Recently, our family ventured into a popular, national bookstore. This was a rare treat for us, as our only big-box bookstore in town closed several years ago. The smell upon entrance caused us all great delight.
As we perused through the children's section, I noticed many things that gave me pause. But one of them is an extension of a trend you've likely noticed, too.
Fairy tales were everywhere. But the majority were the softened, modernized, or rewritten-beyond-recognition version. And herein lies the foundational point upon which I'll make my argument for fairy tales in this post: traditional fairy tales (as opposed to "Disney-fied" fairy tales) hold immense moral value.
The Difference Between Original And Modern Fairy Tales
In most modern adaptations of fairy tales, the lines between good and evil are blurred. Villains become misunderstood. Consequences disappear. Heroes fight for their own glory and not for something greater. Courage is replaced by self-confidence. The happily-ever-after is no longer the triumph of goodness over evil, but simply the celebration of "being yourself."
There is a proper setting for understanding nuance behind a character's motivation, personal history, and humanity. These considerations can be appropriately held as compassion in the mind and heart of a matured adult. After all, who of us has not psycho-analyzed Edmund's embrace of the white witch's malicious invitation? Well, he often felt overlooked as the third child, and now he's chosen! He was in competition with Peter and now he was to rule over him!
But the development of the child has not yet expanded to hold such nuances. Especially when it comes to morality, their minds scan for good vs. evil.
In an effort to make fairy tales more comfortable, we've often stripped them of the very qualities that made them worth telling in the first place.
The Place of Fairy Tales in the Christian Intellectual Life
For generations, however, Christians recognized that fairy tales were never just entertainment. Long before children could understand theological arguments or moral philosophy, they encountered profound truths through story. Kings and queens, dragons and forests, curses and rescues all became windows into the deeper realities of virtue, vice, sacrifice, and redemption.
As Catholic parents, we rightly devote ourselves to teaching our children the Faith through Scripture, the Catechism, and the lives of the Saints. Yet we should not underestimate the quiet work of the imagination. Before a child learns to explain what courage is, he can admire it. Before she can define humility, she can love it. Traditional fairy tales help cultivate that love.
Fairy Tales Form the Moral Imagination
Education is about much more than the accumulation of facts. It is the formation of the whole person.
One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is a well-formed moral imagination: the ability to recognize what is good, true, and beautiful and to desire it.
Children naturally think in stories long before they think in abstract ideas. This is one reason Jesus so often taught in parables. Rather than presenting abstract propositions, He invited His listeners into stories that revealed eternal Truth. Stories have a unique ability to bypass mere information and reach the heart.
Fairy tales work in a similar way. They prepare the soil of a child's imagination so that, as reason matures, the seeds of Truth have already begun to grow.
In Tending the Heart of Virtue, Vigen Guroian argues that fairy tales help cultivate virtue by shaping the imagination. He writes, "Stories prepare the heart."
Moral formation is not accomplished merely by giving children rules to follow. It also requires awakening their love for goodness. (Remember the parables!)
Through fairy tales, children imaginatively participate in the struggle between virtue and vice.
Traditional Fairy Tales Teach Objective Good and Evil
One of the defining characteristics of traditional fairy tales is their aforementioned moral clarity.
There are villains whose pride, greed, envy, or deceit bring destruction. There are heroes who demonstrate courage, humility, perseverance, and sacrificial love. Goodness is not portrayed as weakness but as strength. Evil is not excused or romanticized.
Consider just a few familiar examples.
Cinderella responds to cruelty with patience and humility rather than bitterness. Snow White reveals the destructive power of envy and the beauty of innocence. Beauty learns to look beyond outward appearances and discovers genuine love. In The Frog Prince, promises matter, even when keeping them is difficult. The Six Swans presents a moving picture of sacrificial love and steadfast perseverance in the face of suffering.
These stories acknowledge that evil exists, but they refuse to grant it the final victory.
In a culture that increasingly presents morality as subjective and truth as something each person invents for himself, traditional fairy tales quietly proclaim something different: some choices are truly noble, some actions are genuinely wicked, and virtue is always worth pursuing.
Why "Scary" Stories Are Actually Good for Children
Some parents hesitate to read traditional fairy tales because they contain frightening elements. Wolves stalk little girls. Witches cast spells. Giants threaten villages. Dragons guard kingdoms.
Yet children already know that frightening things exist.
They experience fear, disappointment, loneliness, jealousy, and uncertainty long before they have words to describe those emotions. Fairy tales give these emotions shape and, more importantly, they offer hope.
Darkness is confronted. Evil is resisted. Curses are broken. Dragons are defeated. Faithfulness is rewarded.
This is one reason fairy tales have endured for centuries. They do not pretend life is easy. Instead, they teach that goodness is stronger than evil and that suffering is not meaningless.
Fairy Tales and the Gospel
Perhaps the most beautiful aspect of traditional fairy tales is how naturally they prepare children for the pattern of the Gospel itself.
A kingdom has fallen under darkness.
A faithful hero willingly enters danger.
Love requires sacrifice.
Evil appears powerful but is ultimately defeated.
The curse is broken.
The kingdom is restored.
A wedding feast awaits.
These themes echo throughout Salvation History. They are not the Gospel itself, nor should they ever replace Scripture. But they attune the imagination to recognize the rhythm of redemption.
For Christ is the true King who defeats sin and death through sacrificial love, restores the Kingdom, and invites all to His wedding feast.
This is one reason C.S. Lewis described myths and fairy tales as stirring "joy" and awakening a longing that ultimately finds its fulfillment in Christ.
The best fairy tales cultivate hope because they point to the greatest Story ever told. This is our real story.
What is one of you or your children's favorite fairy tales?!
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