Why Young Adults Should Re-Read Old Children's Lit

Almost every child has grown up with children’s stories of fairy tales and fantasy worlds. Either our parents read them to us or we learned about them in school from our teachers. Almost every country has their version of a fairy tale, each story woven with relatable characters and life lessons parted near the end. Sometimes those stories got animated and made into movies and TV shows, much like the Disney and Pixar movies that are produced year round.

One way or another, these children’s stories were a part of our lives growing up and they gave us a plethora of expectations as we grew older. As these stories end up getting passed down generation after generation, we often come back to them as young adults or teens and when we do, the stories we once adored and cherished as youngsters fill us with new emotions as we peer through them with fresh new eyes.

Those emotions can be divided into two categories. One containing nostalgia and curiosity, the other confusion and ridicule at having once enjoyed such stories. Those children who grew up and came face-to-face with the harsh realities of the grown-up world will find these children stories to be silly pass-times and an exaggerated form of the real world.

While those who grew up diving deeper into the world of fantasy worlds and adventurous folklore will find the stories heartwarming and filled with memories of what it was like to be a young child once. Regardless of which of these two categories one might fall into, it is important to reread young children’s literature as it brings us back to the life lessons and character developments that we were too young to understand before.

In fairytales like “Cinderella” and “Rapunzel”, we learn what happens if we are mean and demeaning to someone and that no matter how hard life can be, there’s always a way out. In stories like "The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" and "Corduroy", we learned about the importance of friendship and being able to accept ourselves and each other.

Though things like ‘happily ever after’ and princes and princesses, evil stepmothers and sweet fairy godmothers seem far-fetched and out of date, they will always hold a special meaning in our lives, because they were our first venture into life and they taught us lessons without making it completely obvious to us. As a child, these stories looked just like that, as simple stories. As adults, they are life lessons, age-old advice, and wisdom beyond the years and they should continue to be handed down from generation to generation, from child to teen to adult, and so on and so forth.