Heya hey! I’m currently enjoying my new keyboard—it’s so quiet and so clean and new!  :D  :D  :D

It’s that amazing. The new mouse is slightly less amazing, because it’s crazy sensitive and the slightest movement on my part sends the arrow/cursor/whatever flying far, far away through cyberspace. Still…it’s nice and new, too, so yay!

And now it’s time for my third and final review of Hans Christian Anderson’s stories, and this time I’m actually trying to tell you that you should read them, instead of trying to keep you from making blunders with your kids’ bedtime stories.

Selection:

The Complete Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales

by Hans Christian Anderson, translated by Lily Owens

Synopsis:

This is a more-or-less comprehensive collection of Anderson fairy tales. The book includes well known stories like The Little Mermaid and The Emperor’s New Suit, and many more obscure fairy tales and morality stories like The Saucy Boy and The Bird of Popular Song.

Packing in over 130 short stories and several illustrations, this book will certainly keep you occupied, whether you read them yourself or dare to read them to your children before bed.

Reeser’s Opinion:

Here is the third installment of this review. There are a LOT of Anderson fairy tales that you’re probably not going to hear about because they’re kind of dull. There are a few though, that I really enjoyed and thought I’d tell you about since you probably won’t ever hear of them unless you happen to have a thing for fairy tales.

I know you might not enjoy these particular ones, but hearing about a few that I liked is better than hearing about none at all, right?

The Jewish Maiden:

This one isn’t scary or morbid, and I liked it a lot. It’s a very sweet story about a little Jewish girl who gradually becomes a Christian. She never officially converts, and doesn’t get buried in the “Christian” cemetery when she dies, but Anderson makes it pretty clear that she probably was a Christian in the end. I probably like it because I so hate all these hoops that different Christians put up that other people have to jump through if they want to “prove” that they’re Christian.

I don’t know if you’d want to read it to your kid, but I like the message of the story enough that I might read it with an older kid and have a discussion about it.

The Shadow:

This is a disturbing story. I came across it when I took a Science Fiction class during my sophomore year of college…and this story isn’t about science fiction, but it is about doubles, which is what I wrote one of my papers about.

The story is about a man who loses his shadow. Eventually he grows a new one, but he always wonders what happened to his first shadow. Then one day a man visits him and claims to be his old shadow that he lost. The Shadow says that he met Poetry when he was separated from the Man, and that he learned so much from poetry that he became human.

Eventually things sort of get switched around between the two, and the Shadow starts saying he is the man, and the Man is his shadow. Finally, the Man threatens to tell people the truth about the Shadow, and the Shadow has him killed.

There are a lot of ways one could interpret this story, but…I don’t know…I guess it bothers me a bit because I’m one of those people that has two personas that don’t always match up, much as I try to make that happen. I worry often enough that the things “Reeser” says are going to get me.

Not sure if this is a good kids’ story, but it brings up a lot of interesting things to think about.

The Marsh King’s Daughter:

This story is amazing. Like…I could totally see this as a movie by Guillermo del Toro (director of Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy). It’s got everything that you could want for a fantasy movie: sorcery, talking animals, swan women (Valkyries), mummies, swamp monsters, Vikings, zombie priests, horses, and warriors, demonic possession, angels, and vampires.

Basically, it’s about an Egyptian Valkyrie (blame Anderson if that doesn’t make sense) whose father is very sick. She goes into a pyramid and asks the pharaohs’ mummies to tell her how to heal him, and they tell her to go to the land of the Vikings and get a special water flower. She flies there with two other Valkyries, but when she takes off her swan coat, they rip it up and fly home without her. The Egyptian girl gets picked up by the Marsh King, who is basically a swamp monster, and they have a little girl.

A talking stork finds the baby in the marsh and has an idea to take it to a Viking woman who has no children. He drops the baby off, and the Viking woman is happy, even though the baby is always crying and fighting. Then she finds out that the baby turns into a big fat frog at night, and that freaks her out a bit, but she’s determined to keep it.

The girl grows up to be really wild and violent, and she loves hurting animals and helping out with sacrifices. Eventually, a Christian priest comes along and starts speaking out against the Norse gods. The Vikings lock him up and decide to use him as a sacrifice to the gods, and the girl is very excited about this. She begs and begs to be the one to kill the priest, but before that’s decided she turns into a frog for the night. She’s always been much gentler as a frog, so her mother takes her aside and tells her how she feels about her wild, violent behaviour, and we find out that the Viking woman thinks there might be something to what the priest is saying.

