What are your favorite fairy tales?

[Ilovum]

Our ds is almost 4 and I'd like to start a collection of fairy tales for him. We have one 3 little pigs book, but but it's a weird version and different from the classic story that I grew up with so I want to start out with some new books.

My favorites are:
Jack & the Beanstalk
Hansel & Gretel
The Three Little Pigs.

There are several fairy tales that I know the names of but honestly don't know or don't remember the story. So this will be an experience for me as well.

What are your favorites and why?

Also posted in childhood years.

[elizawill]

i bought a huge book of classic fairytales and love them all. some are a little different form the ones i grew up on too...but these are the original stories...and they are still a lot of fun. it's fun to talk about what difference we heard and which story we like best and why, etc. we read one every night at bedtime. it's got great illustrations too...it only cost $9 on clearance and borders. love it!

[Midnightowl]

My kids really like "The Tortoise and the Hare" and "The Lion and the Mouse." Are those fairy tales? They may be fables... oh well, we like them anyway.

Lisa

[mntnmom]

Amazon has a great variety of legends from different cultures too. You can do a search just to get ideas if nothing else.
Some of my favorites growing up were unusual.

Grandmother spider steals the sun (traditional Cherokee)
And any of the legends about the Selkie are so fanciful.
Also my dd's current favorite is "All the way to Lhasa" a Tibetan folktale with *great* artwork.

[Lillian J]

One Eye, Two Eyes, and Three Eyes! - but when my father used to tell it to me when I was little, he'd describe all the wonderful foods on the table - a real banquet as he described them - so I have especially fond memories of it. Lillian

[Ilovum]

I loved one,two and three eyes. Fairy tales bring me back to a time when things seemed so magical, before you knew that certain things just couldn't be. I love it!!

[Ilovum]

I loved one,two and three eyes. Fairy tales bring me back to a time when things seemed so magical, before you knew that certain things just couldn't be. I love it!!

[Roo_Online]

My favorites:

Three Billy Goats Gruff
Gingerbread Boy
Stone Soup
Shoemaker's Elves
Rumplestilskin (sp?)
Rapunzel

Browse the library for inspiration. Usually the children's room will have a special section for fairy tales and folk tales.

[tuffykenwell]

For sources of Fairy Tales, I quite enjoy "A Treasury of Children's Literature" and find the stories in this volume to be very very close to the originals. It includes Fairy Tales, Fables and excerpts from more modern stories as well.

My favorite "catch all" book of fairy tales/folk tales (no illustrations though) is Best-Loved Folktales of the World edited by Joanna Cole

Also, for authentic "original stories" you can't beat Project Gutenberg for free sources that you can print off

Andersen's Fairy Tales

Grimm's Fairy Tales

The Firelight Fairy Book

And the Andrew Lang "Fairy Books" which can be found in this list

And finally, Aesop's Fables, here are a list of books

Do a search of "Folk Tales" and you get a bunch of other hits that are a bit off the beaten path but still very interesting. Of those my favorite is this one Welsh Folk-Lore a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales...but warning the names are killer LOL!

Steph

[UUMom]

When I was little I adored The Little Match Girl. It is an *incredibly* sad story, but I made my mother read it to me again and again. My poor mother. lol

[USAmma]

I really like Beauty and the Beast.

[BurgundyElephant]

We like the Lang's fairy books that pp listed. I also bought the Childcraft encyclopedia, as the first book is a collection of fairy tales, stories, and poems. I purposely bought the version from the 70's so it would be the stories I remembered.