Latest / The Christy-Faith Show / Ep. 141 - Why Kids Need Fairy Tales // Andrew Pudewa

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Ep. 141 - Why Kids Need Fairy Tales // Andrew Pudewa · The Christy-Faith Show

• 0:00
  Andrew Pudewa: We don't read fairy tales to children so that they learn that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. We read them fairy tales so they learn that dragons can be slain.
• 0:25
  Christy-Faith: Welcome to the show, everybody. I am so excited about what we are gonna be talking about today with my friend Andrew Pudewa. I asked him to come on the show to talk all about fairy tales. You guys know how much I love and have loved and continue to love reading out loud to my kids, and that includes a wide variety of fairy tales. Now they're old enough and they pick them up themselves.
• 0:53
  And I am so thankful that you carved out time, mister Andrew, to come on the show to talk about fairy tales and bless our families in this way.
• 1:02
  Andrew Pudewa: We finally did it. We've been talking about it for a while. And, of course, this is also one of my favorite subjects. And and I'm I'm almost the first person who, gosh, should be twenty six years ago, started really pushing this idea of read out loud to your children. If you want good readers, if you want good writers, if you want good speakers, that's the most important thing to do every day.
• 1:26
  So I'm glad to see that message is continuing to filter out into the whole world of homeschooling parents and and other parents as well.
• 1:35
  Christy-Faith: Yes. Oh, well, I'm sure that you have been a large influence on my life in all of the years of homeschooling that I've been doing. And I remember when I taught seventh grade in private Christian school, I gathered those seventh graders on the floor and read them Beowulf with, like, the biggest, you know, voice that I could. And you know what's so crazy is years later... I mean, we lived in LA, and they would come up to me.
• 2:01
  They would see me at church, and they were married with a baby on their hip, and they would tell me the memory of me reading aloud. And you think that by seventh grade, they're too cool. Right? They're too cool for that thing. But interestingly, I'm teaching medieval history this year to our co op, and sure enough, we're carving out read aloud time in every lesson.
• 2:22
  The moms can work on the content. I want to ignite their imagination, which is what we're gonna be talking about today. Also, I forgot to introduce you. If you guys don't know who Andrew Pudewa is already, he is the founder and director of Institute for Excellence in Writing, IEW, as many of us know. And this is such a great topic for you to speak on, Andrew.
• 2:43
  You do it at conferences. What first got you into thinking about read alouds and fairy tales in particular? I don't even know the story.
• 2:54
  Andrew Pudewa: Well, there were a couple factors that converged. I bumped into some parents at a homeschool convention who were very opposed to the idea of reading fiction to their children based on this idea that you should only read, you know, what's good and true and beautiful. And fiction was not in the true category, therefore, they opposed it. And I found this very, very odd. And so I was kind of thinking, what's a good argument to bring to them to try and help them broaden their concept of goodness, truth, and beauty in literature?
• 3:35
  And I happened to be sitting in a church one day. I was traveling around, and it was a church, and I've been in countless buildings. It was kind of an ugly church, I will confess. It had these banners along the wall. And I was looking at these banners, and one of them said, Christ the king.
• 3:57
  And my initial reaction was, I don't like that. And I immediately started feeling really guilty. Like, why do I not like that? If I'm a Christian, I should like that. And so I kind of tried to query my subconscious a little bit, and I realized that the reason I have an initial negative impression is because I'm an American.
• 4:21
  And Americans are supposed to not like kings. Like, our whole country was established on this idea that you don't want a king. And then I thought a little deeper into myself, and I I realized, no. I actually do like the idea of kings. Like, secretly, I'd like to live in a country with a king.
• 4:45
  Even a queen would do, but that would be very cool if you had one. And I thought, why do I have these conflicting subconscious reactions? And I started to realize that, you know, if you look at history, even if you throw the Bible in there, most of the kings weren't all that great. Most of them and some of them were really bad, and so that's the march of progress. You depose a king and you replace it with a democracy, and life is better for everyone.
• 5:16
  But then I realized that that love of kings came from my childhood reading of fairy tales. Because in fairy tales, the the proper ordering of the relationship between a king and his people is evident. A king, right, should love his people and make sacrifices for them. And the people should love their king and make sacrifices for their king. That there was this real relationship that was properly ordered.
• 5:47
  And that that's what I needed to have in my moral imagination in order to really embrace this idea of Christ as king. And I know it's a fairly early Christian at the time that this happened, so this is decades ago, but it stuck in my mind. And a little while later, I was having another conversation about fairy tales, and I thought, I want to research this. So I bought a whole pile of books on fairy tales, both by Christian authors and secular authors. And I did kind of a deep dive into why do these things exist?
• 6:22
  Where do they come from? How have they lasted for, you know, hundreds or thousands of years? What do we mean when we say fairy tales? And and that's what got me going on this, was this understanding that that it's the story that orders our imagination properly so that we can understand the great story of Christ the king.
• 6:46
  Christy-Faith: Now that was a lot because there's some terms we need to define here because, one, let's talk about what is a fairy tale, or is it better to to talk about what you mean by a moral imagination? Which should go first?
• 7:00
  Andrew Pudewa: Well, I think the term moral imagination was first written, at least published, by Russell Kirk. And he was talking about kind of a a political imagination, a moral political imagination, where you can imagine what would be the right thing to do in a circumstance. And so you have to make decisions. Those decisions require a moral placement. And so part of that is saying, should I do this?
