stories for girls

My wife and I have tried to steer clear of beauty=good, ugly=bad thing, but Evangeline has gravitated toward stories like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty with a vengeance. To what extent are girls wired to value their appearance? That can manifest itself in many different ways of course; I've never felt that makeup does a lot to make women look more attractive, and usually it just looks gaudy. Obviously I'm at odds with a lot of society on that point.

And to an extent, aren't our images of Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty determined by the Walt Disney movies? Those are visual media, where you have to rely on visual cues to convey a character's good or evil intentions. That's why Shere Khan has such an evil-looking grin, and Baloo looks like such a loveable oaf.

How is an artist supposed to capture a person's inner beauty anyway? That's what it's about, isn't it? Glamor is one thing, but Beauty with a capital B comes from within and makes a person glow regardless of how plain someone might consider them.

I love "The Paper Bag Princess" and pretty much anything else that Robert Munsch has written. Evangeline enjoys his stories too, although she's off on a marketing-inspired Princess kick right now.

I thought it interesting that some people think that Beauty and the Beast has a good message because Belle falls in love with the Beast because of his character. It's funny, because the movie ends with the Beast becoming a handsome prince, thereby underscoring the message that looks really are everything.

Another good book is "Rumplestiltskin's Daughter," which gives a pretty novel twist to the old fairy tale. The miller's daughter runs off with Rumplestiltskin instead of marrying the king since Rumplestiltskin obviously likes her, really wants a kid, and would be an excellent provider. (Plus she has a weakness for short men.) The story follows their daughter, who gets arrested by the king and given the same ultimatum that her mother once faced. Very clever book, nice messages about keeping your wits and about the foolishness of greed.