The Stinky Cheese Man & Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka
Once upon a time there was a story called "The Gingerbread Man" and a little girl who loved to hear the story every night at bedtime. Each night at bedtime, the little girl's kind father would tell the story to his little girl. He knew how much his daughter loved the story and so he was happy to tell the story over and over and over again, well ... almost. One night when the dad, whose name was Jon, was asked for the fifty gazillionth time to hear "The Gingerbread Man" story, a funny thought occurred to him. This time he would instead tell the story of the Stinky Cheese Man making it up as he went along. Well the little girl was certainly surprised by the new twist on her favorite tale. Instead of protesting and insisting that her dad go back to telling the story the way she'd always known and loved it, she simply laughed and listened contently to this new version which she proceeded to request night after night. Little did Jon Scieszka know, but his gift for re-inventing bedtime stories would lead to many more adventures in story telling. That's right, "The Gingerbread Man" story was not the only story twisted by Mr. Scieszka. With the help of his side-kick and illustrator Lane Smith, Jon Scieszka has made an entire book out of his unusual versions of favorite fairy tales. Perhaps you'd like to hear the tale?
Our story begins with the duo's first big hit, a twisted tale called The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs. As the book grew in popularity, Scieszka and Smith began to receive many invitations to speak at schools about their story. The only problem was, that even though they were able to keep their audience entertained with their humor, they only had the one book to talk about and soon realized that they needed more material. (Marcus 2) One day Scieszka brought along a folder of his old fairy tales that he'd played around with and can you guess what happened next? The Stinky Cheese Man suddenly had a whole new audience- and not just at bedtime anymore! Only now that a few years had gone by he had lots of friends with him. There was Cinderumplestiltskin, Little Red Running Shorts, Jack from "Jack and the Beanstalk," and even more twisted fairy tale characters than you could count with the fingers on your ten toes.
The grandmother always would tell the grandson different stories about the land, the people, pretty much everything in the world. But one day she told him about the Deer Woman, because she thinks that he is becoming a fine hunter. She told him that his grandfather told her the story of the Deer Woman, how she would appear to lone hunter and welcome them into her lodge which would be alone lodge with warm furs and robes and a fire going. They would go in there and she would take their souls, some would have families that they forget about because they go looking for the Deer Woman but they never find her, because the Deer Woman took their souls they forget who they are forgetting about their families. The grandmother tells him not to go into the lodge that he was to turn back from where he came from and keep walking away. One day the Young Hunter was out with a couple other hunter they were hunting for the tribe, well he was out by himself and he ran into the Deer woman. She welcomed him, the hunters almost went into the lodge, but he remembers what his grandmother
Bruno is getting really upset that he can no longer see his friends or his grandparents. He is stuck in his house and can’t explore as much as he would like because there is no one to explore with. He notices something out his window one day, a large fenced in area with little tiny dots moving. He asks his sister and maid Maria what they are but they don’t know. He decides one day that he is going to explore the fenced in area, so he leaves when no one is looking and explores it for about two hours walking up and down the fence looking for something. Finally he comes across I boy about the same size of him so he goes up and talks to him. The boy’s name is Shmuel and they are the same age. Bruno learns that he is stuck behind the fence and has nothing to wear but the striped pajamas. Bruno doesn’t understand why he is there but is told how awful it is behind the fence.
In one, a specimen-creating brute robs a pelican child’s life and her guardian trying to bring her back to life. In the other, a prince learns the value of his frog-turned-princess and sets out on a quest to find her. Joy Williams’s Baba Iaga and the Pelican Child and Alexander Afanasev’s The Frog Princess are both critical facets of the fairy tale genre. While initially it may seem that Williams preserved no elements from Afanasev’s tale, upon a closer glance, it is evident that the two tales’ similarities outnumber their differences. By incorporating a generous portion of the original story into his, Williams’s version brings forth an innovative arrangement of classic and new. As a result, William’s tale introduces features to the tale that mirror everyday life lessons while simultaneously maintaining qualities that are reflective of the definitional aspects of the fairy tale genre.
Tatar, Maria. Off with Their Heads!: Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1992. Print.
