When I was little, my parents gave me Clever Gretchen and Other Forgotten Folktales, a collection of traditional stories in which the girls are strong, independent, and clever. I highly recommend adding it to your children's library, but an artist's pretty works have made me realize that we could also just swap the genders in classic fairy tales once in awhile. Cinderfella, anyone?
The work of Yudi Chen was recently featured on Design Taxi, and her prints are available through Society 6. I especially like Mr. Rapunzel's impressive beard, but they're all fantastic.
Would you ever read your kids Beauty and The Beast or Little Red Riding Hood with the characters' genders switched? It would take some serious concentration, but might be an interesting experiment.
Perhaps it would be easier to read them books in which girls and boys are both brave, smart, and fascinating, heroes and heroines, one and all. Some of my favorites include the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman, The Mysterious Benedict Society series by Trenton Lee Stewart, Wildwood by Colin Meloy, and of course the Harry Potter series. Team Hermione!
(Image: Cinderfella by Yudi Chen via Design Taxi)
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Jane Yolen has two wonderful folk tale collections: Not One Damsel in Distress and Mightier Than the Sword. The first is a collection of stories about brave girls; the second, stories about clever boys who use their minds instead of their fists. The stories are exciting and engaging (and often, as folk tales are, very gory), and my son loves both collections! Unlike retold stories in which a well-meaning modern author has amended (perhaps clumsily) a gender switcheroo to an old story, these ones are authentic folk tales that happen to convey positive messages breaking down gender barriers.
Here's a link:
http://www.amazon.com/Not-One-Damsel-Distress-Folktales/dp/0152020470/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361805283&sr=8-1&keywords=not+one+damsel+in+distress
We were just talking about this last night. After thumbing through a collection of fairy tales, I realized that "princesses" are just supposed to look pretty and keep their mouths shut with the sole goal of finding a prince to save them. *sigh*
Didn't anyone else grow up on Madeline??
To answer the question, yes, I think it would be fun to tell say, Sleeping Beauty, with the prince in a coma and the princess coming to rescue him.
Beyond that, maybe gender neutral stories or stories that are easy to just leave out gender altogether like The 3 Little Pigs, The Giving Tree, or Dr. Seuss stuff.
I always try to buy books with strong female characters for my daughters, but I never thought of swapping genders in traditional fairy tales. I'm guessing my seven year old would catch on pretty quickly, and object, now that she can read (and is a stickler for details). My three year old probably wouldn't mind though. She went through a phase where everything she liked had to be a girl, and I often changed "he" to "she" in stories to make her happy. It does take a lot of concentration! It might be better to find a text document of an older fairy tale and edit it before printing and reading. Otherwise it can interrupt the flow of the story.
I love the "Sleeping Beauty" print above, and the "Little Merman" one.
There is a story more delightful than Cinderfella... Petronella. I believe there may be multiple versions but the one I read is from the anthology "Don't Bet on the Prince", edited by Jack Zipes. Wonderful, empowering stories featuring smart, sassy girls and women. Petronella is my favorite of the collection.
There are many great children's stories now featuring smart, fun princesses such as the Paper Bag Princess and Falling for Rapunzel, in addition to folk tales from other countries featuring enterprising young ladies.
I love these illustrations, and love that your parents emphasized women who are brave and courageous. The closest my parents got was Politically Correct Bedtime Stories that, while making my sister and I giggle, helped us practice self-awareness when it came to norms and stereotypes: http://tinyurl.com/aq7xe5t . When I have children, I fully intend to stock their shelves with empowering stories of women, and to tell them stories of my own personal heroes.
Some excellent recomendations...I have a little girl and I want her to feel empowered by the stories we tell her, not, as lsteffen said, to think she just has to 'look pretty and keep (her) mouth shut .'
One of my favourite stories as a little girl which HollyP mentioned is 'The Paper Bag Princess' by Robert Munsch where the protagonist rescues herself and tells the prince to sod off.
The Zipes book was the first thing I thought of with this post, and Petronella is also my favorite.
I had the opposite experience when I was surprised with a baby boy...And then another one! All of my (memorized) favourite folk and fairy stories have female protagonists, and it was important to me that they see strong smart men too. It has been a real challenge to find traditional stories where the men behave themselves! And I was shocked by the sex and violence in folk tales (we read some ancient Greek and Norse stories, so I had ALOT of explaining to do) I look forward to checking out some of these suggestions, thanks!
Jacqueline and the Beanstalk. Sleeping Hunk. Snow Dude and the Seven Dwarfettes? IDK. . .
Love this post! My sister has a 4 month old boy, I'm passing this on to her.
Reminder: it's not just about showing little girls strong female characters, little boys need to learn about strong and smart women too. If boys aren't taught that it's good when girls and women are smart and tough then they won't become men who value girls and women who are smart and tough.
The Princess and the Pizza and Falling for Rapunzel are good additions.
Oh man, I have a spot on my wall for that Sleeping Beauty print. Thanks for posting these, I love them!
hahaha! actually, I think those would be pretty awesome. though i'd keep the dwarves as guys. They could have a great bromance with snow dude and it would teach boys about housekeeping and stuff.