Extra Reading Diary: Europa's Fairy Book

Okay obviously I love this unit because it is more stories that are so familiar to me and that I really love. I really like reading different versions of stories that I know because it is so cool to see how the differ across different cultures. This week I read the Italian fairy tales and several of the stories were very similar to the stories in this unit, however they each had their own different details. It was so cool to be able to compare some of the Italian stories to the stories in this unit (Europa's Fairy Book).

The cool thing about reading this unit this week is that I got to read another version of Beauty and the Beast, one of my very favorite stories. This version of Beauty and the Beast was more similar to the story that I remember from my childhood, but still had some differences. It was really cool to compare it to the Italian version though. In this version the Beast is an actual furry beast unlike in the Italian story. In this version though the beast dies, and when Bella sees this she runs to him crying saying that she had come to love him. It is with her declaration of love that the beast comes alive and changes into a prince and they live happily ever after. I loved this version of the story, because Bella fell in love with the Beast of her own volition. In the Italian story I did not like how the monster persuaded him to marry him so that he could be lifted from the curse. I liked the idea of Bella and the Beast actually making an honest connection.

Cinderella the Movie

I also really liked the story The Cinder-Maid. Obviously this story is a version of Cinderella. I really loved this version. It was very similar to the story of Cinderella that I know which includes the step sisters cutting off their toes or heels to try to fit into the slipper. I liked how this version of the story didn't include a fairy god-mother really, but instead the hazelnut tree and the birds in it helped to get Cinderella ready for the ball. I also really liked how this story featured three different balls. It was cool to see the repetition and progression of the story that some of the childhood versions of this fairy tale leave out.

Reading Diary B: Italian Popular Tales

The stories in the second half of the unit Italian Popular Tales are a little bit darker than the first half. The first half was filled with fun and engaging fairy tales. Each of the stories had a happy ending. The second half of this unit is not like that. The stories do not all have a happy ending. I still really like them though. They are really interesting and a lot of them have religious backgrounds.

Pilate looking about as creepy as the story
would suggest (Happy nightmares to you)

One story that really stayed with me was the story An Incident in Rome. This story kind of gave me the creeps honestly. It was pretty cool at the same time. It definitely had an air of mystery all throughout it. The image I had of the carter coming across a man deep in the ground, reading over and over a piece of paper and not responding when he was spoken to was so weird and creepy. I thought it was even more mysterious when he finally answered and wrote his name on the carter's back. The idea that the carter came out of the cave looking like he had aged fifty years was really kind of scary. It indicated to me that the man in the hole had done something bad, and that going down there had almost sucked the life out of the carter or something... really creepy. Of course this story ended up having a religious background when the man in the hole was revealed to be Pilate. This story was so weird, but it really stuck out in my mind because of all of the mystery that surrounded it.

I also read The Story of Crivoliu. This story was also weird. Within the first two lines there was a mention of incest... gross. I kept reading however, and was really intrigued. It ended up being a story with a religious background as well. When Crivoliu found out the circumstances of his birth, he being a man of faith, left his home of his adoptive parents and went to go do penance for his parent's sins (incest, seriously, gross). Long story short Crivoliu ends up becoming the pope, and his parents come to confess their sin from long ago, and Crivoliu says that he is their son, has spent many years doing penance for them, that they are forgiven, and should come live with them. Really nice and pope like of Crivoliu, but honestly kind of weird. The whole basis of the story was just so weird that it stuck so heavily in my brain. This unit definitely took a strange turn from the Beauty and the Beast story.

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.