Bedtime stories

     My little grandson loves horses. I was watching his favourite cartoon with him," Spirit,stallion of Cimarron." A 2002 Dreamworks production.

We soared above the Grand Canyon with the eagles, we raced through the forests feeling the wind run through our manes, we marvelled at the vast expanses of North American National Parks, ,then we zoomed into a beautiful mustang, nuzzling her little foal.
"Oh no" I said to my son, "Nothing awful's going to happen is it?".
"No, he replied," the film ends happily, the days of Bambi are long gone".

Thanks to Disney, many Hans Christian Anderson and Brothers Grimm fairy tales, end happily.
The Little Mermaid gets legs as a wedding present from her Dad, instead of turning into a wave.
Reading my children stories was way on the top of the list of my favourite activities.

 Books have been written, explaining the psychology behind traditional tales.Psychologists explain, that for a child to hear a frightening fairy tale, while feeling safe at home, helps them to be stronger. It's difficult to believe that when you have a child scared to go to sleep because of a film or story.
The most frightening story for me, was The Snow Queen.

 We read all the classic fairy tales, often, my son had his own interpretations.
Snow White was rather ungrateful, leaving the Seven Dwarves, after all they had done for her. So we invented Seven princess-dwarves for them, and they all lived happliy ever after.
He felt sorry for the Two ugly Sisters, so they found two ugly princes to go to the palace with.
The ants could have given some of their food to the poor grasshopper.

The great wealth of English children's literature  meant we could immerse ourselves in The Beatrix Potter stories, Paddington Bear, Winnie- the- Pooh, Richard Scarry. as they got older we loved all the Roald dahl stories,Just William, The Famous Five, Fudge.
Car journeys, were a delight, as we all listened to "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "James and the Giant Peach", George's marvellous medicine".

It was such a pleasure for me to read to them in English,and so much easier too,  but I did worry about their Italian Heritage. They needed to feel they belonged in Italy, that it was part of them too.They needed to enrich their Italian.
The first author I found that I could enjoy with them was Gianni Rodari. Our favourite one was "Storie del telefono senza fili". They were stories told by a father, who had to be away a lot for work,  to his children over the telephone, every night before bedtime.