The girl feels bad, so even though she’s a frog, she helps the priest escape and they ride off on her horse. But when she turns back into a girl, she’s as awful as ever and the priest has to fight her and cast a demon out of her before they can go further. After the demon leaves, the girl is kind of dazed, and the priest says he’s taking her to a Christian town to be baptized, but before they get there, a bunch of robbers jump them. They break the horse’s neck and bash out the priest’s brains with an axe, but before they can get to the girl, she turns into a frog and they freak out and run away.

Since she’s a frog again, the girl feels terrible for the priest and horse, so she tries to bury them and can’t because of her stubby frog arms. Then she tries piling stones on them, and that doesn’t work well either. She starts crying, and as she’s crying, her frog skin comes loose and she pulls it off and is a girl again. Then, the priest and horse are somehow reanimated, although they are still clearly dead, and they offer to carry the girl through the wilderness. As they go, an entire army of dead warriors and horses and vampires rise up and go with them until dawn when they sink into the ground again.

The girl is left by a pond where she looks in and sees a face that looks like hers, but isn’t. She reaches in and pulls out a woman who is none other than her real mother! Then the old talking stork comes back into the story, because he’s been gathering up swan feathers just in case the Egyptian Valkyrie ever came back up from the pond. The women put on the swan coats and fly to the Viking woman’s house to say goodbye before flying back to Egypt with the flower to heal the old man.

Then the story skips ahead to the wild girl being grown and getting married. But right before her wedding to an Arab prince, the dead Christian priest visits her and she asks him if she could see heaven, just for a minute. He agrees to take her, but when she comes back, she doesn’t know anyone. She asks a young stork about where everybody is, and explains who she is, but he tells her that she supposedly disappeared years and years ago on her wedding day.

It’s a pretty awesome story, considering how very many of Anderson’s stories were boring or annoying. And it probably won’t ever happen, but I’d love to see this done as a movie, seeing as there are SO many story elements to pick and choose from…

That’s all I’ve got for now on our buddy, HCA. Next I’ll be reviewing a teen series that I’ve enjoyed re-reading so much that I’m trying to talk my parents into giving me used copies of the five books I’m missing for Christmas. I still need to get down to the library so I can pick up Hurt Go Happy…but hopefully I’ll be able to do that sometime soon after Thanksgiving.

Cheers.

Reeser

Currently The Fourth Seal of Zeen Stigma see related

So, it’s 1:35 and I’m just now starting my post. Fail. I should totally work out a way to get online at an earlier time so I don’t start things at odd hours like this. Hm.

That aside, I’m sure any of you who actually read this (hey—in most cases you subscribed to me first) probably know that the New Moon movie is finally out. I’ve had to hear about it off and on the last few days because my sisters LOVE the Twilight series. Personally, I didn’t enjoy it…but I concede that lots of people don’t enjoy books I like, either.

Fine. We’re even.

Picking on Twilight has also gotten boring since I’ve read sooo many blog posts about how awful it is and isn’t Stephanie Meyers a horrible writer?, or how wonderful it is and wouldn’t you want your S.O. to be just like Edward?

Yes, okay. And no, never. That’s not what I wanted to post about though.

I’ve seen a lot of people commenting on these blogs with questions like, “why would anyone fall in love with a monster that wants to kill you and drink your blood?” or “um, vampires used to be monsters. How are they emo kids with glittery skin now?” and even “how on earth could vampires produce biological children? Meyers must be an idiot,” since, apparently, Bella and Edward have a baby.

All of these are very good points, but it kind of annoys me that everyone either loves vampires or loves to hate them or loves to hate Meyers’ interpretation of them without actually knowing much at all about other historic and or literary vampire stories.

Not that I expect anyone reading this to care, really…but it bugs me a lot when people complain about stuff I like, and never bother to learn about it so they can at least make informed complaints.

So, to break the monotony of survey posts and book reviews, and for my own personal amusement, I’d like to try and answer some of the questions about vampires that have most annoyed me. Yay.

