Modern Princess Tales for Today's Kids
I think most of us can agree that while the stories in the
canon of fairy tales are classic, reading them to our kids today feels a little
outdated at times, especially when it comes to teaching the ideal that boys and
girls can both be powerful and brave.
Here is a list of fantastic fairy tales sure to jive well with modern
parents and kids.
Snow White and the 77 Dwarfs by Davide Cali and Raphaelle Barbanegre
Snow White escapes the evil queen and is taken in by
the kindly dwarves living deep within the forest. In exchange for a safe place to hide, the
dwarves ask Snow White to help with the household chores. Taking care of 77 people every day is no easy
task, and soon our princess is fed up with the cooking and cleaning and reading
77 individual bedtime stories. This new
take on the well-known tale provides humor that both parent and child will
appreciate. Parents will laugh at (and
probably relate to) the exhausted and frazzled Snow White as she cleans 77
dinner plates and packs 77 lunch boxes.
Kids will chuckle at little details like the page that lists all 77
dwarves names including Curly, Knut, Elvis, and Acapulco.
The Real Princess, A Mathemagical Tale by Juliet Stevenson, Brenda Williams, and Sophie Fatus
This playfully illustrated book features the familiar
story of the Princess and the Pea but with some really fun and engaging
interactive elements. It is called a
“mathemagical” tale because the reader will find counting and math practice on
each page. For example, the first page
lists everyone who lives at the castle, “1 butler, 2 footmen, 3 maids, 4 horses
. . .” We had fun finding each in the
illustrations and counting them for ourselves.
Something else that I really liked about this version of the Princess
and the Pea is that each prince finds a girl, the queen puts the pea under the
mattress, the girl sleeps, and the in the morning the queen asks how she slept,
everything that we are familiar with in this story. In this version, though,
each girl sleeps well and proves to not be a “real” princess, but does that
deter the princes from loving them?
Nope. Each prince loves his
partner for who they are, princess or no, and that is a nice and definitely
modern touch.
Interstellar Cinderella by Deborah Underwood and Meg Hunt
Just when you thought the story of Cinderella could
not be remade again in a way that provides something fun and fresh, you find
Interstellar Cinderella. I was skeptical
at first. Really? I thought, standing in the bookstore with a copy in my
hand. Another Cinderella? But the
illustrations that mix girly pinks and purples with funky planetary stars and
robots were cute enough to convince me to buy it and take it home. I’m so glad that I did! It follows the Cinderella story we all know of
a girl with her wicked step-family keeping her from the ball, and the fairy
godmother granting her a way to get there.
But that is where Underwood and Hunt leave the classic tale and add some
originality. This Cinderella doesn’t
want to marry the prince. She wants him
to hire her to build his rocket ships.
She studies up on engineering and becomes the best space ship
repairwoman in the galaxy.
The Princess and the Pea, retold by Xanthe Gresham with pictures by Miss Clara
While
this book does stick pretty closely with the original tale that we have all
read before, what sets this version apart are the absolutely amazing
illustrations that fill each page. The
pictures have a layered, mix-media look that are mesmerizing and lush. Something I love about a lot of the books
available through Barefoot Books is that they come with a read-aloud c.d.
recording of the story. Having that c.d.
enriched the experience and gave us several different ways to read and interact
with what we were reading.
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