Open Doors: Fractured Fairy Tales is an anthology of various
well-known children’s stories, not quite the way you remember them. To
understand what a fractured fairy tale
is, you first need to know the difference between a fairy tale and a nursery rhyme.
Many children and young adults aren’t sure. Just last week,
our newspaper ran a picture titled “Children Celebrate Nursery Rhymes.” Being a
past Pre-K Director, it caught my eye. However, I wanted to call the newspaper
to correct their error. The children were dressed as “Goldilocks and the Three
Bears,” clearly a fairy tale, not a
nursery rhyme.
For years, I taught children’s literature to prospective
teachers at a technical career center and community college. So let me put my
teacher hat back on to clear up this misconception.
Fairy tales are
simple stories that have been passed down orally from generation to generation.
Originally, told by adults as entertainment or to teach a lesson as the family
sat around the hearth, many of the stories were derived from real life
situations. The addition of a fantastical creature such as a dragon, fairy, elf
or witch disguised the poor soul who the story was about.
Each time the story was told it was embellished. When Jacob
and Wilhelm Grimm gathered these oral
traditions for their volume of fairy tales they were trying to collect the
cultural wisdom of the Germanic tales. ***Key word - collect. They did not write them.
Twenty-three years later, when Hans Christian Anderson
compiled his fairy tales, they were known as literary tales because they came from his imagination and he wrote
them down as authors do today. ***Key word – wrote. He was the author.
So what then is
a fractured fairy tale?
It’s a story
that still uses magic and fantasy and has problems to be solved, but…
1.
Well-known
fairy tale characters meet and mix their stories together to create a new story
of their own.
2.
Settings,
plot elements, and points of view alter the story to make a new, usually
humorous, story (think Shrek).
3.
May be
told from a different point of view than the original.
And a nursery rhyme?
Generally known as Mother Goose tales, nursery rhymes
generate appeal from rhyme and rhythm and bright humor. By the very nature of
the term ‘rhyme’ each Mother Goose tale has words that sound alike. Rhyme
usually relates an interesting and simple story and the humor is varied from
the ridiculous and exaggerated to total nonsense.
ie. Mary, Mary, quite contrary, or Humpty Dumpty.
Varied language patterns in the repeating rhymes offer
children the chance to actively participate in the story with or without hand
motions.
ie. Itsy, Bitsy Spider or Jack and Jill
A rhyme has the
repetition of the same or similar sounds most often at the ends of two or more
lines. Rhyming lines should have a similar number of syllables and a specific
rhythm.
For my contribution to Open Door: Fractured Fairy Tales I
took characters from well-known fairy tales and put them in a situation they
would never be in, but I told the story in rhyme. So I created a new category –
fractured
fairy tale rhymes.
ie. A hunter, who had saved a princess from an
evil Queen
came upon a
pond with a most uncommon scene.
Seven
lovely maidens were bathing there one day,
then they
donned their feather cloaks and as swans, they flew away.
The hunter is from “Snow White.” The maidens are from “The
Swan Maidens.” And the story goes on to incorporate “The Three Feathers.”
So, now, any questions? Check out Open Doors: Fractured Fairy Tales
for more great examples of fractured fairy tales and rhymes, available December
1, 2012 from Wayman Publishing.
I'd like to thank everyone who participated in my small contribution to this worthy cause. You all helped give a child a tree so Santa could place presents beneath it, and I, in turn, helped you with your manuscripts. :) I hope.