1. Why would anyone fall in love with a monster that wants to kill you and drink your blood?

Why indeed. This question is beyond me to answer because there are so many answers…I mean, why do people love other creepy/abusive/evil people? Ineffable, that. Why do people go out and live amongst gorillas or grizzly bears or wolves? Because. People will insist on loving things that are dangerous, for widely varying reasons.

It’s a good question, but also very pointless.

2. How on earth could vampires produce biological children? Meyers must be an idiot.

I can’t make any valid claims on Stephanie Meyers’ mental capacities. I also don’t know if she threw in the half-vampire baby because she thought it would be a fresh take on the vampire story…or if she did it because she read up on some vampire folklore and found out that, yes, some cultures believed that half-vampire babies could exist.

At the 2008 Cornerstone Festival, I went to a seminar about vampires, and I also read about this in Matthew Bunson’s book, The Vampire Encyclopedia, so I assume that this information is true…but each of them told me that various Gypsy groups believed that men who died and became vampires would come back to visit their widows, resulting in dhampir—half-vampire—babies.

At worst, this was just a cover story for widows who needed an excuse for suddenly getting pregnant. At best, the dhampir’s clan would believe that the dhampir had special powers that would allow it to defend the clan against future attacks by vampires. Either way…Meyer’s story of Nessie, the half-vampire baby, fits right in with already existing vampire lore. Gypsies were apparently not concerned with the impossible biology of dhampirs and their dead, bloodless fathers, so I don’t see why Meyers would have to be.

3. Um, vampires used to be monsters. How are they emo kids with glittery skin now?

I can’t explain the glittery skin, and it’s one of the elements of Meyers’ vampire characters that I hate the most. I don’t have a problem with her vampires going out in daylight though. I mean, Dracula did it and he’s the quintessential literary vampire.

The other parts of this question are a little bit more difficult, I think.

I think that part of the reason vampires transitioned from being monsters to being glittery emo kids is because people in this present time don’t believe as strongly in demons or spirits or in sins as being seriously morally wrong.

Some vampire folklore talks about demons or evil spirits reanimating corpses and either drinking the blood of the living, or eating them. If you don’t believe in demons or spirits, then it’s harder to be interested in a story like that, which is why today’s zombies are mostly the results of viruses instead of evil spirits or witchcraft like in zombie folklore.

The idea of sinful people becoming vampires when they die doesn’t work either, since so many people now don’t believe in heaven and hell, or at least they don’t believe in hell, and certainly if there is a hell or some kind of afterlife punishment, it won’t happen to them.

It’s very hard for vampires to be scary in the way they used to be, because we’re not worried about losing our souls and becoming like them if we do bad things, and we sort of prefer to look at their “immortality” as something we want, rather than as a punishment, and if one doesn’t believe in an afterlife…yeah, okay. I can see how the idea of living forever as a vampire becomes appealing.

Even if we’re not scared of them anymore, our society has obviously still got some sort of deep, inexplicable attraction to them, and if we weren’t going to give them up, they had to change to fit the way we think.

So they don’t become vampires because they’re sinful. Most of the vampires I’ve read about—Dracula included—seem to become vampires at random, because another vampire took a fancy to them and “turned” them. Vampirism becomes more like a sickness than a punishment, except that as a sickness, it doesn’t seem all that undesirable because it gives the newly turned vampire the immortality and beauty and strength that seem so desirable in our current society.

On the other hand, there’s still the dilemma that various literary vampires have about killing people. Anne Rice’s vampires try to only kill “evil” people. Laurel Hamilton’s more moral vampires don’t kill people to get blood, and Stephanie Meyers’ moral vampires drink the blood of animals.

Yes, these vampires all still claim to be dangerous, and they might be if you got on their bad sides…but I think that the reason Meyers’ vampires are far from being scary is because they’ve been more successful than most of the other literary vampires I know of at sticking to a non-human diet. More than the others, they seem to have the most squeaky-clean form of vampirism. Be immortal, be good looking, have a supernatural power, eat meat…no worries.

I think Edward does try to tell Bella that being a vampire is worse than all that though—that she’ll go to hell, that she might kill people, etc…but Bella, like an awful lot of people, thinks that there isn’t a hell, or that it couldn’t be as bad as life without Edward (okay, most people don’t think that), and that she’d rather be immortal than live out her “boring” life.