• 7:34
  Would I do that? Could I do this thing? And making these decisions about yourself, and then by extension, your family, your community, your people. And so this idea of what should we do, I think, is where we find then that we are informed by stories. Because it's stories where characters make decisions and decisions have consequences.
• 8:02
  And the history is a story too. It's just that we tend to get very distracted by the, I don't know, what would you call it, truth of history, whereas we're able to absorb more the greater truths in the stories, especially the fantastical ones that are clearly not literally true. I've got to the point where I actually believe there's probably more truth in fairy tales than there is in history books, because history books are always written by someone with an agenda. You may agree or disagree or like or not like their agenda, but there's always an agenda. Winston Churchill said, history will be kind to me.
• 8:43
  I intend to write it. So that idea... But the fairy tales aren't necessarily attributed to any one person. They arose out of the collective consciousness essentially of the Christian West.
• 8:58
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. It's so funny. Did you know that I have two degrees in history? And it's so funny because people think they're uncomfortable with how relaxed I am about content when it comes to history.
• 9:13
  Andrew Pudewa: Uh-huh.
• 9:14
  Christy-Faith: I'm more about how it... Yes. The... Where's the story? How does it change us?
• 9:19
  Because what we were studying when we were in graduate school is we can't actually know what happened. I mean, you can sometimes, but really the truth, you can't actually know. So then what do we do in our public schools is we just stuff our kids with facts that have zero relevance at all. And I do... I love...
• 9:37
  I'm actually in the middle of of a book on storytelling and how to build stories and how important they are even when you are telling history. And that's why, right, we love... In the homeschool world, we love living books even for teaching history. Right? We love...
• 9:53
  Even if they're biographies, they're just these lively experiences of... That people are having. And I think it's so important because when we are captured, when our emotions are captured, there's neurology behind this. We remember more. We learn the lessons more.
• 10:10
  We feel more. And that's what changes us. And that's what an education is. Right? It's the it's the cultivation of a human being.
• 10:17
  It has a very little to do with information.
• 10:21
  Andrew Pudewa: I think most of my children would say that... You know, they're all grown up, obviously. But I think they would all say that they learned more history from the biographies and the historical fiction than from any kind of textbook because it's that narrative line that stores in the memory. And, you know, people think, well, there's got to be a source of absolute fact on things, but I don't even have absolute facts about my own life. My memory is fallible.
• 10:53
  And if you, you know, talk with your sister or something about something that happened when you were kids or when you were younger or your wife even thirty years ago, you realize, wow, my memory of that and her memory of that are different. How odd that is. So how do I even know that my own experience is actually what happened? So.
• 11:15
  Christy-Faith: Well, we're already off on a tangent. It's only, what, eleven minutes in. But I think that we also shouldn't care so much about the truth. I mean, you know you know what I'm saying? I once met a woman who writes memoirs for older people, like, before their death.
• 11:32
  Like, families hire her, and she writes these and interviews the elderly in in their life stories. And I say, well, how do you find truth when some of... You know, if they're... The family's starting to see signs of dementia. And she goes, oh, I don't really concern myself with the truth.
• 11:48
  It was just so fascinating. I just loved having a conversation with her. So... Yeah. But you're right.
• 11:53
  I mean, there's those fun experiments of eyewitness accounts and how people see completely different things. So I love that. Okay. But back to our story, story about reading fairy tales to our kids. So how would you define a fairy tale?
• 12:08
  And I do want to visit back on, like, ordering of loves. I think that is so important to talk about and capturing our kids' imagination. But first, let's define what a fairy tale is, what a fairy tale isn't. I'm fascinated by that family that came up to you that that was uncomfortable with fantastical stories. Do you think that's still around?
• 12:31
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• 12:46
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• 13:02
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• 13:10
  It really does.
• 13:12
  Andrew Pudewa: I think it was kind of an extreme position even at the time, but it peaked in me just an interest. And so for that reason, I'm grateful. I think a lot of kids, you know, they might have grown up in that world, and then they have to grow up and be parents and make these decisions on their own. Certainly, you can't live in Western culture without being aware of the general category of fairy tales, for better or worse, Disney has brought that into everyone's consciousness. Now we could talk about what Disney does to some of these fairy tales, but we know Cinderella, we know Snow White, and we know Sleeping Beauty, and we know Rapunzel, and we are aware of this general category whether or not we've taken the time to go and read the older versions of them, Grimm's or Perrault or Hans Christian Andersen's writing himself.
• 14:13
  I think, though, when we look at a fairy tale, we would say a fairy tale brings us into touch with the mysterious side of life. It allows us to touch what we can't see. And, of course, a fairy, by its nature, is invisible except in certain circumstances, which, you know, in general, that is going to be an analog for a supernatural presence. The angelic, the demonic, the mysterious side, the the invisible part of our reality. And, you know, it's pretty pretty extreme to say there is nothing invisible in our reality.
