Description
Book SynopsisExploring how adults mistreat children, this book focuses on adults not only as hostile characters in fairy tales themselves but also as real people who use frightening stories to discipline young listeners.
Trade ReviewWinner of the 1992 Book Prize in Literature, German Studies Association "As provocative and stimulating as her The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, this book should give a salutary shock to everyone who brings children and tales together, convincing them that "every interpretation is a rewriting' and encouraging them "to identify what is transmitted in the stories we tell children.'"--Library Journal
Table of ContentsList of IllustrationsPrefaceIRewritten by Adults: The Inscription of Children's Literature3II"Teaching Them a Lesson": The Pedagogy of Fear in Fairy Tales22IIIJust Desserts: Reward-and-Punishment Tales51IVWilhelm Grimm/Maurice Sendak: Dear Mili and the Art of Dying Happily Ever After70VDaughters of Eve: Fairy-Tale Heroines and Their Seven Sins94VITyranny at Home: "Catskin" and "Cinderella"120VIIBeauties and Beasts: From Blind Obedience to Love at First Sight140VIII"As Sweet as Love": Violence and the Fulfillment of Wishes163IXTable Matters: Cannibalism and Oral Greed190XTelling Differences: Parents vs. Children in "The Juniper Tree"212Epilogue: Reinvention through Intervention229Notes239Select Bibliography273Index289