And that’s how vampires went from scary and damned to being emo, because even if they still believe in heaven and hell and damnation and that killing is wrong, they know that humans don’t believe in most of that anymore. Certainly teenaged girls like Bella would rather stay young and pretty with a gorgeous S.O. for eternity. Who cares if they might have to kill? They’re not going to hell for it.

Anyway…time for sleeping now.

Cheers.

Reeser

“Goodnight werewolf, goodnight ghosts, goodnight vampires who pine the most. Goodnight zombies, comeback soon. Goodnight bats, goodnight moon.”

Doctor Raven’s Facebook status.

Currently Destination: Beautiful By Mae Summertime see related

I gotta go to bed now...and I really really will do a non-survey, non-review entry soon. Promise!  D:

Do you have brothers & sisters?

One brother, three sisters.

What are their names?

Eh, just pick through my old entries. You’ll figure them out.

Is there a scissor near by?

A scissor? Like…just the one? I always thought they came in pairs, so I’m not really sure how to answer that. I think I have to rethink my worldview and the difference between plural and singular. Then maybe I’ll be able to tell you.

Did you get lost today?

Nope. I’m awesome that way.

Are you wearing something red? What is it?

Well, there is a little red embroidered apple on my shirt, and red, Christmassy bowties on the Scottish terriers on my socks.

Was yesterday Sunday?

No, that’s todayt. So…ask me tomorrow and I’ll say yes.

Last awful thing you smelled?

Hmm…not sure.

Have you ever been pregnant?

Nope, although when I was trying to get medicine for a kidney infection, the people at the urgent care place didn’t believe me and billed us for a test anyway. Makes me hate some doctors because they don’t believe that not everyone sleeps with their boyfriends/girlfriends. Why even ask if you think I’m going to lie anyway? Kind of like how my dentist thinks I smoke because my teeth had some stains…grr.

Have you ever had to clean up puke?

Cat and dog and my own.

Last party you went to, where was it?

Hmm…party? I must’ve gone to one…but I don’t remember where or for whom.

Did you have a good time?

Yeah. That whole not remembering thing…still happening. Probably though, I didn’t. I don’t like parties.

Can you drive stick shift?

Can I drive at all?

Do you have work tomorrow?

I’d like to. So…yeah. Give me a job.

What time do you have to be there?

…

Are you thirsty?

Thirsty? No. Dehydrated? Very probably.

What's your favorite soda?

Doctor Pepper.

What was the last thing to scare you?

Aliens, man. David Bowie is gonna make me kill myself…I’ll have to ask the Sky Demon to put in a good word for me.

Who did you last share a cigarette with?

Dude, I don’t smoke.

Did you have a good childhood?

I probably did. If I compare it with other people’s, I don’t feel that bad about it.

Are both of your parents alive?

Yep.

Have you ever fallen asleep in a bathroom?

Hmm…might’ve started to doze off in a tub once.

What is something you're really good at?

Reading.

What's your hidden talent?

Hidden talent? I don’t hide mine…whatever I have at my disposal, I try to use.

What's the name of the street you live on?

Street.

What state do you live in?

Paranoia.

Are you afraid of heights?

Not so much.

Spiders?

No, but that doesn’t mean I like them running free in my living space.

Needles?

Yes. Don’t talk to me about needles. I think that’s part of why I was flipping out on Friday…because my parents were all like, “yeah, we got a doctor’s appointment for your ear infection, and btw, we want to see if you can get two shots, too.” Um—no! I hate shots, and I very often hate blood. I don’t like needles and I have a sort of anxiety about hospitals because of all this…

Best roller coaster?

Maybe…almost any indoor one, because those are always cooler and have stuff inside that glows…or the Kracken at Marineland.

Last time you went to a zoo?

Mmm…back in June? July?

Last city you visited?

Chicago. Didn’t stay very long though…

What does your purse/bag look like?

Charcoal with black leopard print and skulls here and there, with a black leather flap that folds over and had a set of brass knuckles hanging from it.

What's a weird food you like?

First: define weird.

Has your bedroom ever been painted lime green?

No, but it’s been purple and turquoise, red and black, and probably other things, but that was when I was a little kid.

Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?

Nope. I have a fiancé.

Is so, where is he/she now?

He’s at home, probably sleeping.

Are you sure of that?

