The Steadfast Tin Soldier, written by Hans Christian Anderson, is a remarkable story of disability, adventure, evil, determination, and love. It isĀ a story that never fails to set children’s imagination on fire and hold them at the edge of their seats. I am a huge fan of folktales and fairytales and think the world of Hans Christian Anderson as the grandfather of the modern day fairytale. I find that folktales and fairytales often deal more trenchantly with the issues, fears, desires, problems and possibilities of the child’s world than today’s sometimes soporific and saccharine children’s literature.
This is not to say that there isn’t all sorts of sexism, racism, classism and many other problems with traditional folktales and fairytales. Sometimes I am far more disturbed by the appropriation of these stories by the “dream factories” of modern capitalism: Hollywood, Disney and other forms of cultural and ideological production and mystification. On the other hand, I take my role as a storyteller very seriously and think long hard about the stories I want to share with children, how I myself appropriate stories from different cultures and storytelling traditions for different purposes and audiences and with different ramifications, and how I might want to stay true to the story, make small changes, or transform it entirely (Older children who can read often “catch” me making changes in the story, and I always assert my right as the storyteller to tell the story the way I want to tell it).
The stories that adults tell children across different forms of media have a profound effect on how children process their experience and make sense of the world. I always try to communicate to children that just as I and other people will tell them stories, they in turn must tell their own stories that speak more directly to their experience and truth.
I hope you enjoy The Steadfast Tin Soldier, and as always talk to your children about the stories and images they encounter and are interested in. In this way your children are less likely to be the passive pawns in other people’s stories and more likely to take an active role in interpreting and shaping the dominant narratives of our time.