books like fairy tales and certain movies for children

miriamnechama ↓

Mon, Jun 04 2007, 11:47 am

I have some old fairytale books that I had as a girl and I'm beginning to wonder if it's ok to read them t my boys, ie cinderrella etc, this whole motto of happilly ever after.... I do have other non jewish books that I do thinka re ma\ybe ok maybe not... eg thomas the tank engine... what about monies such as thomas the tank engine, psotman pat etc... I grew up on these what do you thin now is the case???

Mama Shifra

Mon, Jun 04 2007, 1:21 pm

I have been thinking about this a lot. Evidently, R' Samson Raphael Hirsh was against reading children fairy tales. However, in American culture, a child who is unfamiliar with the common fairy tales and nursery rhymes is a bit left out. For instance, most early readers that children read in school have the fairy tales in them. R' Yaakov Kaminestsky felt that there was no problem in a child learning nursery rhymes, as they were a method of teaching a child grammar. But fairy tales are a bit more problematic.

Shifra

↑ miriamnechama ↓

Mon, Jun 04 2007, 1:31 pm

HindaRochel wrote:

It is a case by case thing. I love fairy tales. Rb. Nachum also wrote fairy tales and I despeartely want that book for myself, as well as my girls.

your referring to rebbe nachman's stories ie sipurei masiyos that's different but her eg you know you get teh story of eg the princess and the frog how teh frog wants to live with the princess, and when he is on teh bed changes to a prince, falls in love with the princess, saying how he was bewitched and a witch turned him into a frog and only a spell can be broken, how the he fell in love with her wants to marry her goes to his kingdom and they live happily ever after. right I grew up on these but now it makes me think why does a child need to know all this shtuss.... they are all on the same lines... a child also needs to know that happily ever after in not life!!! and why does a child need to know about witches, fairies, love etc??

↑ HindaRochel ↓

Mon, Jun 04 2007, 1:48 pm

I know....I didn't know what to call Rb Nachum's works. I can find the online but it isn't the same.

I love and collect fairytales. I'm just careful to explain how full of non-truth they are...that it is all make believe etc. etc. They are just stories.

BUt I do understand the feeling that they aren't quite kosher, and I did talk about it with my dh.

↑ miriamnechama

Mon, Jun 04 2007, 1:56 pm

rebbe nachman's is true cuz it has kaballa behind it. ie the lost princess, I tink in kaballa refers to hashem is hiding and waiting forus etc so I explain it from that point of view. I especially love the lost princess and dh tells it amzing. he said tere was a tape of it once...

what online are you referring to??

↑ HindaRochel ↓

Mon, Jun 04 2007, 2:08 pm

google Breslov, Nachman...If you can't find I'll try and find for you later, but I have to put my youngest to bed and my 13 year old wants the computer. She's homeschooling so doesn't have such a strict bedtime.

Ruchel

Mon, Jun 04 2007, 9:48 pm

some fairy tales are definitely not for kids. But kids one are not even a question for me. I LOVED them and I don't see anything wrong with them. Same for most kids movies and a good number of regular movies.

Motek ↓

Tue, May 06 2008, 12:11 pm

Hansel and Gretel - deliberately trying to lose the children, fattening them up, pushing stepmother into the oven

Little Red Riding Hood -

Quote:

The girl walks through the woods to deliver food to her sick grandmother. A wolf wants to eat the girl but is afraid to do so in public. He approaches the girl, and she naÃ¯vely tells him where she is going. He suggests the girl pick some flowers, which she does. In the meantime, he goes to the grandmother's house and gains entry by pretending to be the girl. He swallows the grandmother whole, and waits for the girl, disguised as the grandmother. When the girl arrives, he swallows her whole too. A hunter, however, comes to the rescue and cuts the wolf open. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerge unharmed. They fill the wolf's body with heavy stones, which kill him.

replace "wolf" with child predator Sad

Newsie

Tue, May 06 2008, 12:18 pm

A lot of the modern re-tellings do not have such violent endings. I have read a few very non violent non scary versions of Little red riding hood. I would not read the actual versions of any of these stories from The Brothers Grimm or anything like that.

louche ↓

Tue, May 06 2008, 1:05 pm

I ate fairy tales for breakfast. Upon rereading as an adult I'm horrified by the violence and dark themes and can't understand why the stories didn't freak me out the first time around. The best you can say for them is that virtue and goodness win out at the end.

