Cinderella's Dresses

Ella didn't have the kind of childhood you dream of for a little girl. Her family suffered from substance abuse. When Ella was still in grade school, she used to think that if she was really, really

good, then she could help repair her family's dysfunction. She eventually learned that striving for good behaviors didn't seem to have any affect, and she gave up and embraced the same tools her family used to deal with things-alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes.

Ella's life became a roller coaster of visiting rehabs and relapsing. She eventually ended up in a foster home. The family she lived with was so different from her own, she didn't feel like she fit in. Her foster siblings were too "perfect," they couldn't possibly understand what she had gone through, the decisions she had made, or what her world was like.

Once again, Ella found herself in need of rehab. She chose a program in a more violent neighborhood in Chicago, because it would be shorter than the alternative. She found herself a racial minority, not really benefiting from the services the rehab provided, and not fitting in with the other girls.

On certain Saturdays, the girls were allowed to go out with friends or family members. Her foster parents would drive out whenever they could, taking her home for a day, or for adventures in the city, seeing major league baseball games or visiting Chinatown.

Black and white illustrations-George Cruikshank

One Saturday promised to be only a brief visit-the family had RSVPed to a wedding in the late afternoon. Ella had never been to a wedding before; she wished she could go with her foster parents, but she wasn't on the guest list, and anyway was only dressed in jeans, not appropriate wedding attire. But, her foster parents called the family who was hosting the wedding to see if Ella could come with them to the ceremony; the hosting family would be thrilled to have Ella there.

The foster family was on a mission. They didn't have much time; Ella and her foster mother ran into a clothing store while her foster sister went into the beauty store next door to pick up makeup. Ella found a dress right away, tried it on, and wore it out of the store. There was a palpable excitement in the family van at this sudden change of circumstances; Ella put on her new makeup as they drove to the ceremony.

Cinderella- A Moment Til Midnight

by Krystal Scheetz

The wedding was beautiful, but it was over all too soon. The wedding party went to take pictures, and the rest of the guests were making their way over to the reception venue, but Ella had a 6:00 curfew at the rehab facility, so they left for the city of Chicago again.

The foster family would still be able to return the party, feast, and dance, but Ella was going back to her life of drudgery. She grew sullen and wouldn't speak during the car ride. She changed out of her new dress in the back seat of the van, rolled it up, and hid it as she left the van, back to the walls of her prison.

John Batten

Several years passed. The road was a long and difficult one for both Ella and her foster parents. She made some poor decisions along the way, but also faced hardships many people can only imagine-homelessness, abuse, and the constant temptation of family members who dragged her back down into addiction.

But through it all, her foster parents did what they could to help her. They stayed in contact after she turned 18 and was out of foster care. They helped her find jobs and housing, study for her GED, and gave her innumerable second chances.

Kinuko Y. Craft

This weekend, Ella wore a different kind of dress-a beautiful, lacey, white wedding dress. She is drug free and the mother of two beautiful children. She is now the strong one who sets an example for her family members, and gently guides a drunk friend back home. She and her husband could not have afforded the cost of a wedding, but once again, her faithful fairy godparents were there to help with details of venue and flowers and food and ceremony. She beamed as she echoed her marriage vows and placed a ring on her husband's finger.

I share this story, although it's unusual for me, because I hope it's an encouragement. There are so many people who, like Ella (whose name has been changed for privacy), seem to have been dealt life's worst cards. Life can seem incredibly dark and hopeless. If you or a loved one struggled with substance abuse and/or other struggles, it can seem like there's no way out and no point in trying, but it is possible to turn a life around.

Fairy tales don't have happy endings because we're trying to propagate the false idea that life is easy or perfect; (most) fairy tales have happy endings simply because we know all too well that life is not easy or perfect. It will usually take a little more than a dress and a night of partying to change a pattern of behavior, it may take years and much discouragement-but a fairy tale is a way of looking into the future and seeing what could happen.

