children stories

[flower]

any one hear ever read the original versions of the classic children stories there great short stories some times not so short but the real versions all have great morbid twist that over year has been sugar coated by companys like disney and because of the general publics lack of understand of all things dark and beautiful. but try my fav is Snow White but many are truely great.

[Skade]

Use PUNCTUATION and PROPER GRAMMAR. One of the regulars would have told you that, but trying to decipher your post made me so annoyed that I just had to say it too.

Your topic is actually interesting though. The question is whether it's better that these stories are forgotten entirely or remembered in the way Disney presented them. I don't think many children would even know about The Little Mermaid if Disney didn't exist. Most definitely wouldn't know who Bambi or Pocahontas was, if Disney didn't exist.
How many parents read their young children Grimm's or Andersen's fairytales for a bed time story? And how many children would be interested in hearing them? I don't think it's too far-fetched to say that fairy tales are only kept alive in the minds of many children because of Disney.
At least Disney keeps the names and the titles alive, if nothing else, and make it easier for children to discover the original stories if they want to.

I object much more to a story like The Hunchback of Notre Dame being adapted and sugar-coated by Disney. It's a very brutal and lenghty novel written for adults, and turning it into a kid's story is just bizarre.
At least the misconception that fairy tales are children's stories has existed for a long time, and probably won't change.
I don't agree with you that it's due to the general public not understanding "all things dark and beautiful". It's due to Disney making cartoons out of stories that often aren't suitable for children, so of course they have to remove some of the darker elements. If they only stuck to things like Peter Pan there wouldn't be a problem.

If you really like fairy tales with a morbid twist and written for adults, you should check out Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, if you haven't already.

[flower]

Sorry for the puctuation and grammer I will work on that. Don't get me wrong I am not knocking Disney at least not completely. I do read my daughters the original stories and they love them. I do think the general public is mostly to blame. They seem to feel sencering the world is better then real parenting, but thats another subject completely. The topic of books like Hunchback Of Notre Dame being made into disney movies, I totally agree. And I will check out Angela Carter's The bloody Chamber.

[MollyMac]

Hey, for cool takes on the classic tales, Check out Grimm's Grimmest, and the Faery Tale series with Tanith Lee and Jane Yolen. Good stuff, low on the fluffy quotient.

[Shyantra]

I feel so lost. T_T I never read those when I was a kid. I grew up reading A Doll's House by Henrik Johan Ibsen. I loved it and read it many, many times.

[Mir]

Man, I disagree. Whereas its true that Disney keeps many of the fairy tales alive and fresh in the minds of the young ones, I still prefer Aesop's Fables and Grimm's fairty tales (books). I read those two, cover to cover about a million times when I was a kid and didn't have a VCR at the time. And I truly enjoyed them more than I did the actual adaptations by Disney.

[MollyMac]

Yeah, well, Aesop's musical numbers lacked the Elton John "oomph" of Disney.

I can admit- I love the animation.

I look at Disney Fairy tales the same way as I look at a McDonald's milkshake. As a milkshake, it sucks. As a beverage in its own category, It's OK.

[HumanePain]

I am of two minds in regards to Disney and the Hunchback of Notre Dame:

a) I saw the black and movie when I was 13, complete with the UNhappy ending where Esmeralda is hanged and Quasimodo crawls to her side to die next to her body. Even though I cried, I will never forget that version of the story. A story of true love and loyalty. For this reason, I do not like the Disney altering Victor Hugo's original story. An unhappy ending is the way life is sometimes, and it should be told as it was written. Disney also has a standing business objective to look for stories whose copyright has expired and then can be used to make profitable movies without having to pay royalties to anyone. (I believe after 100 years that the law states writings become public domain.)

b) But I do like lessons the Disney version teaches young children:

1) that a monster does not have to be ugly, and in fact can hide behind a religious facade.

2) That Ugly does not a monster make, but by actions and words can reveal a loving and beautiful person.

[Minyaliel]

I grew up on this stuff, especially the fairy tales of the Grimm brothers, being German and all. I've always loved the originals - I remember when seeing Disney's "Cinderella" for the first time I was sooo disappointed because it wasn't at all what I'd expected (I only knew the German version, "Aschenputtel", which is much more interesting, in my opinion).

[Skade]

Originally Posted by flower

I do think the general public is mostly to blame. They seem to feel sencering the world is better then real parenting, but thats another subject completely.

I didn't express myself very clearly in my first response to you - what I meant is that I don't think the public minds the darker aspects of fairy tales, I think it's more a case of many people feeling that fairy tales aren't applicable to our time, and thus they're a waste of time. So I'd agree that fairy tales are losing the public's interest as a genre, but I disagree that it's because of the darker elements. I don't get the impression that parents shelter their kids that much, but there is a tendency to not develop children intellectually, because their parents spend so little time talking to them, encouraging them to think and reading to them. Which I think is the main reason why Disney has taken the place of the original fairy tales - A lot of children just haven't got the kind of concentration that it takes to appreciate the stories. They've grown up with busy parents and the telly being on constantly, so who can expect them to sit down with a book of fables? I'm guessing that the reason your children can appreciate fairy tales is because of the way you brought them up.
I'm guessing that we're in different parts of world though, so that would explain it if we have different impressions of the way children are generally being raised.
I hope you'll like Angela Carter. And thanks for making an effort with your grammar, your post was much more pleasant on the eyes this time

Originally Posted by HumanePain

I am of two minds in regards to Disney and the Hunchback of Notre Dame:
b) But I do like lessons the Disney version teaches young children:
1) that a monster does not have to be ugly, and in fact can hide behind a religious facade.
2) That Ugly does not a monster make, but by actions and words can reveal a loving and beautiful person.

Although those are good lessons, I don't like that Disney always has to have a villain, even when there aren't any real villains in the stories that the films are based upon. In "The Hunchback" Disney demonised Frollo completely and made Phoebus a hero. In Hugo's story it was the imperfect emotions of every character that culminated in disaster (including Quasimodo's brutality and Esmeralda's naiveté and inability to see beyond external beauty)
Same goes for Disney's Beauty and the Beast - Gaston wasn't necessary. The morale that beauty can exist on the inside was obvious enough without him, and all his character did was make Belle an innocent victim. Instead of using Gaston as a dramatic effect, Belle's conflicting feelings for the Beast should have been drama enough.
I think Disney often underestimates how much children can understand.
In any event, I think one of the most valuable lessons children could be taught is that humans are fallible, not either good or evil.

Again, I don't like the changes that Disney makes, but I still think it's a lesser evil than the stories being forgotten about.

[flower]

Originally Posted by Skade

I don't get the impression that parents shelter their kids that much, but there is a tendency to not develop children intellectually, because their parents spend so little time talking to them, encouraging them to think and reading to them.

I am sorry I ment censoring(bad speller) the world instead of real parenting. I did not say sheltering. They are to completely different things.

And I will be starting the book as soon as it comes to my library. I had to do interlibrary lone mine did not have it.

[kindred spirit]

I to like classic childrens literature and do read it to my children. I will also check the suggest book out and any others that any one can think of. Please no junk good stories well writen, even if they are your own.