• 14:59
  Like, the only thing that exists is what human beings can see. Even science disproves that today, that there's all sorts of things that we cannot see that do exist. And so the medieval mind, the Renaissance European mind, they were steeped in this understanding that there were supernatural things ever present in the world around them, and that really there were these, you know, powers and principalities, and and there was this warfare going on in the spiritual world. That was understood and I think the fairy tales came into being as a way to help make that more understandable and make it concrete and then embed it with essentially a a morality, a Christian morality, the morality of Western civilization. And it goes all the way back to what you've studied, of course, the, you know, the ancients and the pagans and, you know, they were all about, you know, these supernatural forces at work, and they called them gods and they were, you know, influencing human beings and human beings had to work through by making right choices and sometimes experiencing the consequences of wrong choices.
• 16:15
  And then that tradition came through, we saw then with the rise of Christendom, we saw the legends of Arthur came into being, we then saw the morality play was that thing that was presented to people so they could make sense of the supernatural. And then we think these things started with Grimm's or Perrault in France, but really, they'd been around for hundreds of years before. They were just the first ones to kind of go around and hear these stories and and write down what people were telling them and had been telling them for for many, many generations.
• 16:52
  Christy-Faith: I don't know the answer to this. Were they for children?
• 16:56
  Andrew Pudewa: Not necessarily. Some of the Perrault and Grimm's stories are quite grim, actually. I think we have found that we need to soften them up or leave some of them out of the collections that we buy for our kids. Even the ones that we do read to children have a dark side. And, you know, Chesterton had an interesting thing to say about this.
• 17:21
  I'm paraphrasing here. I don't have the exact quote. But he said, basically, we don't read fairy tales to children so that they learn that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. We read them fairy tales so they learn that dragons can be slain.
• 17:40
  So there is a little bit of conflict. Do we want to bring awareness of this dark thing into children's world? Like, for example, you know, Snow White and the the stepmother... The evil stepmother sends her little hunter out to kill Snow White and bring her her heart. And, of course, he doesn't do that, and he kills a pig and brings a pig's heart.
• 18:03
  But just the image of that Yes. Is hard. But then the fact is we live in a world that children are aware that evil happens and that there are malintentions. And so, you know, certainly we're sensitive to that in terms of age, but I don't think we gain anything by throwing out the whole category because as Chesterton said, the children know that evil exists. You can't hide that from them no matter what.
• 18:32
  Christy-Faith: Right, so it's almost... I mean, I kind of view it as a little bit of like giving our kids a taxonomy, like a structure that's more age appropriate. This goes right into my next question for you. Christian parents are often worried about fairy tales, even non Christian parents. These are so gory.
• 18:50
  This is terrible. I don't want my kid to have nightmares. This feels pagan. All sorts of things. What would you say to that?
• 18:58
  And I know that you've talked about like a twisted story versus like dark and things like that, but I do think that you have a really interesting point there. And it's interesting because a book that I'm working on right now is on parenting, and I've been researching when kids know right from wrong. Because often we think, well, we have to discipline them. Otherwise, they won't know right from wrong. Well, come to find out, they know right from wrong pretty darn early, And, and they don't need us.
• 19:26
  They don't need us to tell them that necessarily. And so I think that because fairy tales are so removed from real life, it helps kids in... To me, in an age appropriate way manage in their own minds good and evil. What brings to mind this is not a fairy tale but when I was reading my kids the Greek myths and we I we came upon narcissists and I was like, Oh my goodness, there's so many narcissists out there. Let's talk about this girls.
• 19:56
  You know, don't marry a narcissist. But, yeah, what would you say to that to the family who is uncomfortable? They don't want to scare their kids. They don't want their kids to have nightmares. What's the value here?
• 20:07
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• 20:16
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• 20:35
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• 20:49
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• 22:48
  What would you say to that to the family who is uncomfortable? They don't want to scare their kids. They don't want their kids to have nightmares. What's the value here? I just...
• 22:58
  This feels outdated. What would you say?
• 23:01
  Andrew Pudewa: Well, I think children do communicate when there's something disturbing in their world. And, you know, you could read the same book or story to two kids of the same age and one of them would maybe have a dream or a nightmare or think about it and another one wouldn't. So you can't really say well there's an age because there's age and personality and circumstance and environment. Parents should always use their best judgment and discretion and don't read a story that they are not comfortable reading to their children. I would say that possibly we we start a little bit too young with myths and fairy tales because they're still kind of sorting out what is real, what can they trust, what can they believe.
• 23:53
  I for one didn't read Greek myths to my children before around, you know, the age of reason, six, seven years old, when you can say they're gonna use this word God to talk about these entities that they imagined were existing because they didn't know the real god. And they were looking for gods, but they didn't know what they were looking for. And, you know, you can roll that into a scriptural understanding Mars Hill speech and all that. So the first thing is, you know, be very cautious about your comfort level. Don't read something that you're not comfortable with because the spirit will give you the clues, the the intuitive clues.
• 24:38
  Is this a good one? Is this not? I think children are a lot more resilient than we imagine, although the modern world has kind of made it less so. I think children are less resilient. I'll give you a good example.
• 24:52
  A hundred and fifty years ago, people died a lot more commonly. So children were aware of death almost universally. They knew someone, they had a relative, they had a friend, that death was kind of a part of life, and that was a good thing. And then in the early part of the 1900s, as death became kind of something that we didn't have a normal experience of in life, then they also kind of censored out death from children's literature. John Taylor Gatto, in his book Underground History of American Education, talks about when you know, the modern psychologists took over education, they also took over children's publishing.
