Fairy Tales: A Quick and Unique Guide to Successful Reading

Explore why fairy tales matter beyond entertainment, tracing myths and folklore from oral tradition to the digital age and how these stories answer deep questions about our souls.

Explore how fairy tales, a core part of folklore, blend magic, symbolism, and universal virtues. Learn their oral origins, timeless patterns, and the enduring happily ever after.

Trace the global roots and western european influence of modern fairy tales, from 17th-century France to contemporary retellings, and highlight five influential authors.

Explore how modern fairy tale thinkers like Zipes, Tatar, Bettelheim, Yolen, and Bernheimer shape gender, virtue, and power readings across contemporary retellings and young adult charts.

Explore how fairy tales sharpen communication by revealing deeper meanings, providing templates for sequencing and suspense, and delivering messages that stick with audiences.

Explore how magic mirror, color symbolism, and the apple illuminate Snow White’s beauty, the queen’s jealousy, and the seven dwarfs as the voice of reason guiding virtue in fairy tales.

Face moments of uncertainty, jealousy, and opposition by staying true to what is right. Let your integrity reveal beauty that others may see and emulate.

Examine Parow's Little Red Riding Hood, highlighting the innocent heroine, the wolf as predator, forest as the unknown, and the moral to avoid talking to strangers.

Explore how innocence and naivety balance with wisdom as you watch the thematic video for Little Red Riding Hood, recognizing the darkness in the woods and how to avoid danger.

Discover how Beauty and the Beast portrays virtue rewarded through Beauty's selflessness, the sisters' selfishness, and the fairy's wisdom, with symbolism shaping character.

Explore the complex relationship between love and attraction in Beauty and the Beast, and learn how cultivating life standards and virtues guides graceful partnerships.

Explore the ugly duckling's coming-of-age journey, maturing from a mocked duckling to a swan, and discovering true identity amid themes of bullying and judging by appearances.

Explore how a personal image shapes interactions with others, and learn to replace shattered self-perception with a clear, new sense of self that helps us see ourselves again.

Explore Cinderella's tale, showing how appearances can be deceiving and virtue is revealed and rewarded through the glass slipper, fairy godmother, stepsisters, and prince.

Explore how first impressions mislead us and how some people rise from ashes to reveal courageous, worthy character beyond appearance.

Analyze jack and the beanstalk’s characters—jack, his mother, the fairy, the giant, and the giantess—and symbols like beans and beanstalk to highlight justice versus revenge, greed versus generosity, and perspective.

Learn how disaster prompts emotional responses and choices: channel anger, hurt, and sadness to rise above our giants and lend a hand to others, as in Jack and the Beanstalk.

Explore how perception shapes reading, revealing that seeing isn't always believing as characters confront misperception and hardship, choosing to correct misconceptions and stay true.

Explore the fairy tale one eye two eyes three eyes, where virtue is priceless and rewarded, as the wise woman, the golden tree, and the knight symbolize discernment and royalty.

Explore the princess and the pea by Hans Christian Andersen, where a prince, a queen, and a princess reveal true royalty through a pea test of virtue.

Tests show the grit of our character and we persevere, doing what is right in the possibility of failure or success.

Identify the symbolic nature of fairy tales by spotting diverse meanings in symbols, and examine good and evil through character contrasts that reveal beauty and virtue.

Finish the class and write an honest review to help future students. The instructor welcomes feedback to shape the class and help you become a better storyteller and communicator.