungainly. He
experienced how cruel children can be.
• Andersen's sexual uncertainty reflects his
difficult childhood.
• His diary revealed that he would often
wank after visiting people he described as
“sweet”.

28. Hans Christian Andersen
• The Little Mermaid - She saw the prince from afar
in his ship, and rescued him. He doesn’t see her. She
visited the sea witch who takes her tongue in
exchange for legs. The mermaid can only remain a
human if she finds true love’s kiss and the prince
falls in love with and marries her. She will DIE if she
fails. But, every single step she takes will feel like she
is walking on sharp shards of glass. The prince ends
up marrying another woman he THINKS is the
person who saved him. She is told that if she KILLS
the prince, then she can simply turn back into a
mermaid. She just can’t do it. She throws herself
into the sea, and turns into sea foam. She then
becomes a ‘daughter of the air,’ entering a kind of
purgatory where she has to do good deeds until she
MAYBE earns a soul, which will take about 300
years to happen.

29. What happened to
happy endings?