Fairy tales have held a firm place in the hearts and imaginations of children for centuries. But traditional stories such as your classic Snow White and Sleeping Beauty are frozen in time, so how relevant are these to children in the present day"
Walk past a school playground at the moment and there?s a good chance that the sound of singing will be wafted to your ears, and an even greater chance that the song in question being belted out by an impromptu chorus line of six, seven or eight year olds (mainly girls, it has to be said) will be Let It Go, the hit single from Frozen, How Far I’ll Go from Moana or the most popular track from one of Disney’s latest blockbusters, We Don’t Talk About Bruno from Encanto.
What makes a fairy tale" Telling the story of a princess who in a fit of pique turns her whole world to ice (and we?ve all had moments like that) it has all the ingredients of the archetypal fairy tale; a bad situation rescued courtesy of a heroine who, through luck and pluck, gives us the happy ending we crave. While Disney knows a thing or two about crafting a deliciously mind-grabbing story, many of the tales chosen by the studio aren?t exactly new-build. Some of the best loved are, as they say in Beauty and the Beast, ?as old as time?.
Little Red Riding Hood. Credit: Pixabay
Like the magical characters they portray, fairy tales have a power that transcends time and place. India has its very own version of Cinderella, as does China and Me...