Choosing the best story books for your child is a tricky task. Most often, we end up buying similar books from the same publisher which has the most elaborate collection in that school book fair or the nearby book store. We don’t really pay attention to how the child may interpret the story and its probable impacts on a young mind. I know of a lot of parents who don’t believe that story books can have lifelong impacts, and hence through this post, I wish to bring out the subtle difference in two stories, yet the contrast in what a child can learn from them.
Story 1: Once upon a time there was a princess who sang beautiful songs and cooked yummy pies. The wicked queen didn’t like the princess and wanted to kill her. The princess runs away and makes friends with seven dwarfs. She sings and dances with them and gives lovely goodbye kisses when they go to work. She then cleans the house and prepares supper. The wicked queen comes back in a disguise and makes the princess eat a poisoned apple. The princess goes in deep sleep, only to be woken up by a prince who takes her in his horse to be his queen.
Story 2: Once upon a time a dinosaur is studying in a school and wants to be the best dinosaur there. Every year he learns something new-how to fly and how to throw fire through his mouth. Each failed attempt of his results in a fall and a bruise. A princess, who is casually dressed, helps him with his wounds each time. But she isn’t dressed like a princess, so he doesn’t know that his friend is actually a princess. As part of his last lesson, he is supposed to kidnap a princess. His friend asks him to kidnap her and take her with him to his land. He does that, earning the coveted gold star from his teacher. The princess is very happy coming there, she always wanted to be a doctor and starts treating other dinosaurs during their sick days. One day a prince comes to rescue her. She refuses to go with him, saying she doesn’t like dressing up in fancy clothes and sitting like a princess and that she would like to be a doctor. The prince gets happy as he wanted to be a doctor too and the dinosaur says he would be their flying ambulance and take them from one patient to another. The teacher excitedly remarks, what a wonderful career to have!
I grew up reading the likes of Story 1, and I grew up fine. I live a happy, contended life, with a flourishing career and a blessed personal life. The subconscious mind of mine, under the impression of story 1, would know that there would always be a happy ending; that even the best of princesses had to struggle a bit to get their dreamy land life. That the prince always came for the best girl in the town, that the animals and birds sang around with only the most likeable girl of the area, that if you keep on believing, your dreams would come true. These thoughts are part of me, they are my character and there’s no doubt that they have had a strong influence on how I think and the what I do.
But I wish I grew up on Story 2.
It talks about a girl’s aspiration to be someone, other than just a good-looking princess. It talks about the importance of having a career, of having to work hard to get a career. While, there’s nothing wrong to grow up thinking you enjoy singing and cooking and being the most likeable girl in the town, there’s the missing element of being able to think of how to contribute to the society, be a spoke in the wheel of the economy.
To me, this realisation came quite late. I’m glad it did.
But to all young girls out there, who are in their formative years, I hope and pray that they grow up with a career aspiration in mind. Along with all the nice song & dance sequences running in their minds in their fancy clothes and beautiful faces, I wish that they know that the money that they want to spend on these dream sequences would be their own hard-earned one.
Stories shape up our personality, there are characters we want to be, there are situations we want to be in, our mind imagines scenarios and plans our steps basis the underlying story-play running in our minds. All that starts happening right from the tender age of 3 years. What we make our kids see and read is what they think and do. As parents, it’s important we know what we are feeding their minds.
A confession before I leave you thinking of the story books that you read out to your children. Till recently, I believed that reading out stories to children was important, it helps build their character and their communication skills. But I didn’t think much about what they were reading. As long as it was a book, I was a happy mother. However, my recent association with Little Reader’s Nook, gave me the visibility to the wonderful world of books that are different from the normal books we make them buy at every book shop. There are some great English classics, loved all over the world by children, which not only tells them a great story, but teaches them much more. It’s upon us, as parents, to find those treasures and expose our kids to them.
After all there’s a world of difference in Story 1 and Story 2!
Title Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
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