Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty
Charles Perrault, retold by Mercer Mayer

Remember the fairy tales! Embedded in tales are the values of the cultures and people who told them. This is true for both the traditional (the folk tales handed down by oral tradition) and literary (the ones written but based upon folklore by such greats as Charles Perrault and Hans Christian Anderson). The one retold here is by an author well known for quality story-telling, but many variations abound in the libraries. It is easy for me to pick out traits such as human vanity, envy, courage, forgiveness, and hope that have occurred to me as I have read this tale as a child, mother, and teacher over the years; however, it is not necessary to overly define what can be reaped in the read aloud experience. The effects are as different as the readers, and they are as different one time as the next for the same reader. As a young girl I was entranced by the courageous love of the prince as he hacked through the overgrown bramble and I felt the wonderful satisfaction in the triumph of goodness over evil. Last week, I read the Disney version of this tale to my granddaughter and what struck me this time was the kindness of the helpers - Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. I'm not sure Perrault had those three in mind, but, hey, the tale took me there. My point is that when you read a fairy tale, don't worry about the lessons.Comments may happen, but they are not necessary either. I did not point anything out to my four-year old granddaughter. I just trust story.