Interesting new children's books based on traditional tales made me realize you can begin a casual course in comparative literature and art with children as young as six.
In the past year I have seen at least four new children's picture book versions of the Russian folktale of Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga is the famous Russian witch who lives in a hut with chicken legs and loves to eat children. My favorite new traditional telling is Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Brave retold by Marianna Mayer. Mayer honors magic, mystery, and words in telling a tale of a heroine who's much like Cinderella, but has pluck and courage that earn her happy ending. Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Brave's published by Morrow books with illustrations by K.Y. Craft that show one of the most frightening witches I've ever seen in a children's book.
Patricia Polacco's Babushka Baba Yaga transforms the Russian witch. Babushka Baba Yaga longs to cuddle, not eat children. Polacco's version teaches and re-invents Russian lore, gives us an endearing older heroine, and a redefinition of family.
Another interesting pairing is a traditional Rumplestiltkin with Barry Moser's new Tucker Pfeffercorn, published by Little Brown. Writer-illustrator Moser serves up Rumplestiltskin Southern style with a sassy heroine, and a fleshed out plot that makes more sense than the original. Moser's Rumplestiltskin, Tucker Pfeffercorn, is born of merging photographs of Moser's denim-jacketed two year old granddaughter with a bald-headed state trooper who "looks like he eats two year olds for breakfast."
Cinderella, the fairy tale with the most number of versions has a new incarnation in Ellen Jackson's CinderEdna. CinderEdna is Cinderella's next door neighbor. This strong resourceful girl doesn't believe in a fairy godmother, has earned money to put a dress on lawaway and knows her comfortable loafers are great for dancing. In a double ceremony she marries the princes' younger brother Rupert, laughs, jokes and plays duets on the accordion and concertina and lives more happily ever after than her beautiful, but bored neighbor, Cinderella.