A Twist on the Traditional Tale

Before the summer term roller coaster takes off, we have paused this week to undertake some writing for a few teaching sequences that we are using in some upcoming training. Our teaching sequences are always text based, sometimes using more than one version or a set of books with a theme, but coincidentally this week we have both been working on sequences using traditional tales, or elements of them within.

In recommending recently to schools what traditional tales to cover and when, it struck us the lack of simplicity that now belies this choice. Of late, there have been a plethora of versions and spin offs of the tales we know as ‘traditional’ . Indeed, when mapping or plotting a literary entitlement within a school, we have always been keen to ensure that teachers are aware of the versions with the richest vocabulary for story telling opportunities, before looking at the alternative versions, as it makes no sense to look at a clever ‘spin off’ if the children are not aware of what the core elements of that story were initially. However it is the ‘knowledge’ of the core elements that cannot be Little Red Red Riding Hoodtaken for granted. Of course some stories are immersed within popular culture and pantomimes and companies such as Disney have helped to fix the perception of many fairy tales like sleeping beauty, Jack and the Beanstalk and Cinderella, which are now familiar in many if not most households, but this is not true of all traditional stories. The stories of Goldilocks, The Three Little Pigs and Red Riding Hood are not given to a child at birth and even families who regard these stories as a type of literary heritage, may never think to pass these stories on orally and rely therefore on nurseries and schools to do the job. During a recent Guided Reading session with a Y2 class looking at Lauren Child’s ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book?’ I asked what you might be afraid of when entering a woods? We had suggestions of dinosaurs and pirates, but yet none of wolves, and on further discussion it was apparent that nobody knew the story of little Red Riding Hood, but why would they if they had not been told a version up to this point?

The versions of these tales that were available when many of us we growing up were those published by Ladybird. Simply told, with now iconic covers, they had classic illustrations that gave a sense of history to these stories. A little while back, when needing to collect a set traditional tales for a school project, the best versions were actually published by Marks and Spencers and there was little that was of a high quality out there in terms of written word and illustrations. Thankfully this genre now appears back in vogue as nowadays there are now some wonderful retellings and versions. Emma Chichester Clark has recently produced a classically beautiful version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and we have used Lisbeth Zwerger’s Pied Piper on many occasions in training, as it is simply told without being cartoonish in form.

These stories, whether passed down to us through folklore, or penned by the Brothers Grimm, lend themselves beautifully to exploring the structure of narrative with children. Characterisation through identification of what makes a good or bad character is easy with such rich material, as is plot with the recurring themes of good versus evil, whilst of course immersed in the storybook language of stock phrases such as ‘Once upon a time’ and ‘Happily ever after’. All of these are wonderful starting points for innovation and there are some rather brilliant and exciting twists on the traditional tale that can be used with children to identify alternative points of view, modernisation and alternative endings. ‘The True Story of the Three Little Pigs’ by John Scieszka and Lane Smith is one of these and one of the teaching sequences we have written recently uses The Guardian’s 2012 award winning advert, which again uses the basic premise of The Three Little Pigs but cleverly gives an alternative point of view for how the houses were destroyed with motives for why it happened unfolding throughout. Anthony Browne’s ‘Me and You’ is a brilliant example of looking at the story through a different pair of eyes and his portrayal of Goldilocks is touching as it evokes a sympathetic response which would not have been revealed before. We also like ‘Goldilocks and just the One Bear’ by Leigh Hodgkinson, which tells the tale of the reunion between the naughty girl herself and the little bear many years after the main event.

These all give a very powerful message: that a story should evolve and change, according to audience and time, and by through exploring as many different versions of traditional tales and their twists and spin-offs, we are encouraging a future generation of authors to do the same.

You can find out some of our favourite traditional versions and some of the best twisted fairy tales in our Traditional and Twisted Tales book list.