Fairy Tales for the modern age

THE FAIRYTALES TOO GRIM FOR PARENTS

Daily Mail Reporter

FOR generations children have been captivated by Rapunzel and enchanted by Jack and the Beanstalk. But it seems these traditional fairytales are on their way to an unhappy ending as parents decide they are too scary. One in five have ditched the likes of Hans Christian Andersen or the Brothers Grimm in favour of more modern books, a study has revealed. Almost half of mothers and fathers refused to read Rumpelstiltskin or Rapunzel to their children because the themes of the tales include kidnapping. They also reject Little Red Riding Hood because they think the Big Bad Wolf eating the little girl's grandmother is too upsetting, with a third saying the story had left their children in tears. And Goldilocks and the Three Bears is likely to be left on the bookshelf too, as parents feel it condones stealing.

Even lighter tales have fallen out of fashion, with 52 per cent dismissing Cinderella as 'outdated' because it portrays a young woman doing housework all day. Many consider Jack and the Beanstalk to be 'too unrealistic', while the use of the term ‘dwarfs’ in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is deemed unacceptable. A quarter of the 2,000 parents polled said they wouldn't consider reading a fairytale to their child until they had reached the age of five, as they prompt too many awkward questions. Instead, they favour more recent books such as The Gruffalo, The Hungry Caterpillar and the Mr Men series.Steve Homsey of television channel Watch, which commissioned the study to mark the launch of U.S. drama Grimm, said: "As adults we can see the innocence in fairytales, but a five-year-old with an over-active imagination could take things too literally."