• 25:40
  And so they they eliminated death and that became kind of this progressive modern idea that you protect children. I grew up in this period where I never saw an actual dead body until I was 50 years old. And I remember very specifically, this was a man in the community where I live, and a lot of people knew him. He was kinda like everybody's favorite adopted uncle. And I remember at the funeral, all the children standing around the casket looking at his body.
• 26:12
  And I remember thinking this is a profoundly good thing. This is a part of life that they should not be deprived of. And you see books like, even more modern books, Bridge to Terabithia, censored out of libraries because, oh, she dies and it's traumatic to children. Well, life is traumatic. You will experience trauma.
• 26:34
  The question is in what way? So this fictional situation where you have someone dying in the story is a way to wrestle with that problem of death. Even even if it's, parents who die and you have, you know, children are orphaned. That's actually one of the great fears of children is being left alone, parents dying. And...
• 26:58
  Okay. So here you've got a story, Hansel and Gretel, you know, and now they have to make their way through the world by helping each other. Or the modern version of it, Lemony Snicket and A Series of Unfortunate Events. I love that book, all of them, because it's allowing the children to grapple with this hard part of life in this fictional way that's one step removed from them emotionally. So I think there's a lot of value in that in that area of fairy tales.
• 27:30
  And then, of course, we can talk about the the kinds of stories and how parents can make judgments based on that.
• 27:37
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. So it's interesting because you mentioned trauma, and there's a lot of talk nowadays about childhood trauma, my own trauma. I don't wanna traumatize my kids. And I think it's interesting that... I like that this is part of the conversation in raising our kids.
• 27:55
  I think that there is trauma, and I think there are levels of trauma. I love what you said. We can't avoid trauma in ourselves or our kids. But in this effort to protect our children, I agree with you. We are making them fragile for sure.
• 28:12
  And this is well studied that... I mean, the young adults in America today are the most fragile generation that we've ever had. And I think that that has to do a lot with... Well, a lot of things, but also this protection of, oh, no. We don't want them.
• 28:26
  It's almost like any discomfort or emotion that is not happiness is to be feared. And you used deprive. That's an interesting word that you used about our kids grappling with that. Seeing a dead body and not seeing it would be depriving them. Can you...
• 28:44
  That was bold, Andrew.
• 28:47
  Andrew Pudewa: I'm old. I can say whatever I want.
• 28:49
  Christy-Faith: But... No. I mean, it... I mean, a lot of families would not bring their kids to a funeral because if they're worried about traumatizing their kids.
• 28:59
  Andrew Pudewa: Well, and that'd be the same reason to not read a story where a character that you maybe even love in your imagination dies. Yeah. But at some point, you're going to have someone you love die. Yeah. And so if you can...
• 29:17
  I don't know. Pre... Here's a word I've never used before, but pre experience that in your imagination
• 29:24
  Christy-Faith: Yeah.
• 29:24
  Andrew Pudewa: Aren't you better equipped to deal with it when it happens in a more real way?
• 29:29
  Christy-Faith: Absolutely. I mean, I think that's why... One of the reasons why I love living books for history because it... Reading about the Holocaust and a story about it and getting emotionally drawn and moved by what is happening and incredibly deeply saddening is not traumatizing for kids because of that removal. So that goes into the next question that I have for you.
• 29:54
  Like, when a child grows up on kind of a a steady diet of really good literature... Because this is more than just fairy tales. This is really good literature where they are experiencing heavy emotional swings. Right? What does that give kids that's unique?
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• 30:54
  Andrew Pudewa: In literature, you have essentially... I mean, everything has a story arc. Right? You have characters, and you start to get to know the characters. And you may love or hate or not care about the characters, but there's an awareness, there's a circumstance, then there's some kind of problem, some kind of conflict, something that creates tension in that story.
• 31:22
  And, you know, it could be a two page short story. It could be an entire trilogy of books. There's a a problem. There's a conflict. And then the characters have to use their resources, their, you know, mental resources, their physical strength, their emotional fortitude, their their friendships, their connections.
• 31:42
  They have to use what they've got to get through that problem and maybe solve it. Very often, the fairy tales will have some kind of supernatural assistance. You look at Cinderella, for example. That whole story doesn't happen without a fairy godmother who says, okay. You know, I will help you, but here's the rules.
• 32:06
  Then Cinderella has this supernatural aid, and she follows the rules almost. And so then you also have themes of redemption at the end. And so that's a whole story. Like, you know, the good is good. The bad is bad.
• 32:24
  There's no confusion. And so it's a moral play to some degree. But what you you get out of it is, well, supernatural assistance is great. Do you have access to that in your life? That's why I think that, you know, and Vegan Gurion argues this very well in Tending the Heart of Virtue, that these stories are fundamentally Christian in that they point to the supernatural as a source of both good and evil.
• 32:53
  But in the supernatural world, the good always defeats the evil. And so you have then this relying on grace, relying on the resources you have, relying on on your inner fortitude, relying on your friends. All of these things happen in these stories, and that builds into children this kind of subtle semi subconscious awareness of what do you do when you have a problem in life. Do you run away? Do you say it scares me and hide under your bed?
