Books like fairy tales and certain movies for children

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???

Platinum Member Joined: Jan 01 2006 Posts: 48145

easch generation is different. are you raising your kids diffrently than you were raised? it might not be a good idea.

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.
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Active Poster Joined: Apr 13 2007 Posts: 82

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

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.

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??

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.

Here's one place. I'll try and find you more.

http://www.breslov.org/kids/stories/index.html

and another.

http://www.hasidicstories.com/stories1.html#bratslav

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.
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Platinum Member Joined: Sep 20 2004 Posts: 17151

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

Little Red Riding Hood -

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.

Platinum Member Joined: Mar 07 2007 Posts: 10429

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.

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.
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Someone once noted that all these stories were written by Germans Evil or Very Mad

(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 goyishe 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.

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 22 2004 Posts: 9754

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.
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Platinum Member Joined: Mar 07 2007 Posts: 10429

Platinum Member Joined: Mar 07 2007 Posts: 10429

And your point is?