Last night I read ‘Beauty and the Beast’, a collection of historic Animal Bride fairy tales and folklore. It’s a powerful topic full of some fairly disturbing stories. Many of them were meant to indoctrinate young women into the thought that it was their duty to sacrifice themselves in an arranged marriage with a brute of a husband in order to help their family.
This historical perspective is a good topic area to study. That being said, I have serious issues with the publisher marketing this as a “book of the movie” and making it seem as if the book is ABOUT the movie storyline (and suitable for kids to read on their own). Instead, the text is clearly aimed at highly literate adults, and the stories themselves should probably be read by parent-and-child together to discuss the historic context of them and why men are raping women, raping cows, raping … raping … oh, and killing. If, you know, she isn’t quite pretty enough.
http://www.lisashea.com/cinderellafairytale/bookreviews/beautyandthebeast.html