• 33:27
  Or do you say what resources do I have? Who can help me? What can I do? Is there a supernatural assistance that I can rely upon to face this hard thing in life? And I think that's really the place where these these stories are, especially these whole stories where good is good, evil is evil, it's clear, the good wins, and the story is all about the mechanics of how that happens.
• 33:53
  And that builds into the imagination, what would I do in a situation?
• 33:59
  Christy-Faith: Yes. And just the family conversations. I think that... Yes. When you're reading a story and the and the child is drawn in and the character is courageous.
• 34:13
  Man, the way their imagination is gonna wrap around courage, this concept of courage or of loyalty or or any of these types of things, virtues, is so much more robust when it's wrapped in a story, whereas opening a dictionary and reading the definition of courage.
• 34:36
  Andrew Pudewa: Yeah. You know, you look at the phenomenon of superhero movies. These are the biggest moneymakers that have ever existed in Hollywood. Right? Why do adults go to superhero movies?
• 34:51
  Well, I don't honestly think it's for the acting. I really don't think it's necessarily for the action, although that can be very adrenaline promoting. I'm sure it's not for the music, although John Williams is pretty awesome. It's really because we want to be affirmed that the good wins in the end. That is a theme that we want to revisit every day.
• 35:15
  Why? Because good doesn't always win every day, but it does win Yeah. In the end. And so children need that. Teenagers desperately need it.
• 35:25
  That's why Lord of the Rings is the best books ever written for teenagers ever that ever have and probably ever will be written Mhmm. For teenagers because it's that struggle. It's that path. It's that relying. It's that fortitude building thing, and the good guys win in the end.
• 35:44
  And that's the promise of revelation. It's the promise of the fairy tale. It's the promise we wanna be reminded of every day in these whole stories.
• 35:53
  Christy-Faith: Yes. That's so powerful. I I love I love apologetics in general, but something that I haven't... I've been wanting to read up on is this innate need and satisfaction that we get. It's...
• 36:10
  We are built. We are designed to love the story that mimics the ultimate story. Our human nature needs it. We crave it, and I find that so fascinating. I haven't read up...
• 36:24
  Have you read up on anything regarding that in terms of apologetics and how humans are wired that way? I don't even know if there's anything out there for that.
• 36:31
  Andrew Pudewa: I mentioned Vegan Gruyin's book, Tending the Heart of Virtue, highly recommended. Also, Mitchell Kalkopeguian wrote a book called The Mysteries of Life in children's literature. And I think both of those do touch on this idea that the stories that we need are the ones that affirm the nature of who we are created to be. And then when we see a story that doesn't do that, a broken story, for example, a good case of a extremely well done broken story would be doctor Jekyll and mister Hyde, the the strange case of doctor Jekyll and mister Hyde. What happened?
• 37:11
  Well, he doesn't make the right decisions. He falls into this lust for power and addiction, and the only end he can get to is self destruction. And so it paints a really good picture of what happens when you fall into this, you know, lust for power and and addiction problem? And everybody has to wrestle with that stuff to some degree in life. Some people really seriously.
• 37:39
  So, you know, that's the kind of story where the good guys don't win in the end, but it has value for the moral imagination. You wouldn't read that story to a 10 year old. But for a 14, 15, 16 year old, it could have tremendous value in that way. And so it also arises, I think, from a Christian imagination, but where we have to see the horror of evil played out to the end so that we don't take that path, that we don't become that.
• 38:11
  Christy-Faith: Right. And that we truly understand what happens when idols overcome us, when we look after man made things rather than our maker. Because it ultimately will always lead to destruction, broken relationships. I mean, ultimately, death. So I...
• 38:30
  Yeah. I think that's that's really powerful. Tolkien said that a good storyteller builds a secondary world which your mind can enter, and that the child on your lap isn't suspending disbelief. They're simply inside the story where it is all true. Why does that matter?
• 38:49
  Andrew Pudewa: Well, you're probably aware of this idea that imagined experience can be as powerful as real experience even on our physiology. And some of these kind of modern guys, Joe Dispenza, talking about how what you think actually changes your reality.
• 39:13
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. Well, and also, I know that I've actually participated in therapy that was kind of like exposure therapy where I imagined myself in that worst case scenario
• 39:22
  Andrew Pudewa: Mhmm.
• 39:23
  Christy-Faith: And broke free from it.
• 39:25
  Andrew Pudewa: So... Yeah. So there's a, you know, there's a a therapeutic value
• 39:30
  Christy-Faith: Yeah.
• 39:30
  Andrew Pudewa: To these stories and the wrestling that has to happen when you enter into that world. But there is there is a knowledge that that's a safer play... That that's a safe place. So Right. A child can hold, I'm here sitting next to my mom, I'm here, you know, on my grandpa's lap, and, yeah, there's a witch in this story, and she is doing evil things, and that's a hard thing, but I'm totally safe.
• 40:01
  But I can imagine that. And so I think for for children and and for us as well, you know, we we may go to a theater and see some horrific thing, and yet we know that we're safe, but we're fully engaged in the imagination. And, of course, you know, we have a very deep, deep craving for justice. Children, if you hang out with them for any period of time, you realize that a desire for justice is hardwired into every human soul, every human And so when we have this story and justice happens, the evil is punished, the good is rewarded, this affirms for them that things that should be, the truth that should be. So in a way, it's even more real than the reality where sometimes the justice doesn't happen and things don't come out the way they should be.
