Fairy Tales Matter

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Fairy tales are extremely valuable for the hearts of our children! Many people dislike the ugliness that crops up in fairy tales, or they find the happily ever afters ridiculous, but let me make an appeal to you for why our children's hearts and our own hearts need these kinds of stories.

Once upon a time God created the heavens and the earth, and the world was perfect and the two people God made were perfect and lived in a perfect and beautiful garden... then there came an evil snake that tricked the two people and the people made a bad choice that brought darkness and pain into the world...one day God sent his prince to die for the people of the land because He loved them so much, and He made a way for people to know Him again, and one day He promised to bring happily every after to the people and they would live in a castle with Him, where there would no longer be pain or sadness, and all that was bad would be undone.

Fairy tales share the gospel with our children in another form; in story form, a form that speaks to their imaginations and hearts like nothing else.

They make the supernatural believable, they show us sin, they teach us moral lessons, and they show us happily ever afters; all things our children need to know about their world.

"Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed." The Ethics of Elfland by GK Chesterton in his book Orthodoxy

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These 3 books out of a set of 4 called the Gem Classics Library (Ruby, Diamond, Sapphire, and Emerald) are fairy tales retold by Jane Curruth and were produced in the mid 70's. There are different illustrators for different stories. Some look distinctly from their era, and others appear more classical in their artwork. My kids love to hear fairy tales and I think it goes to show how in our inward selves we identify and desire to hear and believe stories like these because it mimics the real story of the world. There are of course many other fairy tale books, but it's always delightful to have some pictures for younger readers.

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An article taking thoughts from C.S. Lewis on fairy tales and why they are helpful and not hurtful. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/three-objections-to-fairy-tales-and-c-s-lewiss-response

For further reading: https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2015/07/chesterton-tolkien-and-lewis-in-elfland.html

An article by C.S. Lewis on how he wrote Narnia: https://apilgriminnarnia.com/2014/01/27/sometimes-fairy-stories/

An essay by J.R.R. Tolkien on fairy tales: http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2004/fairystories-tolkien.pdf

Home school podcast on fairy tales: https://pambarnhill.com/ymb41/?fbclid=IwAR10o9j7SWTGVrgFplDkih-PwNEftvZ6ceKkWmEXJOWjiwWtRH9KJLUMuOk