Shopping for Memories

I recently asked a friend visiting England to bring me back a copy of fairy tales illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Since I was a child I have loved his haunting, spidery renditions of fairies and “Peter Pan” and “The Wind in the Willows.”

I looked forward to sharing the stories and pictures with my three-year-old daughter who takes books to bed the way other kids take teddybears. But when I looked at the grotesqueries that met my eyes--the horrifying two-head Welsh giant, for example-- I slipped the book high up on the shelf of volumes I’ve set aside for her future enjoyment. It would be years--but how long?--before I’d feel comfortable sharing these exquisite but disturbing visions with her.

Just when are children ready for fairy tales?

Not until the ages of 7, 8 or 9, warns Darlene Daniel, owner of PAGES: Books for Children and Young Adults in Tarzana, and President of the Southern California Booksellers Association. She agrees that Fairy tales-- with their elements of magic, giants, dragons, witches and vulnerable human heroes--are often too complex and frightening for toddlers.

Disney has had an impact on how parent and children think about fairy tales. The traditional Hans Christian Andersen version of “The Little Mermaid,” for example, doesn’t end on the high note that the Disney film does. Since many of these stories have been modified, parents have come to believe fairy tales are appropriate for 2- and 3-year-olds. So PAGES offers retellings of classic tales, often skeletal cardboard page versions for the young set. But Daniels encourages the staff at PAGES to pass along some recommendations to parents first introducing books to very young children:

The best books to start with for 2 and 3 year olds, along with Mother Goose, are classic nursery tales such as “Chicken Little,” “Goldilocks and The Three Bears,” “The Three Little Pigs” and “The Gingerbread Man.” There are more contemporary versions of nursery tales as well, such as the popular Jessie Bear stories, “Tommy de Paola’s Nursery Tales” and “Tommy de Paola’s Mother Goose,” and Margarite Wise Brown’s “The Runaway Bunny” and “Goodnight Moon.” Nursery tales, like fairy tales, often have magical goings-on, but with animal characters who talk like human beings and often stand in for small children. Tots between 2 and 4 “cannot really distinguish between the real and unreal,” Daniel says. “Animal stories are less frightening to them than stories about other children, who can be more closely identified with.”

Four to 6-year-olds will enjoy folk tales such as “Paul Bunyan” or the Ukranian tale of “The Mitten.” Beatrix Potter’s “Peter Rabbit” and other loved animal tales contain vocabulary that is well suited to the 4-to-7 set.

Daniel points out that many fine versions of traditional and not-so-traditional fairy tales are available. Some current editions she recommends include “The Child’s Storybook” and “The Child’s Fairytale Book” retold by Kay Chorao and illustrator Trina Scharth Human’s versions of “Snow White” and “Little Red Riding Hood.” (“Little Red Riding Hood” received the Caldecott Honors Silver Medal, but the Culver City School District rejected the book because there was a wine bottle on grandma’s table!) Jan Brett’s version of “Beauty and the Beast” offers children an alternative vision of the classic tale so firmly embedded in children’s imaginations by Disney. Cooper Eden has edited “Favorite Fairy Tales,” which features the work of classic children’s illustrators, going back to the 19th Century.

Children also love retellings of the Grim and Perrault favorites. There is a Chinese version of “Cinderella” available called “Yeh Shen,” and an American Southern version, “The Moss Gown.” “Lan Po Po” is a Chinese rendition of “Little Red Riding Hood.” And “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs” presents the wolf’s case (he was framed!).

Daniel recognizes that when when parents walk into a bookstore, what they are really after is a memory of their own. They want to hand down to their children the primal experience of the magical stories that touched them the most when they were small.