Fairy Tales Morbid?

Hundreds of parents in East Whittier and Hacienda La Puente school districts, following previous protests in Oregon and Washington, want school boards to purge the classrooms of a series of books that they believe are morbid and promote magic and devil worship.

Before they get too upset, they might want to revisit some of the tattered storybooks they used to read at grandma’s house.

Here’s one passage they would find in “Snow White”: “Take the child into the darkest part of the forest. I can no longer bear the sight of her. Kill her and bring me back her lung and liver so I will know that she is dead.”

Or from “Hansel and Gretel”: “The witch liked children best of all. Whenever she snared one, she cooked it and ate it and considered it a grand feast . . . . ‘They will be tasty morsels,’ she murmured, gazing at their rosy cheeks.”

Or how about “Rumpelstiltskin”: “ ‘The devil told you that!’ screamed the little man. In his rage he stamped his foot so hard on the ground that he sank in up to his waist. And then, as the queen watched in horror, he seized his other leg with both his hands and tore himself in two.”

The Brothers Grimm had their critics, too, in 1812. But as distinguished child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim has written, fairy tales and other children’s literature not only stimulate a love of reading but help give shape to children’s natural fears and help them deal with them. From ancient gods in supernatural folk tales, to wicked witches in fairy tales, to bloody ghosts in Shakespeare, the characters teach lessons about life’s struggle between good and evil and comedy and tragedy.

Some school officials say they want to replace the reading books, from a series called “Impressions,” because they are not the same books that they originally agreed to buy. That is reasonable cause to reject them. But let it not be on the basis of some erroneous notion that these children’s books are uncharacteristically dark or morbid.