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Tolstoy’s Children’s Stories

162 points by smiljo 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kulix425 6y ago
really uplifting when everyone needed it the most. thank you
ginko 6y ago
This seems to be pretty much par for the course for 19th century children's books. Compare them to the original versions of H.C. Andersen's fairy tales or Hoffmann's Struwwelpeter[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter
- brummm 6y ago
  My gandma used to read the Struwwelpeter stories to me as a child. I would actually disagree with the premise of the article that they make children want to die. They actually are supposed to frighten children into behaving properly.
  - alpaca128 6y ago
    I actually enjoyed the stories back then and they didn't really work when it came to changing my behaviour. Probably mostly because I just didn't grasp the seriousness of the bloodier parts.
    - brummm 6y ago
      The one that would always stick out to me was the one of the child that doesn't want to eat its soup and then dies (Suppenkasper).
    - derefr 6y ago
      > Probably mostly because I just didn't grasp the seriousness of the bloodier parts. And this is why the original folktales emphasize the gore. You can basically chop off the last quarter of any folktale and replace it with a direction to the story-teller, i.e. "[and now you shall carry on about bad things happening to the child protagonist, in as visceral a manner as you have the mind and words to render, until the children listening have been thoroughly traumatized as to the consequences of their misbehavior.]"
  - ginko 6y ago
    Same here. The thing is I don't think they're just supposed to frighten children. I can remember having lots of fun getting those stories read to me by my grandmother. Of course they're dark, but they're also comically exaggerated. There's certainly a reason why Struwwelpeter has been popular for generations.
  - kick 6y ago
    "Tolstoy's Children's Stories Will Devastate Your Children and Make You Want to Die"
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
    I am willing to agree. I read Grimm really early. The purpose of those stories is not some sort of cutesy money grab slash temporary babysitter to keep the little ones occupied long enough for parents to do what needs to be done. That said, I understand the reason for both. Both are needed, but dismissing those stories, because they are scaring kids is.. it feels like a rehash of the self-esteem movement.
- user982 6y ago
  When you say “the original versions of H.C. Andersen's fairy tales,” you mean as compared to modern (Disney) adaptations, right? I know the Grimm tales were self-sanitized in later editions, but haven’t heard that of Andersen's.
  - ginko 6y ago
    Yeah, I was mainly referring to the later adaptions. Don't think there were different versions.
- will_pseudonym 6y ago
  This is the 2nd time I've heard of Struwwelpeter. The first time was on The Office (US). https://youtu.be/OeIi4ni1LvY?t=67 https://youtu.be/OeIi4ni1LvY?t=67
downerending 6y ago
I'm still vaguely haunted by Never Tease a Weasel. Seen through children's eyes, probably a lot of books targeting them are rather creepy.
- ertian 6y ago
  But it's never what you'd expect. The stuff that bothers parents skips right past the kids a lot of the time, but strange little things will freak a kid right out. My son refuses to read some books (going so far as to hide one of them), but I have no idea why; at the same time there are stories I find downright creepy that he'll request over and over.
riazrizvi 6y ago
I think classic folk tales were more macabre, but since consumers today are not interested in them so much it's somewhat lost to us. We have Grimm's Fairy Stories, but as the author points out, in most modern editions they edit out the darker ones. We have this Tolstoy collection because he is a famous author and people are interested in his stories. And guess what, they are super dark. Is that because Tolstoy was dark? No, it's because the traditional stories of the time were much darker. Here's an example of a Yiddish Folktale: Moyshele and Sheyndele Once upon a time there was a poor woodcutter who had a wife and two small children, a boy and a girl. The boy was called Moyshele, the girl Sheyndele. The woodcutter’s wife died and he married a second wife who was a very wicked woman and a cruel stepmother to the children. One day the woodcutter left the house to chop wood in the forest, and the stepmother got ready to go to market to do the Sabbath shopping. Before she left, she gave the children some food, putting Moyshele’s in a pot and Sheyndele’s on a plate. She said, “Moyshele, if you break the pot I’ll chop off your head, So you’d better not.” She told Sheyndele, “Sheyndele, Sheyndele, just you wait, I’ll chop off your legs if you break this plate.” Then she slammed the door and went to market. The children were afraid to eat lest they break something, but the rooster suddenly flew up on the table and knocked over the pot. It fell to the ground and broke into teeny-tiny pieces. Moyshele, seeing them, was terrified and began to cry. Sheyndele comforted him, saying, “Hush, Moyshele.Don’t cry.” And she took the shards of the pot and pushed them into a corner of the room. When the stepmother came home, she couldn’t find the pot. “Where is the pot?” she asked Moyshele. “The rooster broke it,” he said. The stepmother was very angry, but she pretended that nothing was the matter. Later she said to Moyshele, “Come with me and I’ll wash your hair.” So Moyshele went with her. She took him into another room and cut off his head, after which she cooked it for supper. When the woodcutter came back from the forest he said, “Where is Moyshele?” “I don’t know,” said the stepmother. Then they sat down at the table and ate the soup and the meat. Sheyndele, unaware of what she was eating, sucked the marrow from the bones and threw them out the window. A little mound of earth covered the bones and when the glad summer came again, a new Moyshele grew up out of it. Moyshele stood there on his little mound until, seeing a tailor pass by, he called, “Tailor, tailor, make me a pair of trousers and I’ll sing you a song: Murdered by my mother, Eaten by my father, and Sheyndele, when they were done, Sucked the marrow from my bones And threw them out the window.” The tailor, hearing the song, pitied him and made him a pair of trousers. Moyshele put them on, and then a shoemaker went by. Moyshele called, “Shoemaker, shoemaker, make me a pair of boots and I’ll sing you a song: Murdered by my mother, Eaten by my father, and Sheyndele, when they were done, Sucked the marrow from my bones And threw them out the window.” The shoemaker, hearing the song, pitied him and made him a pair of boots. Moyshele put them on, and then a hatmaker went by. Moyshele called, “Hatmaker, hatmaker, make me a hat and I’ll sing you a song: Murdered by my mother, Eaten by my father, and Sheyndele, when they were done, Sucked the marrow from my bones And threw them out the window. The hatmaker, hearing the song, pitied him and made him a hat. And Moyshele put it on and ran off to school. One log there, One log gone. As for my tale— My tale is done. - Weinreich, Beatrice. Yiddish Folktales > I’m all for showing your kids reality, and bringing them to the hospital or the wake or the funeral. But Tolstoy’s tales read more like an undigested rage at the world, unfortunately misdirected at children. Yeah no. What's the point of such a teaching story as the one above? Perhaps it's a story to teach resilience; Even if the world treats you so badly, that it sort of chews you up and spits you out, you can still make your way, though perhaps it might just be by telling your sad story and playing on people's sympathies.