Zipes, Jack. Fairy tales and the art of subversion the classical genre for children and the process
What if there was a cure for cancer or a treatment for spinal injuries? Would you support the research? What if there was a way that you could repair damaged nerves. Some believe that stem cells may hold the answers to some of these questions. What are stem cells and why should you or I even care about them? Some believe that they are a miracle treatment waiting to happen while others believe that stem cells are highly immoral. Why does so much controversy surround the issue? Why is the conversation of stem cells feared by some and praised by others? To some stem cells are the medical hopes for the future, something for us to hang on to as we do battle with major diseases that include cancer, Parkston’s disease and spinal injuries. To others stem cell researchers are murderers who are trying to play God’s hand. A many have pledged their support to stem cell research including a few well known celebrities. Reeves’, who was best known for his role in the early Superman movies, and J. Fox two well-known celebrities, have pledged to stem cell research, both have created a private fund for the research of stem cells. This celebrity however has not swayed everyone to support stem cell researches cause. Just as there are supporters of stem cells there are those who believe that the use of stem cells is immoral. Since the first stem cells were separated there have been doctors, religious groups and even some political figure head have shown their opposition for stem cell research. Even with the knowledge and promise that stem cells show many of those who truly oppose stem cells have not changed their mind. The question is are their reasons good enough to halt the research of stem cell or are they just holding back what will soon be inevi...
When the word “fairytale” is mentioned, nearly everyone thinks of light-hearted stories with friendly characters and happy endings. However, these are not the ideas that classic fairytales originally sparked. In fact, numerous modern Disney movies were based off stories that were not so sugar coated. In the 19th century, the Brothers Grimm were responsible for multiple of these popular children’s tales. The Disney remakes of classic fairytales such as Cinderella, Tangled, and Snow White exclude the dark, twisted themes that are significant in the Brothers Grimm fairytales, because society tendencies continue to evolve toward sheltering and overprotecting young children.
At first glance, what makes a fairy tale a fairy tale may seem obvious—some kind of magic, hidden symbols, repetition, and of course it’s evident it’s fiction—but fables are more than that. As Arthur Schelesinger puts it, it’s about “[expanding] imagination” and gaining understanding of mysterious places (618). While doing this, it also helps children to escape this world, yet teach a lesson that the reader may not be conscious of. A wonderful story that achieves all of this is Cinderella, but not the traditional tale many American’s have heard. Oochigeaskw, or The Rough-Faced Girl, and Ashputtle would be fitting for a seven-year-old because they get the gears of the mind turning, allowing for an escape on the surface, with an underlying enlightenment for children of the ways of the world.
A fairy tale is seemingly a moral fiction, intended mainly for children. A lesson in critical analysis, however, strips this guise and reveals the naked truth beneath; fairy tales are actually vicious, logical and sexual stories wearing a mask of deceptively easy language and an apparent moral. Two 19th Century writers, the Grimm brothers, were masters at writing these exaggerated stories, bewitching young readers with their prose while padding their stories with allusion and reference: an example of which is "Rapunzel." Grimm's "Rapunzel" is packed with religious symbolism, which lends a new insight to the meaning of this classic story.
Fairy Tale Text & Motif. Prod. Distribution Access. Distribution Access, 2001.Discovery Education. Web. 1 December 2001. .
Though the evils of the world may discourage us from reaching our full potential, fairytales such as Little Snow-White by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm teach us that good will always triumph over evil. As many tales of its kind, Little Snow-White uses a number of literary devices to attract a younger audience and communicate to them a lesson or moral that will remain with them throughout their lives. Since children have such an abstract stream of thought, it is vital to use language and devices that will appeal to them as to keep them interested in the story.
written by William Steig in 1990 (“Shrek!”). The plot of the book and the film are similar in some ways, but the film adaptation creatively incorporates many different fairy tales into its plot to create a new fairy tale. Some of the fairy tales characters included in the plot are the Gingerbread Man from The Gingerbread Man, Magic Mirror from Snow White, and the Big Bad Wolf from Little Red Riding Hood. For the creators to pull multiple elements of different stories into their own, they used intertextuality, as opposed to allusion, to mold the story into a single universe, where each character feels as though they belong in said
..., Maria. “An Introduction to Fairy Tales.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Ed. Laurence Behrens, Leonard J. Rosen. Toronto: Longman, 2013. 230-235. Print.
Bottigheimer Ruth B. Fairytales Folk Narrative Research and History “Social History” JSTOR 14, 3 (1989). 343-357, Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Zipes, Jack. Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.