• 41:01
  And I think that's why we've we've wanted these stories, you know, from the ancient times all the way up until the most recent blockbuster films is we're craving the affirmation of truth, and justice is right at the core. You think about the four cardinal virtues. Right? So there's prudence or moderation. Okay.
• 41:24
  Think of all the stories where either moderation is practiced as a virtue and good results, or moderation is violated and bad things result. Or I'm sorry, temperance. I'm sorry. Prudence, temperance, fortitude, justice. Temperance is moderation.
• 41:40
  Prudence is making the right decision, having good judgment, exercising wisdom. You know, every time someone makes a good decision, you know, and good things happen or a bad decision, that... That's why wishes are so attractive to children. Right? Yes.
• 41:56
  In the fairy tale and you get your wishes. Well, you better use your wishes well. That's the lesson it has. And the the stories always tell of someone who does that and is rewarded and good happens and someone who misuses wishes. Fortitude is is courage.
• 42:14
  Right? It's it's strength. It's the ability to do the right thing when the whole world opposes you. Mhmm. And justice.
• 42:23
  So I think that these stories are very intertwined with building the understanding of these cardinal virtues into the minds, the imagination, the hearts, the mouths, the eyes, the ears of the children who experience them.
• 42:41
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. And I think it's it's a matter of, like, head smart and heart smart. I think there's something about these stories and just good stories in general where when we can be touched emotionally and it ignites our imagination, it's just locked in in a special place that, like I mentioned earlier, if you were to read the definition of courage out of a dictionary, it wouldn't have that same effect. And I think that's why there's just... There's power in it.
• 43:09
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• 43:26
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• 43:51
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• 44:10
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• 44:19
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• 44:39
  So you know how when you meet another homeschool family, you end up talking for, like, an hour? Swapping recommendations, sharing what's working, telling them about the pediatrician who actually gets it, or that you go and see this speech therapist or that OT. That's just how we are. We love to take care of each other. That's the whole idea behind The Christy-Faith list, which is entirely free for homeschooling families.
• 44:59
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• 45:29
  Let's support the people who support us. I will put a link in the show notes. Tolkien and Chesterton both believe that a good fairy tale washes the... We're going a little light now. We will get heavy again probably, but washes the dullness off of ordinary things like bread, stone, trees so a child sees them fresh again.
• 45:50
  You've actually heard one of my talks where I discuss free play and how important it is for kids to go outside. So I can testify that because we've had a pretty... A literature rich household with fairy tales and and all sorts of beautiful living books, my children's imaginary play life is a thing to be seen. It is. I mean, you should see my backyard.
• 46:14
  It's half the garage is in the backyard because it's forts and castles and, right, and catapults and all these things. So let's talk about that a little bit and how important that is that ordinary things become extraordinary in these stories.
• 46:29
  Andrew Pudewa: I think we noticed that children have a natural tendency toward awe and wonder. Yeah. And and unfortunately, we do tend to lose that as we get a little older
• 46:43
  Christy-Faith: Yeah.
• 46:43
  Andrew Pudewa: Because things become common. And for a five year old going for a walk with her grandpa, every rock is unique and and fascinating and interesting, and and she wants to have it. Every flower is beautiful. Right? Finding a
• 47:02
  Christy-Faith: by feather it. We're like, put the rock down.
• 47:04
  Andrew Pudewa: Yeah. Finding a feather along the way is is a magical experience. And Yeah. And so I think that empowering those things with their rightful kind of supernatural essence can be done in stories, and it helps to keep that sense of wonder. And, you know, this has even happened to me recently.
• 47:27
  I'm reading a beautiful book. Christy, you've gotta read this book. It is... I just finished it. It...
• 47:32
  It's gonna make you laugh. It's gonna make you cry. Theo of Golden.
• 47:36
  Christy-Faith: It's my... It was my favorite book last year. We should have done a podcast episode just on Theo of Golden.
• 47:41
  Andrew Pudewa: Well, if you wanna, we can do some one sometime, but we'll talk about it when we get together. But that book actually awakened a sense of wonder about people's faces in my heart.
• 47:56
  Christy-Faith: In your heart.
• 47:57
  Andrew Pudewa: Yeah. We see so many faces, and we just look at faces, and we recognize them or we don't. But that book and the ability of that author to use words to draw out the amazingness of each individual person. Mhmm. And it's not even a fairy tale.
• 48:16
  It's not even it's not even a story with much plot. It's a contemplation. Yeah. But he he had the ability to awaken in me this new sense of of awe and wonder just at faces of people around me. Yeah.
• 48:35
  And so, you know, the the stories that do that, I think, are so important for us. And I'll tell you, we've been destroyed by screens. Neil Postman looked at the television and said, this is the end. It is the end of human imagination. And if you think about it, okay, let's take a good book and a good movie.
• 48:55
  Right? And you read the book, what happens? You create all of that in your mind, your imagination, and you create the faces, you create the scenes, you create the the action, you create the landscapes, you create everything those words bring to you. But if you watch a movie, you do none of that. Mhmm.