smiljo 6y ago
Did we break their site? :( Edit: seems to be back up with everything in order.
crazygringo 6y ago
> Tolstoy’s tales are unusual in that they lack the depth of relationships — and even hatred — that the old folk tales have. There are no stories of wicked stepparents or lurking dangers in the woods. Instead, there is a kind of dead-end romanticism: bad thing happens; a person is sad; end of story. There isn’t even that much to talk to your children about: trees are nice, don’t cut them down so much? People are not all that happy? Wow. The author seems to be missing the morals entirely. Just from browsing their story descriptions, the lessons seem to be about, respectively: - The overwhelming power of grief, which you may wind up suffering when you choose to love - Don't be tricked by people trying to get you to enjoy yourself in a dangerous situation - The feeling that makes you uncomfortable destroying beauty is a kind of conscience, so listen to it, for there is an intrinsic connection between beauty and life - Happiness is misunderstood by nearly all -- it doesn't come from material possessions, it comes from within - People are supported by those around them, not diminished, so don't treat those who surround you as unimportant or take them for granted - If you tame an animal, you're responsible for their well-being. You can't "go back" or shirk your responsibilities, so think twice before you take on a personal commitment or you may generate suffering you never intended Writers for the LA Review of Books are generally... supposed to be literary and really good at finding meaning in texts, heck even way more meaning than the author sometimes intended. This author seems to be being deliberately obtuse about these stories. I'm not sure why. But these stories seem incredibly stimulating food-for-thought to talk with your children about.
rosstex 6y ago
Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop. When the wind blows, the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. And down will come Baby, cradle and all. or It’s raining, it’s pouring, The old man’s snoring. He went to bed And he bumped his head And he couldn’t get up in the morning. Tell me these ain't dark.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  You’d think the author of the article would have thought about other contemporary stories and mentioned them on their article...
- telesilla 6y ago
  And relevant today: Ring-a-ring o'roses A pocket full of posies A-tissue, a-tissue We all fall down (actually this is not at all related to the plague but it makes a more scary story if we say it does)
billfruit 6y ago
Not directly related, but many Soviet era children's stories, by Sergei Mikalkhov, et al are very good and brilliantly illustrated.
rectang 6y ago
> * Tolstoy wrote them; they couldn’t be that bad. Now I sincerely wish I had never touched them.* The reviewer is Disney's useful idiot. Gotta stay away from Tolstoy — it's not just disturbing, it's actually dangerous! Only Bowdlerized and Disneyfied happy happy joy joy for your kids! And if you aren't perpetually happy all your life, it's not not that the universe is indifferent to human suffering, it's that there's something wrong with you. > There isn’t even that much to talk to your children about: trees are nice, don’t cut them down so much? People are not all that happy? Yeah. Maybe "People are not all that happy" would be a good thing for kids to learn.
- notyourday 6y ago
  Old Disney stuff was dark. The fluffy versions are relatively recent.
  - ken 6y ago
    How far do I have to go back? I know Sleeping Beauty (1959) is definitely much sanitized from the stories it's based on.
    - notyourday 6y ago
      Thirties and forties.
      - coribuci 6y ago
        Snow white is dark ??? Disney is brainwash for children.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
    The fluffy versions sell. How popular would Little Mermaid have been, if at the end, Ariel ended up as sea foam?
    - coribuci 6y ago
pmontra 6y ago
> The publicists of the most recent edition issued by Simon & Schuster, who seemingly did not read it, write of this book, “children will be able to take away important lessons, as well as laugh at silly mishaps and characters, from this timeless collection.” This is possible but unfortunately the author of the article decided not to answer his children: > “Daddy,” my stunned four-year-old son asked, “why did the lion die?” > “Daddy Daddy,” my daughter asked, still wondering about the now-dead lion’s lifestyle, “why did the people feed the lion puppies?” Instead he "took the book away and hid it from" them. Not good parenting IHMO. Don't read from that book again, OK, but find an answer to those questions.
- irrational 6y ago
  Find an answer? The lion starved to death before he could pass through all the stages of grief. Loose pets are free meat for the lion. Neither of these answers would be satisfying to children. Taking the book away and hiding it is good parenting. Better parenting would be reading the book ahead of time and never sharing it with them to begin with.
- aaronharnly 6y ago
  I happen to be a close personal friend of the author, and happen to know that he answers deep and difficult questions from his children very directly and well; and that he allows them to see all facets of life (an eagle eating a mouse; a deer not surviving the winter) as a matter of course. Perhaps the paragraph is simply lighthearted :)
neonate 6y ago
https://archive.md/yBlli https://archive.md/yBlli
dan-robertson 6y ago
In case you skimmed the article after the first few paragraphs, note that the point is not that the stories are sad or grim but that they are only sad or grim. There is no moral or hate that leads to things happening. The characters just lives who’ve are sad. I also read the article as lighthearted and humorous and so assumed some things may have been exaggerated it embellished slightly for effect.
- ginko 6y ago
  Knowing Tolstoy's other writings I get the feeling that these one paragraph summaries don't do his prose justice.
  - romwell 6y ago
    I read the original story for "The Lion and the Puppy", and indeed, the summary doesn't do the story justice. The story is more grim and heart-wrecking. And there is no obvious take-away, everything just sucks. But it's a story of a loss that one can relate to. Depressed people are known to listen to sad songs, and get relief from that. I'm not in a very good place now, and reading the Lion and the Puppy story in Russian somehow was a relief. It melted the numbness away. And that's what Tolstoy was going for, perhaps. No ham-fisted morals. Just carefully crafted vignettes of grim life. I do think that Tolstoy never had an appreciation of the many dimensions of human happiness. "Every happy family is alike, but unhappy families are miserable in their own ways", he wrote. I disagree; I see commonality in misery, and it's the path to happiness that has to be crafted and often ends up unique. But I digress.
