Do you know the original non Disney version of these?

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Pinocchio



Wizard of Oz



Mary Poppins




Charlotte's Web


I'm glad my mother read these to me before Disney covered them in sticky sweet goo. These are the illustrations I remember.

Frankly, while reading the originals is cool at a later age, I don´t see what a child is going to garner from reading the non-disney ones. A lot of the stories are gruesome and sexist, they were made to teach lessons that are not applicable today.

Uh Disney didn't do Wizard of Oz nor Charlotte's Web.

It doesn't change the point.

Huh?

But you mentioned the company and said the movies and they didn't make those movies. Other movie companies did.

I always enjoyed the illustrations for the original Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I can't remember his name, but I think he also did Charlotte's Web. I agree, the original material is fascinating.

You are correct about The Wizard of Oz and Charlotte's Web not being redone by Disney. My mistake. My point was, whether it was redone by Disney or Hanna-Barbera or whoever, that the originals had an edginess to them that is lost when they are redone.

The sexism come mostly from the modifications in fact, like the vision on what a girl should be according to Victorian society and the fact that Walt Disney himself was sexist.

The older versions of things were very dark. Even Mother Goose.

Indeed I do. I've never read Pinocchio, and I never will. I have a deep seated fear of all things Pinocchio.

Fact is, most folk lit is pretty dark - beyond Hammer Films, if we are talking cinema - and the stories for the very young perhaps darkest.

I have found the little kiddies enjoy [AND create] stories I would not let their parents hear. The sweetness and light of children's lit is a 20th century invention.

Check out the simplest Mother Goose.

I used to love Pinochio...and did you know that some nursry rhymes are really dark
like Ring around the roses was about the bubonic plauge
and Rock a bye baby...well if ever listen to it...it is really creepy

here I will interpet Ring around the roses

Ring around the Roses (first sign of the plague on the skin is a red ring)
Pocket full of posies (they wore flowers all over them to try to mask the smell of rotting flesh)
Ashes Ashes (burning of bodies that died)
We all fall down ( 1/3 of the world population died)

I had a copy of The Annotated Mother Goose years ago and many of the rhymes were hiding political and social commentary. For instance Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle was about Queen Elizabeth 1st's court.

really??? that is facinating...can you interpet it for me

I don't have the book anymore but as far as I can remember it was fashionable at the time to for members of the court (read entourage) to call each other by animal names. I'll try to find it on line.
Here's the best I could find-
http://childrens-verse.suite101.com/art ... dle_diddle

and here's a link to the book
http://www.librarything.com/work/29833

I heard Wizard of Oz was originally a progressive novel, but otherwise have only read Charlotte's Web.