Product Description

Anyone who is in tune with the times knows that Snow White took refuge with seven vertically challenged men, that Little Red Riding Hood, her grandma and the cross-dressing wolf set up an alternative household based on mutual respect and cooperation, that Goldilocks was a rogue biologist who specialised in the study of anthropomorphic bears, that the Frog Prince was not a prince at all, but a middle-aged, balding real estate developer with plans to drain the pond, and that the Emperor was not naked, but merely endorsing a clothing-optional lifestyle. You didn't know that? You mean that you or your children were lulled to sleep by classic bedtime stories that are discriminatory, prejudiced and demeaning to witches, animals, giants, dwarfs, goblins and fairies everywhere? Now at last you can remedy this cultural defect by reading 'Politically Correct Bedtime Stories', and find out what really happened when Jack climbed the beanstalk, when Cinderella went to the ball and when the wolf tried to blow down the houses of the Three Little Pigs. After all, if you were brought up on all that sexist, racist, sizeist, ethnocentrist reading matter, then you most certainly need to be made aware of the dangers, in these sensitive modern times, of expressing any kind of opinion at all.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12725 in Books
• Published on: 1994-09-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 89 pages

Hans Christian Andersen
It's hard to believe that James Finn Garner could improve upon perfection - but he has.

The Brothers Grimm
We were fighting between ourselves to see who would read it first.

Aesop
These stories are fables for our times.

Customer Reviews

No chance of sleep after this: You'll be laughing too hard!
I first purchased this book years ago on a whim and made the mistake of reading it on the train home: the other passengers were extremely unnerved as I was in hysterics after the first page and could not stop sniggering throughout the whole journey. The book now has pride of place on my coffee table and most visitors who leafed through it ended up buying a copy themselves. Is there any better recommendation than that? Wether you read about Snowwhite and the vertically challenged men or about little red riding hood setting up a commune with the wolf and her grandmother, this book is something for both old and young (possibly with a light advantage towards the former). A must buy (and an ideal gift for anyone.

BRILLIANTLY FUNNY
This book is for anyone who likes parodys or mocking the political systems. it is a 'value for money' book,as itwill have you laughing all the time (due to its humorous twists and phrases.) The book is composed of several 're-looks' at popular Fairy-Tales and Nursery Stories. I thoroughly recommend this book for everyone, as although it is based on Fairy Tales; its updated twists,endings and political humor makes it more adult- but keeping it light and not boring.

Oppression, Alienation, and the Three Little Pigs
Bedtime stories are probably among the oldest forms of tale-telling there is in human history. Before epic poetry, before political speeches, before religious tales of awe, there were people sitting around campfires and living in caves, caring for their young, speaking soothing sounds to their young.

Bedtime stories were quickly discerned to be an excellent way in which to reinforce not only language skills, but culture and accepted morality, too.

So, why is it that fairy tales, the more-modern equivalent of these stories, became canonised and thus immutable by the likes of the Brothers Grimm, etc.? Just what does Hansel & Gretel or the Little Red Riding Hood mean for us today, beyond being good stories?

And, are they good stories? Should we teach children there are houses made of candy and cookies out in the woods? This is the kind of question addressed in this delightful little collection, Politically Correct Bedtime Stories

Now, before you get your knickers in a twist, realise that this is all in fun, but, as it is fun, highlights certain important points nonetheless. Political correctness can be stretched to the limits of absurdity, like almost anything carried to and beyond its logical limits. That is not to say that political correctness is all bad. But, we do approach a time when nothing can be said for fear of offending someone somewhere at some time.

James Finn Garner highlights this in his introduction, by saying if he has inadvertently displayed any sexist, racist, culturalist, nationalist, regionalist, ageist, lookist, ableist, sizeist, speciesist, intellectualist, socioeconomicist, ethnocentrist, phallocentrist, heteropatriarchalist, or other type of bias as yet unnamed, he apologizes and encourages your suggestions for rectification.

In this volume, we have the following stories, revised and updated for the modern reader:

- Little Red Riding Hood
- The Emperor's New Clothes
- The Three Little Pigs
- Rumpelstiltskin
- The Three Codependent Goats Gruff
- Rapunzel
- Cinderella
- Goldilocks
- Snow White
- Chicken Little
- The Frog Prince
- Jack and the Beanstalk
- The Pied Piper of Hamlin

I shall recount part of the tale of the Frog Prince below, so you can get a sense of the style of the rest of the stories in this book, which present Little Red Riding Hood teaming up with the wolf against the violence of the hunter, the three pigs living in a harmonious collective, and of course, the frog prince: Once, there was a young princess who, when she grew tired of beating her head against the male power structure at her castle, would relax by walking into the woods and sitting beside a small pond. There she would amuse herself by tossing her favourite golden ball up and down and pondering the role of the eco-feminist in her era.

Well, to cut a not-so-long story even shorter (and to avoid infringements by limiting my take to a fair-use length!), the princess and the frog agree to terms, but when the frog approaches for a kiss, the princess feels harassed; however, she relents, and the frog transforms into a businessman who wants to make the pond into a golf course and condo development... The princess eventually decided that she really didn't need a prince after all, particularly one like this, and turns him back into a frog.

'And while someone might have noticed that the frog was gone, no one ever missed the real estate developer.'

Of course, apologies are due to real estate developers, those who wear tacky golf clothing, and those caught in an inter-species spell.

Fun for children of all adult ages.