    - harryf 6y ago
      > And that's what Tolstoy was going for, perhaps. No ham-fisted morals. Just carefully crafted vignettes of grim life. Which is great and a meaning in itself. Much of what’s grim in life happens without deeper meaning. Terrible things happen to those that don’t deserve it and terrible people don’t get what they deserve. The only thing is to accept that that’s how it often is. Which is not a bad thing to expose children to IMO
ken 6y ago
> I’m all for showing your kids reality I really don't think that's why children's stories used to be macabre. Nobody ever claimed these were accurate representations of reality.
1f60c 6y ago
Is the site down?
friedxenon 6y ago
Why do headlines all sound like they're written by teenage girls now, even when they're written by grown men?
recursivedoubts 6y ago
The Gigantic Turnip is an delightful children's book. I wore that thing to the spine with my kids: https://www.amazon.com/Gigantic-Turnip-Aleksei-Tolstoy/dp/1905236581 https://www.amazon.com/Gigantic-Turnip-Aleksei-Tolstoy/dp/19...
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
There have been lots of comments about how dark children’a books were. But, back then, children’s lives were pretty dark. With the high infant and childhood mortality, a good proportion of children had lost a brother or sister. Given maternal mortality, many children had probably lost a mother in childbirth. Given the nature of farmwork and the primitive nature of medicine, many children probably had a father, uncle, etc who was killed or main in an accident. And that is before you consider the frequent wars in which soldiers roamed across the land raping, pillaging, and killing. Death would have been all around children.
- mhb 6y ago
  Nowadays everyone's wrong on the internet, but that doesn't mean I want to read a book about it.
superimposition 6y ago
Here's free collection of Tolstoy's Fables for Children https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/leo-tolstoys-fables-for-children-1904 https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/leo-tolstoys-fable...
lihaciudaniel 6y ago
>Anna Karenina’s suicide scene spoilers on side note, isn't Tolstoy famous for being a Schopenhaeur influenced writers why did he had 13 children? He is a great writer nontheless
darkerside 6y ago
> But frequently those stories are redeemed by a depth which feels archetypal: when Rapunzel’s prince falls from her tower and blinds himself in the rose bushes below, his blindness appears to have a meaning — it’s not just gratuitous bloodshed. If I doubted my dismissal of this article, I felt vindicated by this line. Is the author really so blind as to believe that popular fairy tale endings are archetypal for any reason beyond the fact that they became popular? They were just as nasty and surprising back then, and it's only repeated listenings and social acceptance that has made them appear to be any more child-appropriate than a screaming, dying tree. FWIW, I generally believe kids are way more resilient to any of these things than we think they are. Like the poplar tree, in trying to protect them, we lead them to their own downfall.
wallstprog 6y ago
I much preferred the original title of the post -- why change it?
ivanhoe 6y ago
Those books shouldn't be judged by today's norms. They were not written for the children (nor parents... especially not parents) of today, but for children back then who lived in a completely different world. For instance, in the version of Cinderella by Charles Perrault - the version that we all know - one of the evil stepsisters was advised by her mother to cut off her toes in order to fit the slipper. She almost fools the prince, but doves warn him about blood dripping from her foot. He then goes back again and tries the slipper on the other sister. She cut off part of her heel in order to get her foot in the slipper, and again the prince is fooled. While riding with her to the king's castle, the doves alert him again about the blood on her foot. How about that for a good night story?
- copperx 6y ago
  Aren't we and our children exposed to much more violence, blood, and plain evilness in media nowadays? I don't understand how people in those times would be less sensitive to such themes.
  - lainga 6y ago
    I think the operative term is "evilness" - if you are a moderately wealthy westerner in this century, violence and bloodshed are things you have relegated to seeing in media, and not an unavoidable part of life
    - bscphil 6y ago
      > violence and bloodshed And ideally, most of that sanitized away by the media which just talks numbers, shows air strikes from 50 km away, and tells you how many "insurgents" were killed today.
  - realo 6y ago
    Hum... Mozart's father (Leopold) took his son and daughter to a public hanging ‘for a jolly treat one free afternoon’. That would not work, nowadays... https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marvel-of-mozart-s-letters https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marvel-of-mozart-s-l...
goto11 6y ago
Important point many are missing: Folktales were not originally for children. They were told among adults after children had gone to sleep. But when folklorists (like the Grimm brothers) started collecting and publishing folk tales, it became a trend to publish sanitized edition for children. Read something like the Arabian Nights tales in an uncensored version - these were clearly not intended for children anymore than 50 Shades of Grey are for children. The children's editions are heavily sanitized. I suspect their change into children literature was because of cultural changes - educated 19th century adults couldn't take folktales serious anymore (except as anthropological studies) and found them childish. The same way that 19th century popular literature like Dumas and Verne became children's books in the 20th century. Walt Disney is often criticized in this context, but both Snow White and Cinderella are actually pretty faithful to the source material. Cinderella is just based on the Charles Perrault version of the story, not the Grimm version which contain a lot more maiming.
- jan_Inkepa 6y ago
  For those interested in seeing the scope/variation of cinderella stories, there’s a book “cinderella; three hundred and forty-five variants” https://archive.org/details/cu31924007918299 https://archive.org/details/cu31924007918299 that is ... I wouldn’t recommend reading it cover-to-cover like I did, but there are some interesting variants hidden in it!
- dannygarcia 6y ago
  > Folktales were not originally for children. I learned this the hard way. I purchased a beautifully made "Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales" to read to my then toddler. There are some particularly disturbing stories but I was surprised by how many were flat out nonsensical or silly (like The Story of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn Fear [0]). It's fascinating to read these in their (translated) original form. Not your typical bedtime story. [0] https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm004.html https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm004.html
  - MichailP 6y ago
    It kinda makes sense to me. In the end he learned to shudder with his SO (she did a weird trick but is it that weird?)
yters 6y ago
"Ring around the rosy" is about the plague. "12 days of Christmas" and other tales and sings have hidden Christian symbolism due to persecution.
