Precious Princess

As the only girl with five brothers, fairy tales were very important to me. Growing up surrounded by boys made me both a tomboy and extremely girly. I played sports, watched “Transformers,” and preferred G.I. Joe to Ken, but I also loved to wear frilly dresses, play house, and watch Disney movies. The classic Disney fairy tales were a very large part of my childhood. I loved them all, as did my brothers, though they may not admit it. In each story, I wanted to be the princess. Many times I would dress like them and prance around the house singing all the songs. It helped that my mom already called me a princess, Precious Princess to be exact, and bought me pretty dresses I could twirl around in. I distinctly remember having a dress just like Cinderella and Belle and a costume that looked like Jasmine’s outfit in Aladdin. Jasmine was my favorite princess, but the other classics also made a major impact on my childhood. I still love watching them and singing along. I remember all the stories and songs vividly, probably because I watched them so often. In fact, I may watch Aladdin when I finish this post.

Disney movies were not the only fairy tales in my childhood. My parents are avid readers, so we were always surrounded by books. One book in particular, a very large book of fairy tales by The Brothers Grimm, was a favorite among my brothers and me. This version was for children and therefore was less gory than the stories I later read by them, but I remember reading Red Riding Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, and Hansel and Gretel many times as a young girl. These three stories stuck with me, though I’m not sure why. Perhaps because the stories were so vivid themselves, so the images they conjured remained in my mind for a while.

A more recent fairy tale, or version of one, which I have read and will never forget is the Grimm brothers’ original version of Cinderella. We read it in my English class in eighth grade. I still remember many of the gory scenes that differ greatly from the story I familiar with from my childhood. One scene involved the step-sisters cutting their feet so they could fit in the glass slippers and getting blood everywhere. I was shocked to read this version but I think it is interesting how much Disney changed for the version everyone knows and loves.