• 49:17
  It precreates. It subverts your opportunity to imagine that, which is one reason why I refuse to go see the Odyssey is because I don't want it to rewrite. I don't want it to overwrite my imagination. And I was very angry with the Lord of the Rings movies that did that to me because I grew up reading it again and again and again, and I saw the movie. Yeah.
• 49:39
  Now I can't imagine the way I read it when I first read it. And so, you know, we see that while the entertainment capacity for screens is phenomenal, I mean, what else in the world can get someone to sit there and do absolutely nothing for two hours? But it replaces the more valuable thing, which is recreating in our own imagination that thing for reals.
• 50:06
  Christy-Faith: Now why do we need that as humans? Why do we need that wonder and that... I mean, I'm I'm thinking right now, like, the research I've read on, it's actually a a form of play. Right? We need that.
• 50:18
  I see... I could definitely see ties with prevention with depression and and things like that. Why... What... Have you thought about that?
• 50:26
  Why is this so important for the human mind to to be in this space of imagination even as an adult?
• 50:34
  Andrew Pudewa: Yeah. I think that it connects us with the supernatural. When we see a bird and we think, well, that's a bird, and we kind of don't think about it or don't contemplate it, it has no impact. When we look at a bird and we think, how the heck does that bird stay up in the air like that? And why is that so beautiful?
• 50:56
  What makes that so beautiful? It connects us. It draws us to really the creator of the birds. And I find that as I've gotten a little bit more into science, I had very... Almost zero interest in science as a student in school.
• 51:11
  In fact, I hated biology tremendously. But various things have brought me to be more interested in science, particularly the relationship between mathematics and science. And then there's a relationship between mathematics and all of creation, and you see this kind of interfacing, like, with the world of fractals. And you say, wait. Here's an equation that creates a thing that is almost identical to what we see in nature.
• 51:41
  And that brings us to this, like, wow. Wow. How did that happen? So getting any way we can to a contemplation of the higher things, whether they are the natural creation, whether they're the the human soul and the human spirit, whether they are a great struggle that we're involved in when we come to the contemplation of that. And books are so much better because they allow more contemplation.
• 52:09
  A two hour movie, what do you get to think about? Almost nothing.
• 52:13
  Christy-Faith: Yes. Then you try to read And and also a book, you don't... You know, the average book, what, takes about eight hours to read, eight to ten hours to read, so you put it down.
• 52:23
  Andrew Pudewa: Yes. And it lives in your imagination.
• 52:26
  Christy-Faith: Yes. Yeah. It's almost like the imagination... Okay. This is...
• 52:32
  It could be a stretch, but this is fun. It's almost like imagination connects us home. Our hearts yearning. Why is that so satisfactory for us to be contemplating the bird and how it was created and what a magical thing this is that a bird can fly? And and, like, my girls love nature documentaries, and, like, it's, like, crazy.
• 52:52
  This thing eats that thing, and that thing eats the other, and then it all works. Like... And it's just... It's fascinating to think of... Right?
• 53:00
  We aren't created for this world. We are created for an... Augustine talked about this where, you know, we will never be satisfied until we are with the Lord. Yeah. We're not created for this world.
• 53:12
  So maybe imagination is like these little pinholes.
• 53:17
  Andrew Pudewa: I love it. Yes. Little pinholes in the material that we are encased in Yeah. And we see this little glimpse of the supernatural. You know, I think when we all die, and I think about it a lot more than younger people probably, just because it's a natural thing, I believe every single person's reaction is going to be, I had no idea.
• 53:42
  Uh-huh. I had absolutely no concept of reality. I knew nothing about
• 53:48
  Christy-Faith: Yeah.
• 53:48
  Andrew Pudewa: The cosmos. Yep. So it's kind of fun. And I think, you know, fairy tales that take us to the edge of what we can actually imagine are, like you said, bringing us to that little pinhole, and we can peep through and have an awe of something. Even though we can't have it, we can imagine.
• 54:09
  We can... You know, I've had this thought. Tell me what you think about this, Christy. I have had this thought that we can't actually believe something that we cannot imagine. You can't believe in an afterlife if you can imagine it.
• 54:25
  You can't believe in evil unless you see it and imagine it. And and so I think that imagination really pushes out our capacity to believe. And what do we need? What do we need to do the right thing? What do we need to persist to the end?
• 54:42
  What do we need to make a sacrifice of our life if we were called to do that? We have to have a belief. Yes.
• 54:53
  Christy-Faith: That's wild that we can't believe in something that we have yet to imagine. I mean, that's so relatable to the Christian life and just... Scott and I have so many conversations about how hard belief is.
• 55:11
  Andrew Pudewa: Well, faith is the evidence of things not seen.
• 55:14
  Christy-Faith: Yeah.
• 55:14
  Andrew Pudewa: So what are we always trying to do? We're trying to see those things.
• 55:19
  Christy-Faith: Yes.
• 55:20
  Andrew Pudewa: If if I could see an angel right here and right now, I would probably instantly become a different person.
• 55:27
  Christy-Faith: Yes. And we'd be frightened. We'd
• 55:31
  Andrew Pudewa: be scared. Yes. Horrified. I wouldn't... I would probably die of a heart attack.
• 55:36
  Christy-Faith: Right? Yeah.
• 55:36
  Andrew Pudewa: So so that's why we don't we don't see that, but we can understand the nature of angels through the stories.