- abiogenesis 6y ago
  That might actually be a myth: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ring-around-rosie/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ring-around-rosie/
hy56 6y ago
> If you do this, be sure to read something lighter afterward, like perhaps Anna Karenina’s suicide scene, or a biography of Sylvia Plath Nobody, including the author, seems to have mentioned the cultural aspect in all this. Allow me: Q: What is the difference between a Russian optimist and a Russian pessimist? A: A Russian pessmist thinks that things can't get any worse. A Russian optimist thinks they not only can, but will.
- blankton 6y ago
  Im currently reading Archipel Gulag from Alexander Solschenitzyn and that joke sounds quite familliar. The reality of the past century in Russia really proved optimists wrong. Devestating to read that book. It literally puts me on breaks to just sit and think. Sad that humans are capable of such cruelty.
  - coribuci 6y ago
    Keep in mind that this book was written in USA
    - lostinroutine 6y ago
      Actually, Solzhenitsyn was still residing in the USSR at the time of completion of the book.
galaxyLogic 6y ago
Check out the Mioomins, good for children and adults alike. The series starts with books that are allegories for World War II like "The Moomins and the Great Flood" and "Comet in Moominland". Good reading in these pandemic times not gory but all about seriousnes of the world we live in and how small humans and families can cope with that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomins
yters 6y ago
The author knows old kids tales are violent, but there is a meaning to thr tragedy. Tolstoy's stories are just meaninglessly violent and tragic.
- xabotage 6y ago
  Assuming "meaningless" truly is an apt description for them, I actually think this makes Tolstoy's stories seem all the more intriguing. Most violence and tragedy in life is meaningless, we humans ascribe meaning to it. It's sometimes fun to read a fictional piece and contemplate why the themes resonate with me, without having a ham-handed, prefabricated meaning shoved down my throat. Modernized fairy tales (and almost all modern fiction) are not intended to confront the consumer with these kinds of emotional/intellectual obstacles without a moralistic guide. This often makes it suitable for children, but I wonder if we underestimate children's ability to confront this kind of ambiguity (but that doesn't necessarily mean we should read Tolstoy's stories to them, or only ever offer ambiguity as a moral socialization strategy).
  - yters 6y ago
    Meaningless violence is too easy, so is ham fisted moralizing. True classics find some kind of meaning, even in the meaninless tragedy of life, like the Iliad.
    - ksdale 6y ago
      I grew up watching Disney-type stuff, and as I got older, it was off-putting to encounter stories that didn't seem to have a "point." A bunch of stuff happens and then you're required to just accept the utter lack of resolution. I know that some people view that lack of a resolution as "meaningless," and I'm not accusing you of that, but sometimes the lack of an obvious lesson is the lesson. People die, conflicts go unresolved, life goes on until it doesn't and sometimes all we can do is accept it.
    - xabotage 6y ago
      Agreed, I think the secret is often a kind of subtlety that can often be confused with meaninglessness. For example, the first time I read "Of Mice and Men", I found the "meaningless" suffering to be infuriating - how could this book possibly be considered a classic? - until I later understood more context around the novel's time period and message, and realized it was only my juvenile tastes and expectations that made it seem meaningless (no happy ending? What is this tripe?) I doubt Tolstoy wrote his stories without some kind of purpose, but I agree it would be a mistake to try too hard looking for meaning in case he just felt like writing up some sad shit.
quotha 6y ago
Those stories sound awesome, my kids would love them!
ConanRus 6y ago
Actually, as Russian i know that most of classic Russian literature (before revolution of 1917) is highly depressing. I was attending a school while USSR was still alive, and even with relatively small number of classic russian books passed thru Soviet censorship, it was always like this: sad and depressing. Tolstoy, Nekrasov, Dostoevsky, Chekhov - no difference.
Igelau 6y ago
I'll have to check it out. I've always liked the unsanitized endings. The wolf fell upon Red and ate her -- the end. The wolf fell down the chimney and into the stew, and the smartest pig ate him... probably along with a few pieces of his brothers. There's one in the Grimm Brothers called "The Knapsack, the Hat, and the Horn" that's an incredibly bleak fable about power and corruption.
skylarchunk 6y ago
For children or for adults, the fatalist style of Tolstoy is what lends him the unmistakable charm. A part of our being, I think, will always desire to be liberated from the norm of not discussing pity or death without any moral undertone. Life and violence can be sad and violent, Tolstoy reminds us.
ertian 6y ago
I don't really agree with the author at all. His examples all seem like meaningful stories. The lion in the zoo? He lives off other animals, but when he stops to get to know one he becomes so attached he can't live without it. Could be a simple message about animal cruelty (IIRC, Tolstoy was vegetarian?). Could be a parable about aristocrats & peasants, or capitalists and workers. Escape of the Dancing Bear? The bear was recaptured because he fell into old habits. Be careful not to do the same. Death of the Cherry Tree? Could just be a message that all things are living, stop and consider the damage you're causing. The blasé attitude of the woodcutter is shocking: people can get used to anything. Possibly an analogy for war or other cruelty which we casually accept. The King and the Shirt: money doesn't buy happiness. It's not sad, the poor man is legitimately happy. Possessions and worldly ties can bring unhappiness. And it's ironic and thought-provoking, for kids. The Old Poplar: obvious lessons about family ties. Don't send grandpa to a home. And a neat lesson on systems: the obvious, common sense approach backfired because things were more complex and interdependent than they looked at first sight. The Little Bird: some things are meant to be wild. Some things, when done, can't be undone. I honestly kinda like these stories. Not sure I'd read them to my 4-year-old, though.
wwwwewwww 6y ago
I'm not sure why people compare these stories to folktales. These are not folktales, they are short stories Tolstoy wrote for his school for peasant children, where he also taught. They are not meant to be read at bedtimeto small children, but thoughtful reading material for kids of all ages who are learning to read. The kids who are old enough to read the stories would be old enough to appreciate the (often very sad) stories.
utopkara 6y ago
A lot of the children's stories I heard growing up included violence of sorts. Not saying it was necessarily good, but it is very common, hence perhaps is either harmless or maybe beneficial in a convoluted way. fwiw, the stories kept me from wandering into abandoned old houses, tall thick bushes, or too far away from home; we were pretty much on our own when I was a kid.