We didn't do much in the way of fairy tales with our kids but went for newer books that I hadn't already read a million times in my own childhood. There's such a wealth of engaging children's books with pleasant themes that there's no need for the gruesome Grimms.

The brothers Grimm weren't setting out to compile stories for children, BTW, but were out to prserve the oral folklore that they saw was dying out in the Black Forest.

Motek, you may be on to something. The so-called fairy tales may have started out as cautionary tales to scare kids into not talking to strangers, wandering off into the woods alone, and so on.

For most people, visual images are more lasting and thus can be more damaging than just reading about things. As careful as you want to be about what they read, you want to be more careful about what they see, in pictures and especially in video.

ChossidMom ↓

Tue, May 06 2008, 1:46 pm

To tell you the truth, besides the Yiddishkeit issue, I would never read fairy tales to my children. I can't see how reading Snow White or Cinderella, Pinochio or Hansel and Gretel would do anything to enhance my children's education (or Neshama).

I read a very interesting article once in Hamodia by Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky about how even Harry Potter is wrong to read because of the whole magic issue which is completely contrary to Yiddishkeit.

shalhevet ↓

Tue, May 06 2008, 1:51 pm

Someone once noted that all these stories were written by Germans Exploding anger

(Grimm, Anderson) and they are totally not Jewish values - greed, jealousy, and pure evil.

My kids do not even know about them AFAIK and I would never, ever tell them these stories. Why on earth would we want to tell stories about these horrible middos and cruelty?

Some non jewish stories have positive middos, and should be examined on a case by case basis. I have a few Thomas the Tank Engine books from England, and I think they have nice, positive story lines about the pitfalls of gaiva etc.

cassandra ↓

Tue, May 06 2008, 1:53 pm

Many fairy tales have their roots in Tanach-- like Cinderella is very reminiscent of Shmuel's visit to Yishai's house where Dovid was not considered as he was the youngest and the smallest.

mummiedearest ↓

Tue, May 06 2008, 1:56 pm

shalhevet wrote:

Someone once noted that all these stories were written by Germans Exploding anger

(Grimm, Anderson) and they are totally not Jewish values - greed, jealousy, and pure evil.

the brothers grimm did not actually write the tales, they collected them. much like the frick collection is a collection of art, none of them painted by frick. there are also the child ballads, collected by francis j. child but not composed by him. these were folk tales, often from different countries.

↑ louche ↓

Tue, May 06 2008, 2:20 pm

shalhevet wrote:

they are totally not Jewish values - greed, jealousy, and pure evil.

.

There is no dearth of greed, jealousy, and pure evil in Tanach--nor adultery, incest, murder, general havoc and sometimes what we would consider plain vulgarity, either.

It’s the elevated tone and archaic language of Tanach, coupled with the fact that for many of us it’s not our native language, that makes it seem rarefied, but Nach especially is quite gritty in places.

I was once offended by a Biblical-period novel in which an invading army was instructed to annihilate a city and leave “none that p----s against a wall.” I objected to the crudity, till I was wandering in the byways of my Tanach and stumbled upon this passage in which David says to Avigayil (still married to Naval):

כִּי לוּלֵי מִהַרְתְּ, ותבאתי (וַתָּבֹאת) לִקְרָאתִי--כִּי אִם-נוֹתַר לְנָבָל עַד-אוֹר הַבֹּקֶר, מַשְׁתִּין בְּקִיר

I ask you, what kind of language is that in mixed company? And to a great lady and Neviah like Avigayil, yet!