What is your favorite Fairy Tale or Children's Story?

- Fairy Tale Art, Illustrations from Children's Stories, the exhibit, provides a wide avenue in which to contemplate the artfulness of illustrations for children. Not only can museum visitors appreciate the artist's skill in drawing and painting and media, but the entire set of production skills needed to design and produce a classic tale can be more fully appreciated when viewing a single frame of the evocative stories now on display in the Lower West Gallery. It becomes clear that a deftly executed panel for children can provide the exact moment of drama which the author intends. The recent Gallery Talk by Lisa covering these illustrations explored the converging skills of production, dramatic effect and intended meaning that a successful story delivers to a young imaginative reader (or to an adult reading to young listeners).
- Hundreds of children's stories have passed through generations to reach the status of a classic. Aesop's Fables, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Nursery Rhymes, Greek myths and 20th Century children's stories have influenced and fired the imaginations of succeeding generations of children, not all of whom loved and read the same stories. How many young people know of these rhymes?

There was a crooked man,
And he went a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence
Upon a crooked stile:
He bought a crooked cat,
That caught a crooked mouse
And they all lived together
In a little crooked house.

[This little rhyme is intended for easy learning by kids.] Or,

This little pig went to market;
This little pig stayed at home;
This little pig had roast beef;
This little pig had none;
This little pig said, "Wee, wee!
I can't find my way home."

[It's easier to explain how this rhyme lasted--playing with the toes of a toddler, what else?]

But, children's stories often had "morals" as in the Aesop's fables.
"The Ant and the Grasshopper" (It is best to prepare for the days of need.)
"The Crow and the Pitcher" (Necessity is the mother of invention.)
"The Goose with the Golden Eggs" (Greed oft o'er reaches itself.)
"The Emperor's New Clothes" (Multi-faceted. You provide the answer! )

Other stories are so riveting that children experience the thrill, fear and terror of prevailing over an evil, as in "Hansel and Gretel" in which the wicked witch kidnaps two very young children in the deep forest. How about "Goldilocks and the Three Bears"? Or "The Big Bad Wolf"? Have you ever seen modern children who know all of these stories? Perhaps not all children do, since contemporary children's stories have developed newer themes and not always to teach a moral. True storytelling that enchants and propels young readers and serves as their gateway to a lifetime of loving reading is a key concern of parents and teachers. The Harry Potter stories serve as a modern example of storytelling enchantment for the young. So what is YOUR favorite nursery rhyme, children's story or fable or fairy tale? Which one made you want to go back and re-read it more than once? Why? Comments are welcome!