162 points by smiljo 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

kulix425 6y ago

really uplifting when everyone needed it the most. thank you

ginko 6y ago

This seems to be pretty much par for the course for 19th century children's books. Compare them to the original versions of H.C. Andersen's fairy tales or Hoffmann's Struwwelpeter[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter

brummm 6y ago
My gandma used to read the Struwwelpeter stories to me as a child. I would actually disagree with the premise of the article that they make children want to die. They actually are supposed to frighten children into behaving properly.
- alpaca128 6y ago
  I actually enjoyed the stories back then and they didn't really work when it came to changing my behaviour. Probably mostly because I just didn't grasp the seriousness of the bloodier parts.
  - brummm 6y ago
    The one that would always stick out to me was the one of the child that doesn't want to eat its soup and then dies (Suppenkasper).
  - derefr 6y ago
    > Probably mostly because I just didn't grasp the seriousness of the bloodier parts. And this is why the original folktales emphasize the gore. You can basically chop off the last quarter of any folktale and replace it with a direction to the story-teller, i.e. "[and now you shall carry on about bad things happening to the child protagonist, in as visceral a manner as you have the mind and words to render, until the children listening have been thoroughly traumatized as to the consequences of their misbehavior.]"
- ginko 6y ago
  Same here. The thing is I don't think they're just supposed to frighten children. I can remember having lots of fun getting those stories read to me by my grandmother. Of course they're dark, but they're also comically exaggerated. There's certainly a reason why Struwwelpeter has been popular for generations.
- kick 6y ago
  "Tolstoy's Children's Stories Will Devastate Your Children and Make You Want to Die"
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  I am willing to agree. I read Grimm really early. The purpose of those stories is not some sort of cutesy money grab slash temporary babysitter to keep the little ones occupied long enough for parents to do what needs to be done. That said, I understand the reason for both. Both are needed, but dismissing those stories, because they are scaring kids is.. it feels like a rehash of the self-esteem movement.
user982 6y ago
When you say “the original versions of H.C. Andersen's fairy tales,” you mean as compared to modern (Disney) adaptations, right? I know the Grimm tales were self-sanitized in later editions, but haven’t heard that of Andersen's.
- ginko 6y ago
  Yeah, I was mainly referring to the later adaptions. Don't think there were different versions.
will_pseudonym 6y ago
This is the 2nd time I've heard of Struwwelpeter. The first time was on The Office (US). https://youtu.be/OeIi4ni1LvY?t=67 https://youtu.be/OeIi4ni1LvY?t=67

downerending 6y ago

I'm still vaguely haunted by Never Tease a Weasel. Seen through children's eyes, probably a lot of books targeting them are rather creepy.

ertian 6y ago
But it's never what you'd expect. The stuff that bothers parents skips right past the kids a lot of the time, but strange little things will freak a kid right out. My son refuses to read some books (going so far as to hide one of them), but I have no idea why; at the same time there are stories I find downright creepy that he'll request over and over.

riazrizvi 6y ago

I think classic folk tales were more macabre, but since consumers today are not interested in them so much it's somewhat lost to us. We have Grimm's Fairy Stories, but as the author points out, in most modern editions they edit out the darker ones. We have this Tolstoy collection because he is a famous author and people are interested in his stories. And guess what, they are super dark. Is that because Tolstoy was dark? No, it's because the traditional stories of the time were much darker. Here's an example of a Yiddish Folktale: Moyshele and Sheyndele Once upon a time there was a poor woodcutter who had a wife and two small children, a boy and a girl. The boy was called Moyshele, the girl Sheyndele. The woodcutter’s wife died and he married a second wife who was a very wicked woman and a cruel stepmother to the children. One day the woodcutter left the house to chop wood in the forest, and the stepmother got ready to go to market to do the Sabbath shopping. Before she left, she gave the children some food, putting Moyshele’s in a pot and Sheyndele’s on a plate. She said, “Moyshele, if you break the pot I’ll chop off your head, So you’d better not.” She told Sheyndele, “Sheyndele, Sheyndele, just you wait, I’ll chop off your legs if you break this plate.” Then she slammed the door and went to market. The children were afraid to eat lest they break something, but the rooster suddenly flew up on the table and knocked over the pot. It fell to the ground and broke into teeny-tiny pieces. Moyshele, seeing them, was terrified and began to cry. Sheyndele comforted him, saying, “Hush, Moyshele.Don’t cry.” And she took the shards of the pot and pushed them into a corner of the room. When the stepmother came home, she couldn’t find the pot. “Where is the pot?” she asked Moyshele. “The rooster broke it,” he said. The stepmother was very angry, but she pretended that nothing was the matter. Later she said to Moyshele, “Come with me and I’ll wash your hair.” So Moyshele went with her. She took him into another room and cut off his head, after which she cooked it for supper. When the woodcutter came back from the forest he said, “Where is Moyshele?” “I don’t know,” said the stepmother. Then they sat down at the table and ate the soup and the meat. Sheyndele, unaware of what she was eating, sucked the marrow from the bones and threw them out the window. A little mound of earth covered the bones and when the glad summer came again, a new Moyshele grew up out of it. Moyshele stood there on his little mound until, seeing a tailor pass by, he called, “Tailor, tailor, make me a pair of trousers and I’ll sing you a song: Murdered by my mother, Eaten by my father, and Sheyndele, when they were done, Sucked the marrow from my bones And threw them out the window.” The tailor, hearing the song, pitied him and made him a pair of trousers. Moyshele put them on, and then a shoemaker went by. Moyshele called, “Shoemaker, shoemaker, make me a pair of boots and I’ll sing you a song: Murdered by my mother, Eaten by my father, and Sheyndele, when they were done, Sucked the marrow from my bones And threw them out the window.” The shoemaker, hearing the song, pitied him and made him a pair of boots. Moyshele put them on, and then a hatmaker went by. Moyshele called, “Hatmaker, hatmaker, make me a hat and I’ll sing you a song: Murdered by my mother, Eaten by my father, and Sheyndele, when they were done, Sucked the marrow from my bones And threw them out the window. The hatmaker, hearing the song, pitied him and made him a hat. And Moyshele put it on and ran off to school. One log there, One log gone. As for my tale— My tale is done. - Weinreich, Beatrice. Yiddish Folktales > I’m all for showing your kids reality, and bringing them to the hospital or the wake or the funeral. But Tolstoy’s tales read more like an undigested rage at the world, unfortunately misdirected at children. Yeah no. What's the point of such a teaching story as the one above? Perhaps it's a story to teach resilience; Even if the world treats you so badly, that it sort of chews you up and spits you out, you can still make your way, though perhaps it might just be by telling your sad story and playing on people's sympathies.

