Finding Fairy Tales

Since teaching my first TYA course about four years ago, I've been reading more about the history and critique of fairy tales and their influence on 20th century theatre for young audiences. My two oldest children have also learned to read during this time (the third is getting started) and in a family that enjoys all things Disney, it has brought about some interesting reading and discussion.

Little Red Riding Hood
from
Children's Hour with Red Riding Hood and Other Stories
Edited by Watty Piper (1922)
Retrieved from Project Gutenberg
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11592/11592-h/11592-h.htm

This summer I am revising my curriculum ahead of the TYA course I will teach at NYU in the fall. There was a bit of time between gigs yesterday, so I took a quick spin through the local library to see what I could find by Maria Tatar, Marina Warner, and Jack Zipes (among others). The catalog search (I almost wrote "card catalog") returned a wealth of resources, but only a few at that branch. I made some reserve requests and walked over to the shelves.

As I searched the shelf I noticed something interesting. Fairy tales (at 398 in the Dewey Decimal system) are preceded by books about rituals (holidays, etiquette, and weddings) and followed by books about language. That's a logic location for fairy tales, which I hadn't noticed before. As I get better footing in the world of fairy tales and folklore, I would be curious to learn more about the ways in which these areas relate. And the next time I am in the university library, I will see what precedes and follows fairy tales in the Library of Congress system.