Reading Diary A: Italian Fairy Tales

Beauty and the Beast

I love these fairy tales in the Italian Popular Tales unit! These stories are exactly the type of stories I think of when someone says the words fairy tale. I really loved that several of the stories were familiar and that I got to read Italian versions of some of my favorite stories like Beauty and the Beast. There were also several stories which were completely new to me, but they all read very distinctly like the fairy tales I read as a child.

One of my favorite stories was the very first one Zelinda and the Monster. It is the Italian version of beauty and the beast, which is one of my very favorite fairy tales. I loved getting to compare this story with the Beauty and the Beast that I know and love. There were no dancing and singing teapots like in the Disney movie, but there still was the air of magic in the palace. Zelinda and her father were served dinner by invisible hands! The beast is different in this story as well. Instead of being a big hairy bear like beast, the monster looks like a dragon. What a thing to imagine! 

I also really liked the story How the Devil Married Three Sisters. This story was funny and really clever. I loved that the third sister was able to outsmart the devil and save her two older sisters in the end. I would definitely be interested in rewriting my own version of this story, maybe from the youngest sister's perspective. I really liked how this story had a happy ending that didn't rely on a woman being saved and married by a prince or a king. Instead it is a story about a smart girl who is able to outsmart her devil (literally) husband.