Yep. I have spy cameras set up at strategic locations so I can know everything he does, every moment of every day. (j/k)

Does being single on Valentines Day bother you?

It did. That’s why, when it coincided with the Bible study I led during my senior year in high school, I brought heart shaped cookies. With black icing.

What do you think of no sex before marriage?

I wish everyone would stop acting like they expect me to think it’s okay. I can’t tell anyone else what to do, but honestly…does it really kill anyone to wait? Like, seriously?

Do you feel drowsy?

No, but my eyes are feeling funny.

What color is the shirt you're wearing?

Do you even need to ask this question anymore? More than half of the clothes I own are black.

Do you own purple pants?

Ha. No.

When was the last time you wore converse sneakers?

To-day.

We're all gunna be doomed in 2012…what do you think?

You’re doomed right now, honey, because that’s an idiot question. Nothing bad will happen except the things caused by the psychos who buy into that whole 2012 thing.

How do you get to the nearest bathroom from where you're sitting?

Get up, walk around the desks and chairs in the loft, go down the hall and ta-da! Bathroom.

What's the longest amount of time you've gone without brushing your teeth?

Well, when I was a baby, I couldn’t because they were still in the gums.

Favorite thing to eat on Thanksgiving?

Turkey! Reeser hearts some turkey…  *drool*

Of course, everyone thinks I’m a weirdo because I like really dry turkey meat. Apparently this is a culinary sin.

Where is your best friend right now?

Who are we talking about?

What are you doing this year for Thanksgiving?

Eating.

What holidays do you celebrate?

New Year, Valentine’s Day (halfheartedly…I still don’t appreciate the holiday, even if I am engaged), Easter, my birthday (we kind of skip celebrating Independence Day), Chris’s and my anniversary, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas.

Could you ever go vegan?

No. I enjoy meat too much.

Are you German in any way?

I have some German ancestors, yeah. Along with Irish, English, and Cherokee.

What are you allergic to?

You.

Who was the last hot guy you saw?

Hahahahaha. I think I’ll just leave this question here for the sake of not answering it.

Is your house relatively clean?

Mum doesn’t think so, but Chris’s mum and I discussed clean houses (very briefly) and she said she just gave up on keeping theirs spotless. My mum just doesn’t believe other people have messy houses, I guess.

What color is your toothbrush?

Red and white.

Does you take advantage of coupons?

Sometimes.

Favorite movie you've seen in the past year?

HP6.

What would be a good reason NOT to believe in love?

People lie.

What does your last incoming text say?

“Alright. It’s about my bedtime. Catch you later  :) ”

What color was the blanket you slept with last night?

My quilt is red, the down blanket on top of it is red and white plaid. The down quilt on top of that is powder blue, and the thin blanket on top of that is black/navy/white/pink/orange plaid.

Would you ever wear real fur? Why/why not?

No. I don’t believe in killing animals for their skins. I can, however, deal with leather products because usually the other cow parts get used, unlike…say…beaver or mink or fox.

Do you remember your 4th grade teacher's name?

Mrs. Crooks. I didn’t like her much.

Do you call it primary school or elementary school?

Elementary.

What is something you're not proud of?

That I don’t recycle. I wish we did that at my house.

End.

Reeser

*arguing about the Marble Hornets YouTube series*

Reeser: You know, what if Slender Man isn’t evil? We don’t have any proof that he is.

Chris: Oh, he’s evil.

Reeser: But how do you know? What if the reason he’s following Alex is because he wants to warn him about something else that’s evil?

Chris: Oh…that’s a good idea. It’s a possibility.

Reeser: See? I’m not convinced that he’s evil.

Chris: He probably is.

Reeser: Ugh…

Chris: I’ll find you some pictures of him. People have made pictures of Slender Man, and he’s like, super tall. And he’s got two extra arms—

Reeser: Are you serious?! He’s a bug! *laughs*

Chris: You laugh now. Just wait.

Reeser: Oh, I am not about to get caught by this guy. I know how to survive scary movie villains. (pause) You know, never mind. I’d better stop being so flippant. That’s how you know they’ll get you.

Chris: Yep. They will.

Reeser: I’d better start showing some respect for the creatures of darkness…*bursts out laughing* I bet they heard that one. If I’m in a scary movie, I’m so dead.

This is not my brilliant, non-survey post.

