As I posted recently, I love children’s books. I’m fortunate that my boys love to be read to and that they are open to a variety of books. Of course, being boys, they’ve always loved books about planes, trains, trucks and cars. (They also have an affinity for character books such as Thomas the Train, Dora, Diego, Clifford and Scooby Doo.)
Recently I decided that I wanted to read a fairy tale to them; Cinderella to be exact. It was my favorite growing up and I happen to still have the book – my book from when I was 8 years old. I know some people would wonder why would I want to read Cinderella to boys or introduce them to a ‘Disney’ book (my book is a Disney version from the 1970s). 
But just like I would not have a problem with a girl playing with Barbies (I loved playing with them!), I have no problem with reading a ‘Disney’ book like Cinderella – even to boys. Everyone should know the story of Cinderella; in fact everyone should be familiar with all fairy tales.
And as for the Disney part, well let’s not forget that many of these ‘so called Disney’ stories were originally written by the Grimm brothers in the early 1800s (though they were not published until later, maybe even after their death). They have been Disney-tized but ultimately they are folktales and fairy tales that have been passed on.
Regardless, I thought I would read Cinderella to the boys at least once. If they thought it was silly and didn’t like it we would not read it again. Well, it turned out that they loved it! Matthew has asked to read it over and over again. They are enthralled by the story, the pictures… the mean stepsisters and the cute little mice!
Shortly after I read the book to the boys, Thomas received his first assignment for a school ‘project’. Ironically it was a fairy tale project. I turned out that his class had just started ‘studying’ (he is in first grade after all) characteristics of fairy tales: things come in threes, a good person, bad person, something fairy, etc. I personally think this is really neat that they are doing this type of work at such an early age. Anyhow… for his project, he had to select a fairy tale, answer some questions and then create a ‘project’ to represent his fairy tale – something like a poster board, diorama, etc.
As you can guess, he picked Cinderella (I did tell him there are others, like Princess and the Frog which we had recently seen at the movies). He was able to answer the questions on his own and then created the diorama you see above. He did it all by himself (well, I helped find and print the pictures that he wanted)… he did draw the carriage himself though!
What are we going to read next? I have two more fairy tales waiting for me at the library, both are Caldecott Honors. I’ve read this particular Little Red Riding Hood to Thomas before and it is quite good, but I don’t know if he remembers it.
Rapunzel by Paul O. Zelinsky
Little Red Riding Hood by Trina Schart
Hope you are having a fairy tale of a day!