smiljo 6y ago

Did we break their site? :( Edit: seems to be back up with everything in order.

crazygringo 6y ago

> Tolstoy’s tales are unusual in that they lack the depth of relationships — and even hatred — that the old folk tales have. There are no stories of wicked stepparents or lurking dangers in the woods. Instead, there is a kind of dead-end romanticism: bad thing happens; a person is sad; end of story. There isn’t even that much to talk to your children about: trees are nice, don’t cut them down so much? People are not all that happy? Wow. The author seems to be missing the morals entirely. Just from browsing their story descriptions, the lessons seem to be about, respectively: - The overwhelming power of grief, which you may wind up suffering when you choose to love - Don't be tricked by people trying to get you to enjoy yourself in a dangerous situation - The feeling that makes you uncomfortable destroying beauty is a kind of conscience, so listen to it, for there is an intrinsic connection between beauty and life - Happiness is misunderstood by nearly all -- it doesn't come from material possessions, it comes from within - People are supported by those around them, not diminished, so don't treat those who surround you as unimportant or take them for granted - If you tame an animal, you're responsible for their well-being. You can't "go back" or shirk your responsibilities, so think twice before you take on a personal commitment or you may generate suffering you never intended Writers for the LA Review of Books are generally... supposed to be literary and really good at finding meaning in texts, heck even way more meaning than the author sometimes intended. This author seems to be being deliberately obtuse about these stories. I'm not sure why. But these stories seem incredibly stimulating food-for-thought to talk with your children about.

rosstex 6y ago

Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop. When the wind blows, the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. And down will come Baby, cradle and all. or It’s raining, it’s pouring, The old man’s snoring. He went to bed And he bumped his head And he couldn’t get up in the morning. Tell me these ain't dark.

deleted 6y ago
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dan-robertson 6y ago
You’d think the author of the article would have thought about other contemporary stories and mentioned them on their article...
telesilla 6y ago
And relevant today: Ring-a-ring o'roses A pocket full of posies A-tissue, a-tissue We all fall down (actually this is not at all related to the plague but it makes a more scary story if we say it does)

billfruit 6y ago

Not directly related, but many Soviet era children's stories, by Sergei Mikalkhov, et al are very good and brilliantly illustrated.

rectang 6y ago

> * Tolstoy wrote them; they couldn’t be that bad. Now I sincerely wish I had never touched them.* The reviewer is Disney's useful idiot. Gotta stay away from Tolstoy — it's not just disturbing, it's actually dangerous! Only Bowdlerized and Disneyfied happy happy joy joy for your kids! And if you aren't perpetually happy all your life, it's not not that the universe is indifferent to human suffering, it's that there's something wrong with you. > There isn’t even that much to talk to your children about: trees are nice, don’t cut them down so much? People are not all that happy? Yeah. Maybe "People are not all that happy" would be a good thing for kids to learn.

notyourday 6y ago
Old Disney stuff was dark. The fluffy versions are relatively recent.
- ken 6y ago
  How far do I have to go back? I know Sleeping Beauty (1959) is definitely much sanitized from the stories it's based on.
  - notyourday 6y ago
    Thirties and forties.
    - coribuci 6y ago
      Snow white is dark ??? Disney is brainwash for children.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  The fluffy versions sell. How popular would Little Mermaid have been, if at the end, Ariel ended up as sea foam?
  - coribuci 6y ago

pmontra 6y ago

> The publicists of the most recent edition issued by Simon & Schuster, who seemingly did not read it, write of this book, “children will be able to take away important lessons, as well as laugh at silly mishaps and characters, from this timeless collection.” This is possible but unfortunately the author of the article decided not to answer his children: > “Daddy,” my stunned four-year-old son asked, “why did the lion die?” > “Daddy Daddy,” my daughter asked, still wondering about the now-dead lion’s lifestyle, “why did the people feed the lion puppies?” Instead he "took the book away and hid it from" them. Not good parenting IHMO. Don't read from that book again, OK, but find an answer to those questions.

irrational 6y ago
Find an answer? The lion starved to death before he could pass through all the stages of grief. Loose pets are free meat for the lion. Neither of these answers would be satisfying to children. Taking the book away and hiding it is good parenting. Better parenting would be reading the book ahead of time and never sharing it with them to begin with.
aaronharnly 6y ago
I happen to be a close personal friend of the author, and happen to know that he answers deep and difficult questions from his children very directly and well; and that he allows them to see all facets of life (an eagle eating a mouse; a deer not surviving the winter) as a matter of course. Perhaps the paragraph is simply lighthearted :)

neonate 6y ago

https://archive.md/yBlli https://archive.md/yBlli

dan-robertson 6y ago

In case you skimmed the article after the first few paragraphs, note that the point is not that the stories are sad or grim but that they are only sad or grim. There is no moral or hate that leads to things happening. The characters just lives who’ve are sad. I also read the article as lighthearted and humorous and so assumed some things may have been exaggerated it embellished slightly for effect.

ginko 6y ago
Knowing Tolstoy's other writings I get the feeling that these one paragraph summaries don't do his prose justice.
- romwell 6y ago
  I read the original story for "The Lion and the Puppy", and indeed, the summary doesn't do the story justice. The story is more grim and heart-wrecking. And there is no obvious take-away, everything just sucks. But it's a story of a loss that one can relate to. Depressed people are known to listen to sad songs, and get relief from that. I'm not in a very good place now, and reading the Lion and the Puppy story in Russian somehow was a relief. It melted the numbness away. And that's what Tolstoy was going for, perhaps. No ham-fisted morals. Just carefully crafted vignettes of grim life. I do think that Tolstoy never had an appreciation of the many dimensions of human happiness. "Every happy family is alike, but unhappy families are miserable in their own ways", he wrote. I disagree; I see commonality in misery, and it's the path to happiness that has to be crafted and often ends up unique. But I digress.
  - harryf 6y ago
    > And that's what Tolstoy was going for, perhaps. No ham-fisted morals. Just carefully crafted vignettes of grim life. Which is great and a meaning in itself. Much of what’s grim in life happens without deeper meaning. Terrible things happen to those that don’t deserve it and terrible people don’t get what they deserve. The only thing is to accept that that’s how it often is. Which is not a bad thing to expose children to IMO

ken 6y ago

> I’m all for showing your kids reality I really don't think that's why children's stories used to be macabre. Nobody ever claimed these were accurate representations of reality.

