Gearing Up For Tell A Fairy Tale Day

I know I have a lot of "favourite" days of the year—but one of them is coming up on Monday: Tell A Fairy Tale Day. Seriously, it's a real thing.

And I take it very seriously.

So does my Language Arts teacher, Mrs. Kratky. Last week, she assigned us all the task of writing our own fairy tales. I'll be spending most of the weekend crafting mine, but first, I've been reading some of my old favourites. Like Beauty and the Beast. I also love Hansel and Gretel—probably because it's a little bit spooky and you know how I like scary stories.

My fairy tale is going to be a little on the scary side too.

One of the things that makes fairy tales so interesting is that they tend to change over the years. Most of the stories you know, for instance, started off as "grim" tales, told by the Grimm brothers. I wrote about that in this blog from a few years ago.

Anyway, I thought I'd share fun facts and trivia about some of the most popular fairy tales—maybe a few things you can impress your teacher or friends with. <grin>

Did you know that more than 700 versions of Cinderella have been collected from around the world, and it has appeared in almost every language? It's one of the most re-imagined stories too, like Cinder by Marissa Marr.

And, the very first tale of Cinderella was recorded in China at around AD 850. That Cinderella is Yeh-hsien, and she wears a dress made of kingfisher feathers.

In some versions of Little Red Riding Hood, the heroine is taking grape juice and banana bread to her grandmother—not apples. I wonder if the wolf liked them better! (In the Grimm version of this fairy tale, the wolf EATS Grandma!) And here's another fun fact about that story—in some version, Red Riding Hood doesn't come across a wolf, she runs into an ogre or a werewolf.

Did you know that Roald Dahl wrote a version of Little Red Hood? In his tale, the heroine actually strikes back against the wolf!

If you like Charles Dickens, here's an interesting fact—he loved fairy tales. He said that they helped to keep him forever young.

Seems like Dickens was on to something!

Well, I'm off to read more fairy tales and then write a really good one for class on Monday. Maybe Mrs. Kratky will let me read mine aloud—as long as it's not too spooky. What's YOUR favourite fairy tale?

Gotta jet!

~ Chase Superman Duffy