 Instead, this is a short burst of anger from Wolf (don’t worry, Chris…it has nothing to do with you).

I’ve been feeling just a few degrees below angry all day, for no apparent reason…and I went to the Dr and got an antibiotic for my ear, and I hung out with Chris and watched some episodes of a show called The Community…but then I came home. And I read. And even though the book in question is not new material to me, something about it struck Wolf as very peculiar because we’d actually been discussing someone earlier…and then we were reading and there it was. Not the person in question, but…two friends with a handful of details about them that made them analogous to that person and myself.

Wolf is/was pretty mad about it. Not cursing and throat cutting mad…but…snarling and pacing mad. He’s mad because we’d gone since June with none of that nonsense that makes us add to our already extensive personal mythology, and we thought we were doing pretty well for once, and BAM. Not so.

Dog is pretty upset now, too. He’s upset about a different character though, and hopes that when It arrives, It’ll have nothing to do with fish. No representation of fish in any way, or he’ll start worrying all over again about Nothing.

I, Cat, think Wolf is saying that…that we are/Dog is worrying about Nothing. I don’t think Wolf believes in much of Anything though, so he’s unreliable about whether something is Nothing or Something with a capital S. Dog, on the other hand, is getting superstitious. Wolf and I agree that it’s bad for everyone, and of course, it makes Dog just as unreliable.

I think Dog’s new superstition is about green. I think he wishes he’d paid more attention back in August, so he would know how to feel about green. I wish we’d paid more attention, too, but only so I would know for knowing’s sake. Not about whether green was good or bad, but about whether it was green at all. Maybe it was something else. We didn’t pay enough attention.

Maybe if It has to do with a fish, he’ll get superstitious about them, too.

Of course, all of this brings us back to the starting point with the analogy of friends (ha). Mentioning it might help, but wouldn’t because we already know what the answer is: it means nothing.

*insert indignation*

What kind of answer is that? Not the one we want to hear. We know all about irrationality. Wolf and I agree about that…but it doesn’t mean we can ignore Dog. Dog gets funny feelings sometimes, and even if they don’t make sense, we can’t just not acknowledge him. That isn’t fair and it makes Dog feel bad. Like he’s being stupid when really, he’s just got an imagination. Poor Dog.

I guess I don’t know how I should feel about Wolf getting angry, either. He’s just looking out for us, I guess. I just wish he didn’t have to do it in an ugly, destructive way. He and I should have a talk about Little Red Riding Hood someday…but it’ll have to be when Dog isn’t worked up. I’m sure that right now, Dog would get very upset about Red being eaten. He would get all absorbed in the story and offer to fight Wolf, and we'd have to explain that it's not real. Nobody is fighting anyone.

I think that, overall, what I’m learning is this: Mirrors are terrible things. If you look in them, you’ll see yourself and it’s not always pretty.

*insert sarcasm*

Thanks so much to the clones and bacchants and vampires and journalists that will insist on making me review this lesson over and over and over…

End.

Reeser

Welcome back, all. This is Part Two of my review of Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales. Imma go eat some pizza and go to the doctor at 5:30, and then hang out with Chris and stuff.

Maybe I’ll write something interesting tomorrow, since I actually have an idea for a non-survey post.

Selection:

The Complete Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales

by Hans Christian Anderson, translated by Lily Owens

Synopsis:

This is a more-or-less comprehensive collection of Anderson fairy tales. The book includes well known stories like The Little Mermaid and The Emperor’s New Suit, and many more obscure fairy tales and morality stories like The Saucy Boy and The Bird of Popular Song.

Packing in over 130 short stories and several illustrations, this book will certainly keep you occupied, whether you read them yourself or dare to read them to your children before bed.

Reeser’s Opinion:

Here is the second installment of this review, where I take a look at a few more of the most familiar fairy tales in the collection.

The Brave Tin Soldier:

If you’ve ever watched Disney’s Fantasia 2000, then you saw a cartoon version of this.

In that version, the little tin soldier with one leg falls in love with a little toy dancer who he thinks has only one leg. The evil Jack-in-the-Box is jealous that the dancer likes the soldier, and pushes him out the window where he is washed into the drain and swallowed by a fish that—ta-da!—gets sold back to the house the soldier came from, so he makes it home and somehow defeats the Jack, and the dancer does a little dance around him.

