Real princesses

Stories may help kids deal with the scariness of the real world, but Katherine likes a little more reality when it comes to one particular subject: princesses. Last fall I was taking a picture of Gregory on the soccer field, and when I came back to my chair, I caught the end of a conversation Katherine was having with my friend, the mother of one of Gregory’s team mates. As I sat down I heard Katherine say, “they take away kids’ imaginations” — my friend raised her eyebrows and explained, “we’re talking about Disney Princesses.”

When asked to sum up her views on D.P.’s in one word, Katherine tilted her head to one side, thought, and declared, “daft.”

Now I admit, my kids have outside-the-mainstream views on Disney, but I think they have sound reasons for those views. Gregory has long felt, and his sister heartily agrees, that Disney storytelling is completely lacking in subtlety, resulting in films which are unnecessarily scary and over dramatized. They’re right. There’s no reason, for example, for an animated villain to fill a huge movie screen while melodramatic music gets the audience’s hearts pounding. These are children’s movies, for heaven’s sake.

Kids are able to grasp the nuances of good storytelling; they don’t need to be condescended to with such histrionics. I read the Chronicles of Narnia aloud for the first time when Katherine was only 4 or 5, and she had no trouble following the complex plots. She also had no desire to see a movie version, even when she was older. She said she could already see Narnia in her imagination.

And that’s Katherine’s main objection to D.P.’s — that the proliferation of Disney’s princess theme in every store aisle (seriously — from snacks to home decor, toys to costumes) ruins the imaginative fun of figuring out what princesses might be like. Kids are naturally savvy consumers if we protect them from excessive marketing. They know when they’re over-loaded, and Katherine was reacting to this over abundance of D.P. paraphernalia in a local store when she chatted with my friend at the soccer field.

Gregory and Katherine have also noticed and asked us why Disney seems to dominate popular imagination in general. It’s a good question. One answer is that they probably reach every consumer in America (and beyond) at one point or another, even those who don’t consciously seek their products. Scroll down to Walt Disney Corporation in the drop down box on this page to see why.

I’m perfectly happy that my kids prefer their own imaginations, and I support their resistance to the Disneyfication of our culture. There isn’t really one version of any fairy or folktale — dozens of Cinderella stories exist, from cultures all over the world, for example — and good stories are not diminished by their retelling. I don’t begrudge Disney or any author the right to retell stories. But how many people know any Cinderella but Disney’s? It’s Disney’s massive marketplace power that allows them to dominate the stories they tell. Katherine’s point is that some kids may never know any kind of princess but Disney’s, and that, sadly, limits the imagination.

Let’s face it, the D.P.’s wear frilly dresses, sing prettily, and fall in love — but as Katherine points out, that’s not necessarily what real princesses do. To be fair to Disney, they do that in some versions of their respective fairy tales. Katherine prefers strong female protagonists, like the practical, smart, capable girls in Ella Enchanted and the other Princess Tales by Gail Carson Levine, which she read last year. These are fairy tale re-tellings as well; they are actually described that way right on the backs of the books.

A further bit of evidence that Disney’s influence permeates our culture and shapes the stories we know: Ms. Levine contributes to a series of books called Disney Fairies. I found this galling quote about the series on Wikipedia which originated from a Disney corporate site (locked to outsiders), which represents all that I find unfortunate and even somewhat chilling about Disney’s version of storytelling:

“The concept of the Disney Fairies, which is rooted in Disney’s rich heritage of children’s storytelling, builds on the popularity of the famous Disney character, Tinker Bell . . .”

Excuse me? Ever hear of a guy named J. M. Barrie and his creative work, Peter Pan? As I pondered how Disney could have the nerve to claim Tink as their own, I realized two things: 1) they probably bought her and 2) Disney Fairies books are not based on J.M. Barrie’s Tinker Bell, they are based on the animated Disney version. So they are telling the truth as they created it: Tinker Bell is no longer, in the popular imagination, the fairy born in a book published in 1911 (and performed as a play in 1904), she is a Disney brand. It seems disingenuous, however, not to give a nod to Tinker Bell’s original creator.

