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Think of your favorite fairy tale. Were there talking animals? A handsome prince falling in love with a beautiful princess? Did it teach a lesson?
When we’re very young, fairy tales and fables are usually our first introduction to stories. We learn a lot about narrative structure from these old tales. We learn that stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Stories have characters and conflicts. We even learn some basic symbolism: a cottage represents safety and home, the woods represent danger, and a castle represents success. A beautiful person is good, and an ugly person is evil. These simple, familiar stories set the foundation for our understanding of narratives long before we have the ability to read one on our own.
There are many things in traditional stories that aren’t viewed as fondly today as they once were, like beauty equating to goodness and women as prizes. There are lots of retellings of classic stories now, which often change turn the formerly helpless maiden into a certified bad-ass. Heck, the best-selling Twisted Tale series are just Disney AUs based on their popular movies.
I didn’t write my earlier post about traditional literature just because it’s one of my favorite genres (though that is true), but because I want to discuss the oft-challenged picture book, Prince and Knight, but Daniel Haack and Stevie Lewis.
Well, let’s look at this dangerous book together. I love the illustrations – bright and colorful, and perfect for a picture book. The story is also told in rhyme, which I enjoyed. Sometimes rhyming picture books can be clunky or choose awkward words to make the rhyme work, but I didn’t see any of that here. Overall, it’s nice to look at and fun to read out loud.
Prince and Knight repeats familiar fairy tale beats: a prince goes on a journey, overcomes a challenge, and is rewarded with true love. The main difference between this and stories like Sleeping Beauty is that the prince’s true love is another man.
The story goes like this: a prince is getting ready to inherit the kingdom, but the king and queen know that it’s too much work to rule alone. They want their son to find a nice girl and get married. He meets many lovely ladies, but he doesn’t want to marry any of them. When a dragon attacks, the prince races to save the kingdom. He’s not fighting alone, either. A bold knight rushes into the battle to assist the king. They save each other’s lives, and together, capture the beast. Soon, the prince realizes that his one true love, the one he’s been searching for, is this brave knight in shining armor. The prince and the knight are married, the kingdom rejoices, and everyone lives happily ever after.
I loved Prince & Knight. There’s action, but not violence (the prince and knight tie up the dragon rather than slay it), and it has an adorable happily ever after. My favorite thing about the book might be the king and queen’s reaction to the prince falling in love with another man. They’re ecstatic that he’s found someone and don’t care that it’s not a princess, and the whole kingdom celebrates their wedding.
Cute, right?
Unfortunately, not everyone thought so. According to the ALA Prince and Knight was one of the most frequently banned or challenged books in 2019 for “featuring a gay marriage and LGBTQIA+ content; for being ‘a deliberate attempt to indoctrinate young children’ with the potential to cause confusion, curiosity, and gender dysphoria; and for conflicting with a religious viewpoint”
Siiiigh. Let’s break this down.
Prince and Knight was published in 2018, three years after same-sex marriage became legal throughout the United States. According to Pew Research Center, a majority Americans support same-sex marriage and it’s part of the cultural landscape, whether you think it should be or not.
“Confusion” and “curiosity” are natural parts of childhood. Young kids are learning about the world and, no matter what book you read to a young child, they’re going to have questions. For an example from my own life, I was in fourth grade when I two older students – who were also my neighbors – told me that our principal was a lesbian. I’d never even heard the word “lesbian” before, and it had to be explained to me: girls who love girls. I became worried, and asked, “am I a lesbian because I love my mom?” The older girls told me that girl family members didn’t count. Later, my neighbor’s mother called my house to warn my mom that I might be asking some questions about what I’d learned that day. But I can’t remember asking any other questions about it, or even it being that big of a deal in the long run. If a child has a question about the gay marriage in the book, “Some boys fall in love with other boys” isn’t indoctrination, it’s just a true statement. And it’s not going to be as earth-shattering as you think. And while we’re not totally certain what causes gender dysphoria, you don’t get it from reading a picture book.
As far as a religious viewpoint goes…I’m pretty sure we can guess which religion the complainants are talking about. Some religious communities, like the Buddhist Churches of America and some Jewish movements have celebrated or supported same-sex marriage for decades, and many sects of Christianity do so as well now. Even the Catholic church is slooooowly becoming more accepting of same-sex couples. So this book isn’t against all religious viewpoints, just a certain one.
At the start of this post, I talked about the role fairy tales play in our formative years. So I have a question: why is Prince and Knight indoctrination, but a story like “Sleeping Beauty” isn’t? Classic Western fairy tales are often about finding true love through magical means. The prince magically awakens a sleeping princess with a kiss; a princess kisses a frog and finds her true love; a glass slipper fits only one woman perfectly. So many stories treat the princess as a prize to be won. I would say reading only fairy tales like that introduce kids to harmful stereotypes of gender. So why aren’t tales of heterosexual love accused of indoctrinating kids?
I love fairy tales, old and new. I am aware of the pitfalls in classic traditional stories, and I enjoy adaptations that change things up. I still think fairy tales and other traditional stories and rhymes are an important part of early literacy. But there’s a phrase I heard once that’s always stuck with me: “It’s not what you have, it’s what you don’t have.” This sums up how I feel about a lot of media diets. If you get nothing but stories with a narrow view of what the world is like, it’s going to affect how you see the world. I don’t see anything inherently wrong with traditional stories, but I think it’s important for children to see stories where the princess saves the prince, where the ugly person is kind, and where the prince and the knight find true love.
Because in real life, girls can save boys, not-beautiful people can be kind, and two men can fall in love and marry each other. To pretend otherwise is insulting to all of those who don’t live in a fairytale.
Overlooked Books 