The story is a little less cheerful. The tin soldier is knocked out a window by an evil goblin, not a Jack-in-the-Box, and although he makes it back home, he never gets to speak to the dancer because a little boy throws him into the fire for no apparent reason, and the dancer (who is made of paper) gets blown in by a gust of wind. The next morning, a servant finds the soldier melted into a little tin heart, “but nothing remained of the little dancer.”

Here is where you teach your kids to NOT wantonly destroy their toys.

The Emperor’s New Suit:

This is, thankfully, the very same story we all know about the emperor who is fooled and would rather go out naked than pretend he couldn’t see the “magic” cloth that the swindlers had supposedly woven for him. I’m not altogether sure about why this story didn’t get changed around in the modern versions of it, but it’s good to know that not all of them did.

The Wild Swans:

I don’t know where I saw it, but I definitely saw a cartoon version of this story when I was a kid. I can’t imagine that it was this one, especially since I think it’s in Russian, but I can’t find any other information about an animated version of the story.

Anyway, a widowed king unknowingly marries a witch, and she hates his eleven sons and daughter. So, she tells the king awful things about the sons, and he banishes them. Then she turns them into swans and they fly away. The daughter she sends to live with peasants, and when the girl comes home, the witch makes her look ugly so the king won’t recognize her and he sends her away, too. Eventually the girl meets her brothers (who become human at night), and they carry her across the sea to a new country.

The girl prays for a way to help her brothers, and in a dream she learns that she can help them by weaving shirts out of stinging nettles. If they put on the shirts, the curse will break, but if she says a single word before it’s broken, her brothers will die.

So she hurts herself over and over making the nettle shirts, and eventually the king of that country goes out on a hunt and finds her living in a cave. He decides that although she won’t speak, he has to marry her, and the girl is happy, but still wants to save her brothers, so she keeps weaving the shirts. She runs out of nettles, and when she goes out at night to pick some from the graveyard, a bishop sees her doing it and thinks she’s a witch. He convinces the king to burn her alive, and they almost do, but right before the executioner comes for her, her brothers fly down and she throws the shirts on them so they become human, and she tells everyone she’s not a witch.

Everyone believes her and they all go back home, but the youngest brother still has one swan wing because she couldn’t finish his shirt in time.

This is pretty much the story I knew, but the animated one left out the part where everyone thought the girl was a witch and they almost killed her. I just can’t remember what the reason in the cartoon for her not finishing the youngest brother’s shirt though.

I’m not sure how you would explain to your kids why people would want to burn witches to death, especially if they know and love Harry Potter, but it might come up if you read them this story.

Thumbelina:

Thumbelina is an okay sort. She does some nice things, but she’s also very superficial and marries only the most handsome of her suitors (that’s the reason Anderson gives for her choosing the fairy prince over the mole or the toad, at least), and she never thinks to thank her friend the swallow, or visit her mother.

This is a story to read to your kids if you want to have a discussion about things like superficiality, ingratitude, and thoughtlessness about the people who care for you. The cartoon version of this is much better for entertainment purposes.

The Little Match Seller

Also known as The Little Match Girl, I am certain that I saw an animated version of this story, too. It was very, very different from Anderson’s version.

In the cartoon, the girl is homeless and lives in a sewer or something with her parents and some other people. They’re all very cheerful for being homeless, and although it’s set in modern times, the girl still sells matches.

I think that one night she uses up all the matches and has a bunch of daydreams about ice-skating and a dog (maybe it’s a stray dog and not part of her imagination. I don’t remember.) and Christmas, but then she’s upset about not having made any money and I don’t remember if she runs away or what. I am pretty sure that by the end of the cartoon, her father was getting a job though, and they were all going to live happily ever after.

The book version is not that way.

There, the little girl sells matches, and she isn’t homeless but may as well be because her house is shabby and cold. One night she decides to not go home because she hasn’t sold any matches and knows her father will beat her, so she sits in an alleyway and burns up the matches while hallucinating about food and Christmas trees and her kind, dead grandmother. The townspeople find the girl dead the next morning, which is pretty grim even if Anderson asserts that the little girl went to heaven and isn’t bothered by being dead.

Pretty sure I don’t need to say anything further about why this is a bad bedtime story.

Cheers.

Reeser