That’s why I’d like to avoid Disney’s “rich heritage of children’s storytelling.” I respect Gail Carson Levine’s right to publish with whomever she wishes, and I’m glad Disney Fairies fans will get to read her Newbery quality writing, if they can find her books (other authors wrote most of the series ) among the myriad products in the Disney Fairies line.

I’m no scrooge — I am sure Disney brings joy to many kids. In the spirit of full disclosure, I must report that Katherine read one of Levine’s Disney Fairies books and liked it well enough (although she hasn’t sought out the rest of the series). I personally prefer my storytelling to be a little less coldly calculated to entice me to buy copious branded tie-in products.

A glance at my bookshelves will tell you I do my fair share to support the economy and I am as susceptible to the next person to some forms of marketing. But I find Disney Fairies’ shameless co-opting of Tinkerbell with no reference to the author who created her, and its accompanying franchise branding data , rather Machiavellian.

But I digress. Although she enjoyed Levine’s strong princess stories, Katherine was still not so sure they were representative of authentic royals. Somewhere along the line, Katherine asked about actual princesses, we poked around for some answers, discussed it a bit, she seemed satisfied, and that was that. Still, she wondered, as I myself wondered at length when I was a child, what is it like to be a real princess?

Which brings me, in rambling fashion, to what Katherine is reading. At a used book sale last year we picked up Royal Diaries: Cleopatra VII, Daughter of the Nile, Egypt 57 B.C. It turns out the Royal Diaries are a series about real royal girls from various times and places. Katherine enjoys history, and these books bring it to life. After she finished Cleopatra VII, we looked for more of the series at the library, and she has so far read Marie Antoinette, Austria-France 1769 and is nearly through with Mary Queen of Scots, France 1553. Last weekend we went to a different library branch, and came home with more Royal Diaries about girls in Korea in 595, Haiti in 1490, Mesoamerica in 749, England in 1544, and Russia in 1743.

Katherine says her favorite thing about the Royal Diaries is that the girls tell their own stories in the first person. She told me she uses this point of view when writing her own stories, because she really likes the main character telling the reader what’s happening. It’s definitely a lively way to learn history, and a time honored one — all good scholars consult primary sources, such as letters and diaries, when they write a history book.

Of course, the Royal Diaries are historical fiction, but the series is based on solid research, so they’re a little closer to portraying real princesses. So far, in the titles Katherine has read, the main characters are in their teens during the time period covered in the stories. That’s appealing too — these books give peek into life as a young royal, but they don’t tell the whole story, so they leave readers curious to find out more.

Perhaps my fondness for making connections has rubbed off on Katherine as well, because she told me yesterday that she found it interesting that both Marie Antoinette and Mary, Queen of Scots had to take ballet when they were young, but that Mary hated it. And speaking of connections, we just discovered that Scholastic offers crafts and activities related to some of the Royal Diaries on their website. We are looking forward to making Egyptian candy and trying some of the other projects.

I anticipate Katherine looking further into some of the places and time periods she learns about in the books, too. One of my favorite things about self-directed learning is the time and space it allows to generate one’s own”big picture” of knowledge and understanding. Katherine seems hard wired for this — I often find her looking something up that she remembers from a book or magazine that relates to her current reading, or she’ll stop me as I read aloud and rush off to get some related thing she’s remembered. We all appreciate the multi-dimensional, far ranging view of a subject that our family’s life learning provides.

Scholastic commissioned some very good authors for this series — for example, Kathryn Lasky wrote Mary, Queen of Scots and Laurence Yep wrote Lady of Ch’iao Kuo, Warrior of the South, set in China in 531. Both Lasky and Yep are multi-award winners. One of the best ways for a writer to improve her craft is to read talented authors’ books. So as part of my own life learning, I think before Katherine finishes, I’ll read some of the Royal Diaries too! In fact, just looking at Katherine, stretched out on the sofa, lost in another time and place, makes me long for a whole day, with a stack of books and nothing pressing to do but read.