Fairy tales are still the go-to subject for young adults.
But in a new book, children’s author and professor of English at Indiana University, Richard Wiese, explores why.
In Fairy Tales, Wieses argues that the term ‘fairy’ was coined in the 1800s to describe a storyteller.
‘People thought of fairy tales as being stories about the world,’ he says.
‘The word fairy means something different to the way that most people think of fairy tale.’
This change was a big factor in the popularity of Disney films like Aladdin and Sleeping Beauty.
‘I think it has to do with the idea that there was a time when you didn’t need to be a child to tell a story,’ says Wiesen.
‘You could just make up a story, or tell a fairy tale if you liked.’
Wiesing, who has been writing about children’s literature since the 1980s, says it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the term started to appear.
‘There is no definitive record,’ he tells CBC News.
‘But the earliest fairy tales were written by children in the 1850s.
The earliest fairy stories were written as children.
That’s where they’re found.’
Wysen says there are many stories about ‘young girls and boys’ who would like to tell fairy tales but aren’t sure where to start.
‘They want to know where to find them, and there’s no one book that they can read,’ he explains.
‘And so there’s a whole genre of stories that are just stories about girls and things that are young, and that are all sort of a fairy-tale thing.’
But there are also stories about people who are older than Wies and who know what a fairy story is, and who want to tell them.
‘We hear a lot of children who are young saying, “Oh, I’ve heard about fairy tales and I want to learn more about it,”‘ Wies says.
This, he says, is a way of exploring what it means to be ‘a kid.’
‘In the 18th century, children were not only encouraged to tell stories, they were encouraged to think of themselves as a writer, and they were also encouraged to be imaginative,’ Wies adds.
‘It’s a very powerful form of storytelling, it’s an incredibly creative way of expressing ideas.
‘When children are encouraged to take on the role of an artist, it opens up new ways of thinking about how children are.
‘Fairy tales are very much about children being young, but also very much an expression of creativity.’
The book will be published by the Indiana University Press in March.
