Jewish Fairy Tales and Stories

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Look, Mom! I'm a Hero!

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In fairy tales, children are often the protagonists, and even the heroes. This does make a lot of sense,since many fairy tales have their roots as tales to be told to children, either as cautionary tales or lessons. Common forms of the child-hero are trickster figures, who use their intellect to get out of situations. “Little Thumbling”, though ridiculed by his family and seen as dumb and small, saves his siblings through his mental maturity and ability to be cunning. It is through this journey that he gains respect and saves his siblings. In the folktale "Momotaro"or "The Peach Boy", Momotaro must leave his town and his elderly parents on a quest. Featuring an antagonist in the form of an ogre just like "Little Thumbling", this story is different. In this story, Momotaro is only able to achieve his goals through the help of his animal allies, teaching lessons about how help can lead to success. His growth into adulthood is also portrayed in this fo...
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Reflections on the Class

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Over the course of this semester I have learned so much in all of my classes, and though it has been difficult some of the things that I have learned will follow me for the rest of my life. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t taken as many intensive classes during this semester so that I could have focused more on this class, because it was one of the more interesting classes I took this semester. I thought the multicultural approach to the class was particularly interesting, and I wish we had learned more about culture and the zeitgeist of each of the stories, being one who loves history and learning how cultural ideas and stories are created and developed. I think this class has both tied in a lot to what I have learned in English but also taught me something new. I never knew there was this whole realm of research done on fairy tales and psychology applied to it. I think I learned a lot about other cultures and how their tales influence culture. I also learned how fairy tales infl...
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Danielle Wendt is Good at Blogs

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I really enjoyed going through Danielle's blog posts, and it definitely gave me ideas for my own. Danielle's blog is a lot more professional than mine - all of her titles are like titles of papers, for example: "Giving Kids Relatable Heroes: The Role of Tricksters" and "The Importance of Luck: An Analysis of the 'Rags to Riches' Motif". All of her blogs are long and descriptive, each having more than one paragraph. She frequently uses pictures, all of which are aesthetically pleasing and fit with what she's talking about in each paragraph. She also provides links to all of her pictures, citing where she got them. I think that this is a great idea and something I hadn't thought of; I will try to also do this in the future. In her most recent blog post, she discusses the psychology in fairy tale trickster stories, and how the role of the trickster figure helps children. She made excellent points about the powers of escapism and how stories can ...
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