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Another Grimm year!



                                 

Olga Ernst wrote Fairytales from the land of the Wattle in 1904 at the age of sixteen. Ernst cleverly placed the old world faerie folk of Europe that she knew from listening to the Grimm brothers fairytales and placed them into the new Australian landscape delighting Australian children. Ernst created a fairyland that Australian children could relate to and she says in her book introduction, "These are written in the hope that they will... win approval of those to whom a loving study of tree and flower, bird and insect, and the association of familiar elements of old world fairy-lore with Australian surroundings, commend themselves.
Iremember watching videos of Snow White (1937) (Too scary for children when released. My grandparents left my mother with a babysitter), Cinderella (1950)and Sleeping Beauty (1959) but haven't seen The Princess and the Frog (2009), an adaptation of "The Frog Prince" or Tangled (2010), an adaptation of "Rapunzel". 
The Brothers Grimm published first volume of "Grimm's Fairy Tales" in 1812 in Kassel.  In 2012, Kassel will celebrate the 200th anniversary. It seems like the motion picture world is gearing up to celebrate too.  Is Julia Roberts really cast as the Evil Queen in Tarsem Singh's The Brothers Grimm: Snow White (2012)?  Six months later, movie gossips suggest that Universal Studios will release Snow White and the Huntsman (2012). It is also rumoured that Paramount Pictures is working on Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2012). A truly Grimm year!   
What else is out there? It's intriguing to see the variety of adaptions of the tales: audio, cartoon, horror genre, movies (such as Beastly and the recently released Red Riding Hood) and now interactive digital worlds. The publicity for Simsala Grimm says, 'Visit other worlds. It is much better than to read about them. Go and see ... Hansel and Gretel.'
What would the Grimms think of these changes to storytelling from auditory to visual to kineasthetic (oral, print, interactive)?

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