The love of books is still around, and it is incredibly refreshing. It is nice to see that children still enjoy stories while living in a world that seems to be run by technology and gadgets. It is also nice to see that the classic stories we all love never seem to go out of style. However, there could be some changes made. When we look at old fairytales and fables, we can point out some trends that don’t seem to fit with today’s society. While we can appreciate that these were written in a different time, it doesn’t mean that we have to just accept them.
According to Romper, actress Natalie Portman is definitely not going to accept the fact that old, traditional fables seem to be missing one thing. They don’t seem to have a lot of female characters and she changed it.
When Natalie read some of the older stories to her children she found that she was getting frustrated because all of the main characters were male. She found herself just changing the genders as she was reading and that inspired her to create her own book. A book of fables, rewritten, with females as the leads. Her new children’s book is called Natalie Portman’s Fables and you will find the same old stories with female leads.
Natalie said that she didn’t want to change the original intentions of the stories, because she truly does believe that the messages that they portray are important. She didn’t want to “throw away” the stories that she grew up on, she just wanted to make them more inclusive.
The book is beautiful, and it features a retelling of three popular stories. It covers The Tortiose and The Hare, The Three Little Pigs and Country Mouse and City Mouse.
She said that when she was deciding which stories to do, she wanted to pick stories that had messages that would be relevant today. She picked The Tortoise and the Hare because of its message to slow down. In a world where technology rules and everyone just always seems to be in a hurry to get things done, she thought that this message was important.
Country Mouse and City Mouse really highlights the importance of connection and friendship and finding people who love and care about you because of who you are. We are seeing more and more changes to children’s books to reflect diversity and inclusivity and we hope there are more to come.
Source: Romper