I also wanted to recognize the sacrifices that countless foster parents and adoptive parents are making all across the world. They open up their homes and hearts with no guarantee their efforts will be appreciated or successful. I have a huge amount of wonder and respect for the love and forgiveness my parents have shown Ella and their other foster children through the years; I honestly don't know if I could ever do what they have done.

I hope it's also encouraging to realize that we can be that fairy godmother to someone else. It doesn't have to be something as extreme as long term foster care-sometimes a smile and listening ear can do wonders in the life of someone who is lonely and hurting. Whether we realize it or not, our words and actions (or lack thereof) can change someone's life-that's a huge responsibility, and a privilege we should not forget or take lightly.

This weekend I saw my father walk Ella down the aisle and dance the father/daughter dance with her. At the time she lived with us I would never have predicted that she would honor us as her family in this way. I'm thrilled for Ella and wish her an epic Happily Ever After-not that it will be perfect or easy, but I do think it will be full of love and happiness all the same.

Congratulations, Ella-

The Wild Girl

"No story was just a story, though. It was a suitcase stuffed with secrets." 

p. 252

I was thrilled to find my library already had Kate Forsyth's latest book available! (Well, in America-The Beast's Garden is already available in Australia.) I was expecting to enjoy The Wild Girl and I was not disappointed!

It's a beautiful story about Dortchen Wild, the girl who grew up next to the Grimm family and ended up marrying Wilhelm Grimm, as well as telling him many of the most loved tales featured in the collection. My favorite thing about Forsyth is how committed she is to research and historical details. Obviously she had to take some creative liberties-very little research exists on Dortchen Wild, which is a shame. For all the books published on the Grimms, for collecting and editing the tales, the significance of the original teller shouldn't be overlooked. Yet even though Forsyth had to use her imagination to fill in some gaps of knowledge, I think she did a good job of remaining true to what is known rather than twisting facts to make for a good story.

In fact, towards the middle of the book, I was beginning to think it was a little excessively dark. But Forsyth also includes a fantastic afterword that explains the questions I had been asking as I read-how much of this is historical and how much was invented? I don't want to give anything away, but I think she came up with a good explanation for some of the mysteries that surround Dortchen and her relationship with Wilhelm. But fun facts (from the afterword): the real Dortchen had written a letter to Lotte Grimm when she was 12 confessing her crush on Wilhelm. They weren't married until 1825, but in his autobiography Wilhelm wrote: "I have never ceased to thank God for the blessing and happiness of this marriage."

The book is historical fiction, fairy tale, romance, coming of age, a war novel, a study of a troubled family-it's so many things rolled into one. And aside from the story, I'm glad I read it just for the information I learned and can now remember better. I've read multiple books on the Grimms before; I've read about the different people who likely told them the stories, the people who helped them publish the books, the tendencies of each brother when editing-but those are all details I didn't necessarily remember or keep straight in my head. That's the power of a novel-not only did I read a very sweet romance, but now I feel like I have a sense of the difference in Wilhelm's personalities verses Jakob. I've read before about the Napoleonic invasion and how that motivated the brothers to collect tales that would be true to their German heritage, but I really had no idea what that would have been like (Napoleon wasn't really covered in my American education...I think we had one semester to gloss over all the major European monarchies).

It's been typical lately for critics to get upset about the changes the Grimms made to the tales and how they were made less authentic. But when you read the story, you can easily imagine why they would have made those changes. Responsible for providing for their family during a very hard time, they needed money and couldn't have months of work go to waste if no one would buy their books. The Grimms often went hungry (literally-not just "it's been 5 hours since I had lunch and I'm so hungry", but "I've had to live off of small amounts of cabbage soup all winter and we don't have coffee so we grind acorns" hungry).