• 55:45
  Christy-Faith: Yes. And just truths about what God wants for our lives and what he desires for us too, I think, is is really powerful. Andrew, what is your favorite fairy tale? I told you mine. You can't steal mine because I know mine's the best.
• 56:02
  Andrew Pudewa: Well, I think it it kind of changes over time. You know, I grew up reading Tolkien. I never came to Lewis as a kid. I guess my parents didn't even know, but I never read Lewis as a kid. And he was still alive when I was born.
• 56:18
  So I'm not sure I can answer that question, but I really do love the newest version of Snow White and the Widow Queen. The pictures are so perfect. The text is so perfectly said. The story is so, so well represented. I think like anything, a great representation of something can make all the difference.
• 56:49
  Mhmm. You can have a great story, but if it's badly told and it has bad bad illustrations, it's not going to have anywhere near the same effect. That one... And then, of course, I've always loved Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid. I have a hard time getting teenage boys to get excited about this story, but there's something so redemptive about that.
• 57:12
  You know? It's it's a healing story. Yeah. You know? The good is good.
• 57:15
  The evil is evil. And she doesn't get what she wants. Right? She doesn't get the print, but she makes an act of sacrificial love, and then she gets something better than that, which is the opportunity for eternal life. And I think Anderson had an insight, and he he kind of even said these stories just entered his mind fully formed.
• 57:40
  He didn't Like, wrestle with them. He he sounds a little bit like Handel when he talks about he just heard the Messiah or Bach saying, don't write the music. God writes the music. I just try to write down the notes. So I think some of these stories are so so perfectly formed and then given to us.
• 57:58
  So I put those at the top two. Snow White and the Widow Queen by Jonathan Pageau is magnificent. It's the most beautiful children's book that I have ever seen.
• 58:09
  Christy-Faith: Okay.
• 58:09
  Andrew Pudewa: And then I've always loved the Little Mermaid. So... Okay. You pinned me down.
• 58:15
  Christy-Faith: I did. I did. Okay. So let's talk about versions. You mentioned a couple of the versions, but I also wanna touch on Disney.
• 58:22
  What are your thoughts? Like, a mom's gonna be listening thinking, oh, great. Fairy tales. Let's pop in The Little Mermaid.
• 58:29
  Andrew Pudewa: Well, the first thing is you would never wanna watch that movie if you hadn't heard the story at least a few times. Because that first impression, that initial experience is gonna be the most powerful. The cartoon, I don't wanna step on anyone's toes, actually think the world would be a better place if Disney had never existed. But it does. And so if you look at the original Disney Snow White, it has all the elements of the story, and it's simplified.
• 59:03
  It's cartoonized. It displaces imagination. But kids kinda like cartoons because they are less likely to overwrite imagination and more likely to contribute to it.
• 59:14
  Christy-Faith: Right. Like an illustration in a book or something.
• 59:17
  Andrew Pudewa: Exactly. So it's intentionally lacking detail so that you can add the detail to it. But then if you look at some of Disney's newest stuff, Frozen would be a good example of something that just completely twists the original story of the Snow Queen by Anderson. And it's it's very twisted. The good is no longer good.
• 59:41
  The evil is no longer evil. It's now this this modernism. It's had all of the mystery, all of the Christian element just stripped out of it. And I would say you would avoid that. You're you're really safer just avoiding Disney.
• 59:56
  But if you have to, try to get the oldest Disney you can get and avoid the newest stuff.
• 1:00:02
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. Yeah. Well... And I am a huge fan. I just...
• 1:00:06
  The princess and the goblin and following the thread, just how it just connects with trust and the lord. And, one of my favorite preachers of all time, I don't know if you've heard of him. You probably have, is Timothy Keller.
• 1:00:21
  Andrew Pudewa: Mhmm. Yum.
• 1:00:22
  Christy-Faith: I listen to his podcast very regularly, and it's interesting how many times over the years, he's no longer with us. But over the years, he brings in the princess and the goblin in his sermons.
• 1:00:34
  Andrew Pudewa: Oh, interesting.
• 1:00:35
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. And it's just just very cool. So, well, listeners today, if you haven't read Fairy Tales to your kids yet, I hope this changed your mind. Andrew, thank you so much for geeking out with me. This was so fun.
• 1:00:50
  And you know what's gonna be so hilarious is I'm gonna see you tomorrow morning on a video at our co op. Yeah. Because our co op does IEW, and we're gonna put a link for IEW in a great writing program. If you're looking for a writing program, I know you've probably already heard of IEW, but that is what we use at our co op and in our family, and we absolutely love it. And that has been such an amazing contribution to the homeschooling world, Andrew, is teaching children how to write well and beautifully and just the way that you've done it in terms of, simplifying it into those steps for young kiddos in grades three and four.
• 1:01:28
  I know they start even earlier, but we started at grades three and four for... In our family. And just what a blessing your program has been in our lives. Thank you.
• 1:01:37
  Andrew Pudewa: Glad to hear that as always. And please give my best regards to all of your fellow co opers there.
• 1:01:44
  Christy-Faith: I will. I'll tell them tomorrow that mister Andrew says hi, and thanks for coming on the show today. I appreciate it.
• 1:01:50
  Andrew Pudewa: It was a blast. Thank you.
• 1:01:52
  Christy-Faith: You have my heart.