1f60c 6y ago

Is the site down?

friedxenon 6y ago

Why do headlines all sound like they're written by teenage girls now, even when they're written by grown men?

recursivedoubts 6y ago

The Gigantic Turnip is an delightful children's book. I wore that thing to the spine with my kids: https://www.amazon.com/Gigantic-Turnip-Aleksei-Tolstoy/dp/1905236581 https://www.amazon.com/Gigantic-Turnip-Aleksei-Tolstoy/dp/19...

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

There have been lots of comments about how dark children’a books were. But, back then, children’s lives were pretty dark. With the high infant and childhood mortality, a good proportion of children had lost a brother or sister. Given maternal mortality, many children had probably lost a mother in childbirth. Given the nature of farmwork and the primitive nature of medicine, many children probably had a father, uncle, etc who was killed or main in an accident. And that is before you consider the frequent wars in which soldiers roamed across the land raping, pillaging, and killing. Death would have been all around children.

mhb 6y ago
Nowadays everyone's wrong on the internet, but that doesn't mean I want to read a book about it.

superimposition 6y ago

Here's free collection of Tolstoy's Fables for Children https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/leo-tolstoys-fables-for-children-1904 https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/leo-tolstoys-fable...

lihaciudaniel 6y ago

>Anna Karenina’s suicide scene spoilers on side note, isn't Tolstoy famous for being a Schopenhaeur influenced writers why did he had 13 children? He is a great writer nontheless

darkerside 6y ago

> But frequently those stories are redeemed by a depth which feels archetypal: when Rapunzel’s prince falls from her tower and blinds himself in the rose bushes below, his blindness appears to have a meaning — it’s not just gratuitous bloodshed. If I doubted my dismissal of this article, I felt vindicated by this line. Is the author really so blind as to believe that popular fairy tale endings are archetypal for any reason beyond the fact that they became popular? They were just as nasty and surprising back then, and it's only repeated listenings and social acceptance that has made them appear to be any more child-appropriate than a screaming, dying tree. FWIW, I generally believe kids are way more resilient to any of these things than we think they are. Like the poplar tree, in trying to protect them, we lead them to their own downfall.

wallstprog 6y ago

I much preferred the original title of the post -- why change it?

ivanhoe 6y ago

Those books shouldn't be judged by today's norms. They were not written for the children (nor parents... especially not parents) of today, but for children back then who lived in a completely different world. For instance, in the version of Cinderella by Charles Perrault - the version that we all know - one of the evil stepsisters was advised by her mother to cut off her toes in order to fit the slipper. She almost fools the prince, but doves warn him about blood dripping from her foot. He then goes back again and tries the slipper on the other sister. She cut off part of her heel in order to get her foot in the slipper, and again the prince is fooled. While riding with her to the king's castle, the doves alert him again about the blood on her foot. How about that for a good night story?

copperx 6y ago
Aren't we and our children exposed to much more violence, blood, and plain evilness in media nowadays? I don't understand how people in those times would be less sensitive to such themes.
- lainga 6y ago
  I think the operative term is "evilness" - if you are a moderately wealthy westerner in this century, violence and bloodshed are things you have relegated to seeing in media, and not an unavoidable part of life
  - bscphil 6y ago
    > violence and bloodshed And ideally, most of that sanitized away by the media which just talks numbers, shows air strikes from 50 km away, and tells you how many "insurgents" were killed today.
- realo 6y ago
  Hum... Mozart's father (Leopold) took his son and daughter to a public hanging ‘for a jolly treat one free afternoon’. That would not work, nowadays... https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marvel-of-mozart-s-letters https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marvel-of-mozart-s-l...

goto11 6y ago

Important point many are missing: Folktales were not originally for children. They were told among adults after children had gone to sleep. But when folklorists (like the Grimm brothers) started collecting and publishing folk tales, it became a trend to publish sanitized edition for children. Read something like the Arabian Nights tales in an uncensored version - these were clearly not intended for children anymore than 50 Shades of Grey are for children. The children's editions are heavily sanitized. I suspect their change into children literature was because of cultural changes - educated 19th century adults couldn't take folktales serious anymore (except as anthropological studies) and found them childish. The same way that 19th century popular literature like Dumas and Verne became children's books in the 20th century. Walt Disney is often criticized in this context, but both Snow White and Cinderella are actually pretty faithful to the source material. Cinderella is just based on the Charles Perrault version of the story, not the Grimm version which contain a lot more maiming.

jan_Inkepa 6y ago
For those interested in seeing the scope/variation of cinderella stories, there’s a book “cinderella; three hundred and forty-five variants” https://archive.org/details/cu31924007918299 https://archive.org/details/cu31924007918299 that is ... I wouldn’t recommend reading it cover-to-cover like I did, but there are some interesting variants hidden in it!
dannygarcia 6y ago
> Folktales were not originally for children. I learned this the hard way. I purchased a beautifully made "Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales" to read to my then toddler. There are some particularly disturbing stories but I was surprised by how many were flat out nonsensical or silly (like The Story of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn Fear [0]). It's fascinating to read these in their (translated) original form. Not your typical bedtime story. [0] https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm004.html https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm004.html
- MichailP 6y ago
  It kinda makes sense to me. In the end he learned to shudder with his SO (she did a weird trick but is it that weird?)

yters 6y ago

"Ring around the rosy" is about the plague. "12 days of Christmas" and other tales and sings have hidden Christian symbolism due to persecution.

