At this rate they’ll be retelling “The story of Alladdin” or “Ali Babba and the 40 Socialists” as it will be reflective of their primary culture.
The Legend of the Piasa Bird is American...:-)
Has Rudyard Kipling become a complete non-person? The Nobel Prize for Literature winner has no mention whatsoever in this article, yet his excellent “Puck of Pook’s Hill” (1905) is a WONDERFUL example of just what this article is about. The left, since The Atlantic definitely leans that way, is completely blind to this great writer, mostly because they see him as an apologist of British Imperialism. Yet to read Gunga-din, Kim or Requiem would give lie to that view.
Sigh!
They tell better stories because of the accent. Reading the back of the cereal box sounds like Shakespeare when you do it with an upper class British accent.
Both types of stories are important and as a homeschooling mother of a family that read out loud each morning and night for 15 years we found that aside from the Bible, we read many classics from both sides of the Atlantic.
Narnia, and the tales of Arthur, Wind in Willows, (Potter wasn’t a favorite, too repetitive) et al, as well as Little Britches, LHOP (family name for the Little House on the Prairie series) and many stories of the founding of the country and its settling.
Just as dressed animals and wizards are British history, Settling and taming the wilderness is our history.
What is the definition of CHILDREN’s tales?
Because I never saw Little Women as a child’s tale. More like a Teen. Or Mark Twain as “children”. Elder, perhaps.
The Grimm and Anderson tales really are frightening. I just never thought about them much.
I’d say the British are far more mawkish than the Americans. I love kiddie literature and tried recently to read “The Little Princess” - it was so saccharine I almost threw up. Compare that to Laura in the Little House series! Especially when the wolves are howling around the little house in the dead of night. Or when Ma refuses to explain her fear or horror of Indians. We don’t need fantasy when we have the old west!
"With a melon?"