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The 13th Annual Books By The Banks Cincinnati USA Book Festival will be held Saturday, October 26 the Duke Energy Convention Center in downtown Cincinnati. Along with more than 100 authors who will talk with patrons and sign copies of their books, there will be author panels and discussions; a kids zone and teen scene with a variety of activities and entertainment; sponsor tables; and an onsite bookstore from Joseph Beth Booksellers.Cincinnati Public Radio will have a table - stop by and say hi to the hosts and staff, sign-up to win a CD or other prize, and let us know what you think about our stations! This event is free to attend, and runs from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.More information can be found at booksbythebanks.org.91.7 WVXU is a proud media partner.We've had the opportunity to interview, or review, many of the authors you'll meet at this year's Books by the Banks . Here's a list if you'd like to hear from one of your favorites! BBTB 2019 AUTHORS WHO HAVE BEEN ON WVXU THIS YEARConnie Dow: From A to Z with Energy! 26 Ways to Move and PlayTerry Gamble: The EulogistJessica Strawser: Forget You Know MeAlexander Watson: Saucy Boat, Stout Mates, Spotted Dog, AmericaMargaret McMullan: Where The Angels LivedCandace Ganger: Six Goodbyes We Never SaidBook Review: Dan and Judy Dourson: Wildflowers and Ferns of Red River Gorge and the Greater Red River BasinJohn Kachuba: Shapeshifters: A HistoryDan Woellert: Cincinnati Goetta: A Delectable HistoryKaren Abbott: The Ghosts Of Eden ParkBook Review: Constance J. Moore and Nancy M. Broermann: Maria Longworth Storer: From Music and Art to Popes and PresidentsPauletta Hansel:When She Was Done (a Mother's Day poem)Coal Town Photograph (Father's Day poems)Sherry Stanforth and Richard Hague: Riparian: Poetry, Short Prose, and Photographs Inspired by the Ohio River (airing on November 24)Rick Kennedy: 100 Years of Reimagining Flight (Cincinnati Edition)Jack Heffron: Classic Reds: The 50 Greatest Games in Cincinnati Reds History (Cincinnati Edition)Michael Morgan: Cincinnati Beer (Cincinnati Edition)Greg Rhodes and John Erardi: Baseball Revolutionaries: How the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings Rocked the Country and Made Baseball Famous (Cincinnati Edition)David Bell: LayoverWilliam Plunkett: The G-Men and the Nurse: A 1929 Washington Cold CaseJillian Scudder: Astroquizzical: A Curious Journey Through Our Cosmic Family Tree (Looking Up podcast)

The Grimm Reader: A Teenager Talks About The Stories That Shape Us

Malina Hampshire
Basim Blunt
/
WYSO
Malina Hampshire

Most of us know our culture's classic myths and fairytales about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and Little Red Riding Hood: But how does it feel when a young person learns the truth about the stories handed down from generation to generation. This week on Dayton Youth Radio we'll find out from one teenager who has some strong feelings about how parents lovingly mislead their kids.

My name is Malina Hampshire, and I am 16 years old. My favorite color is blue; the color blue is like way better than other colors to me. I love to read, watch movies, and I love to listen to music. My story is about fairy tales, not the Disney versions that ended with that happily ever after, but the original editions that made them unique.

I believe that passing down stories to each generation is the best tradition because they have so many meanings and lessons to be learned like teaching children to be careful around strangers, it's bad to lie, don't become greedy, etc.

When I was about 7, I remember  watching "Cinderella" and "Sleeping Beauty" and listening to stories like "Little Red Riding Hood" and thinking, what’s the point of this story? So I decided to look into my favorite fairy tales to see what was missing, and as I got older I realized that the original editions included endings or details that weren’t so happy. 

Last month, I was given a first edition copy of The Brother’s Grimm translated by Jack Zipes that I hadn’t even known existed. It contained the original stories of "Cinderella", "Rapunzel", "Sleeping Beauty" and many others. The book was a puzzle piece, backing up articles and videos all claiming that these tales were darker than the ones we were told.

I learned that in "Cinderella", her stepmother urged her sisters to cut off a bit of their foot to be with the prince.  Snow White’s Stepmother was actually her real mother, who wanted her daughter’s heart as proof of her death, and Snow White was only a child. In "Hansel and Gretel", their stepmother was their real mother., who decided to abandon them in the woods. And in "Little Red Riding Hood", the Wolf’s stomach was filled with stones and he was skinned right after his death.

It was an eye opener that these original tales showed that the world was not a happy-go-lucky place. Learning these things gave me mixed emotions. I couldn’t tell if I was happy to discover these stories, or angry or sad because they weren’t being told in their original fashion. It made me sad, because when children discover the truths of world, the modern fairy tales that they would grow up to love would become just stories that gave false hopes about society. Not everything that happens in real life is going to be a happy experience, not everyone that you'll meet will be good. These are things that children really need to know.

But if we keep changing the stories, we lose what made those stories so great and the lessons that come with them. Changing the tale for the sake of making it happy for kids, takes away some of the reality the story was told for. I want to know, from parent to teenager, why we do this to our stories, why are we shielding our children from the reality of these tales so much? They can do so good in preparing them for society.

Think about for just a second, what life would have been like for you if the tales you knew growing up were told in the original form. Do you think you'd have a better perspective?Malina Hampshire is a student at the Dayton Early College Academy. To learn more about DECA, visit the school's website: http://daytonearlycollege.org/  Special thanks to Anne Rasmussen, Director of Community Involvement at DECA.

Dayton Youth Radio is supported by the Virginia W. Kettering Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council.

 

Copyright 2018 WYSO

Basim has worked in the media for over twenty years, as an A&R rep with Capitol Records and as a morning drive show producer. He is a filmmaker, media arts adjunct, and also a digital editing teacher in the Dayton Metro area. In 2012 he joined WYSO as a Community Voices Producer, and his work has earned him a “New Voices” Scholar award by (AIR) Association of Independents in Radio. Basim has produced the award-winning documentary Boogie Nights: A History of Funk Music in Dayton. He also served as Project Manager for ReInvention Stories, a multimedia docu-series produced by Oscar-winning filmmakers Steve Bognar and Julia Reichert. In 2020, Blunt received a PMJA (Public Media Journalists Association) award for his WYSO series Dayton Youth Radio, for which he is the founding producer and instructor. Basim spins an eclectic mix of funk, soul, and classic R&B every Friday night from 10:00 pm to midnight, as host of the 91.3 FM music show Behind the Groove.
Malina Hampshire