abiogenesis 6y ago
That might actually be a myth: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ring-around-rosie/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ring-around-rosie/

hy56 6y ago

> If you do this, be sure to read something lighter afterward, like perhaps Anna Karenina’s suicide scene, or a biography of Sylvia Plath Nobody, including the author, seems to have mentioned the cultural aspect in all this. Allow me: Q: What is the difference between a Russian optimist and a Russian pessimist? A: A Russian pessmist thinks that things can't get any worse. A Russian optimist thinks they not only can, but will.

blankton 6y ago
Im currently reading Archipel Gulag from Alexander Solschenitzyn and that joke sounds quite familliar. The reality of the past century in Russia really proved optimists wrong. Devestating to read that book. It literally puts me on breaks to just sit and think. Sad that humans are capable of such cruelty.
- coribuci 6y ago
  Keep in mind that this book was written in USA
  - lostinroutine 6y ago
    Actually, Solzhenitsyn was still residing in the USSR at the time of completion of the book.

galaxyLogic 6y ago

Check out the Mioomins, good for children and adults alike. The series starts with books that are allegories for World War II like "The Moomins and the Great Flood" and "Comet in Moominland". Good reading in these pandemic times not gory but all about seriousnes of the world we live in and how small humans and families can cope with that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomins

yters 6y ago

The author knows old kids tales are violent, but there is a meaning to thr tragedy. Tolstoy's stories are just meaninglessly violent and tragic.

xabotage 6y ago
Assuming "meaningless" truly is an apt description for them, I actually think this makes Tolstoy's stories seem all the more intriguing. Most violence and tragedy in life is meaningless, we humans ascribe meaning to it. It's sometimes fun to read a fictional piece and contemplate why the themes resonate with me, without having a ham-handed, prefabricated meaning shoved down my throat. Modernized fairy tales (and almost all modern fiction) are not intended to confront the consumer with these kinds of emotional/intellectual obstacles without a moralistic guide. This often makes it suitable for children, but I wonder if we underestimate children's ability to confront this kind of ambiguity (but that doesn't necessarily mean we should read Tolstoy's stories to them, or only ever offer ambiguity as a moral socialization strategy).
- yters 6y ago
  Meaningless violence is too easy, so is ham fisted moralizing. True classics find some kind of meaning, even in the meaninless tragedy of life, like the Iliad.
  - ksdale 6y ago
    I grew up watching Disney-type stuff, and as I got older, it was off-putting to encounter stories that didn't seem to have a "point." A bunch of stuff happens and then you're required to just accept the utter lack of resolution. I know that some people view that lack of a resolution as "meaningless," and I'm not accusing you of that, but sometimes the lack of an obvious lesson is the lesson. People die, conflicts go unresolved, life goes on until it doesn't and sometimes all we can do is accept it.
  - xabotage 6y ago
    Agreed, I think the secret is often a kind of subtlety that can often be confused with meaninglessness. For example, the first time I read "Of Mice and Men", I found the "meaningless" suffering to be infuriating - how could this book possibly be considered a classic? - until I later understood more context around the novel's time period and message, and realized it was only my juvenile tastes and expectations that made it seem meaningless (no happy ending? What is this tripe?) I doubt Tolstoy wrote his stories without some kind of purpose, but I agree it would be a mistake to try too hard looking for meaning in case he just felt like writing up some sad shit.

quotha 6y ago

Those stories sound awesome, my kids would love them!

ConanRus 6y ago

Actually, as Russian i know that most of classic Russian literature (before revolution of 1917) is highly depressing. I was attending a school while USSR was still alive, and even with relatively small number of classic russian books passed thru Soviet censorship, it was always like this: sad and depressing. Tolstoy, Nekrasov, Dostoevsky, Chekhov - no difference.

Igelau 6y ago

I'll have to check it out. I've always liked the unsanitized endings. The wolf fell upon Red and ate her -- the end. The wolf fell down the chimney and into the stew, and the smartest pig ate him... probably along with a few pieces of his brothers. There's one in the Grimm Brothers called "The Knapsack, the Hat, and the Horn" that's an incredibly bleak fable about power and corruption.

skylarchunk 6y ago

For children or for adults, the fatalist style of Tolstoy is what lends him the unmistakable charm. A part of our being, I think, will always desire to be liberated from the norm of not discussing pity or death without any moral undertone. Life and violence can be sad and violent, Tolstoy reminds us.

ertian 6y ago

I don't really agree with the author at all. His examples all seem like meaningful stories. The lion in the zoo? He lives off other animals, but when he stops to get to know one he becomes so attached he can't live without it. Could be a simple message about animal cruelty (IIRC, Tolstoy was vegetarian?). Could be a parable about aristocrats & peasants, or capitalists and workers. Escape of the Dancing Bear? The bear was recaptured because he fell into old habits. Be careful not to do the same. Death of the Cherry Tree? Could just be a message that all things are living, stop and consider the damage you're causing. The blasé attitude of the woodcutter is shocking: people can get used to anything. Possibly an analogy for war or other cruelty which we casually accept. The King and the Shirt: money doesn't buy happiness. It's not sad, the poor man is legitimately happy. Possessions and worldly ties can bring unhappiness. And it's ironic and thought-provoking, for kids. The Old Poplar: obvious lessons about family ties. Don't send grandpa to a home. And a neat lesson on systems: the obvious, common sense approach backfired because things were more complex and interdependent than they looked at first sight. The Little Bird: some things are meant to be wild. Some things, when done, can't be undone. I honestly kinda like these stories. Not sure I'd read them to my 4-year-old, though.

wwwwewwww 6y ago

I'm not sure why people compare these stories to folktales. These are not folktales, they are short stories Tolstoy wrote for his school for peasant children, where he also taught. They are not meant to be read at bedtimeto small children, but thoughtful reading material for kids of all ages who are learning to read. The kids who are old enough to read the stories would be old enough to appreciate the (often very sad) stories.

utopkara 6y ago

A lot of the children's stories I heard growing up included violence of sorts. Not saying it was necessarily good, but it is very common, hence perhaps is either harmless or maybe beneficial in a convoluted way. fwiw, the stories kept me from wandering into abandoned old houses, tall thick bushes, or too far away from home; we were pretty much on our own when I was a kid.