Also, seeing the stories through Dortchen's eyes, I couldn't help but think of those who are upset that traditional fairy tales feature more passive females who are rewarded for doing housework. I think sometimes we almost get the idea that fairy tales were made by a bunch of old white men sitting around and thinking of stories that would "put women in their place", but you see that the tales really reflected the lives of the women who told them. Life was hard-no man would think of doing any of the "women's work" around the house, and the women were responsible for all of the household chores in an era before dishwashers, refrigerators, washing machines, etc., no matter how many women there were in the house (the Grimms had one sister, Lotte, who was expected to take care of all of them all by herself). The women in the story didn't have to pretend too much to relate to Cinderella, or even the extreme hunger in "Hansel and Gretel," or some of the trauma found in other fairy tales. Stories were (and are!) a powerful tool for people to express frustration, communicate experiences, and hope for the future.

I loved hearing some of the tales told in their original forms. As much as I would love to get my hands on the First Edition of the Grimms' Tales, many of the tales were changed even from the original telling to that first edition. Of course there were reasons for that, one being that the brothers often heard multiple variants of the same tale and didn't want to be the book to be too repetitive, so they would create a "master" version.

Dortchen's father is a huge character in the book. He begins as strict and unforgiving and becomes crueler. There were difficult scenes to read that made me truly upset and angry. I think on some level, Herr Wild represents the worst case scenario for Victorian fathers-one that, sadly, wasn't far from the truth in many households. I do wish that Forsyth had included a little more insight into his character and how he became the way he was-villains rarely appear out of nowhere. Very likely he too was beaten as a child, which influenced how he saw his role as a father; or maybe other characters could have shown disapproval if he failed to properly "manage" his wife and children. Males were way better off than the average woman at the time, but there were still strict social rules that dictated what was expected of them at the time. I had never really considered what it would be like to be a male in the Victorian era-to go from being in absolute submission to your parents, to getting married and all of a sudden being in absolute authority of your wife and household-it would naturally be very confusing and easy to turn into a tyrant.

This book, like Bitter Greens, is for a more mature reader. Some of the scenes are very dark, and there is sexual matter. In comparison, "Wild Girl" is less explicit, but there are still some very sad, even scary scenes (I made the mistake of reading this before bed one night-didn't sleep well), and violent descriptions of her brother's experience fighting in the war.

I had read Gyspy's interview with Kate Forsyth at Once Upon a Blog but reread it after I finished the book, since many of the details make more sense to me now. I would highly recommend the interview for another read, I enjoyed it so much more after reading the book myself!

Bonus: Sue Bursztynski interviewed Kate Forsyth back in 2013 to discuss both "Bitter Greens" and "Wild Girl." Thanks for sharing, Sue!

True Fairy Tales

This post is sort of an extension of my last post on Star Wars, where I was arguing for the validity of fairy tales and stories with happy endings-mixed among other kinds of stories. But after coming across yet another quote that classified fairy tales as an escape from reality into an idealistic world where things are more magical than the "real world" really is, I felt compelled to share a secret-

Sometimes, life is magical. Sometimes, fairy tales do happen.

You'd have to be the most narrow-minded person in the world to deny that suffering and evil exist, but is there any fairy tale that doesn't include some kind of suffering? I can't think of any.

I'd like to tell you a story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young girl named Joanne. She was young and had never really fallen in love, but when she did, she imagined falling in love with a tall, blond, handsome man. One day she was walking home from school with some friends, and they were joined by a mutual friend. Joanne, they asked, have you met Charlie yet? Joanne glanced over. Charlie was just like she had imagined her Prince Charming-tall, blond, and handsome. Joanne was realistic, though, and put the incident out of her mind.

Later, Joanne was at a church picnic. Her whole life, she had hated snakes. For years afterwards, she hated snakes. Which is okay because Indiana Jones hates snakes too, only she didn't know this because Indiana Jones didn't exist yet. But at this picnic, Joanne found a garter snake and suddenly had the urge to pick it up and tease the other girls with it. The other girls shrieked and ran, and it attracted the attention of some of the boys, including Charlie. He wondered who this girl was, chasing the others around with a snake.

He decided to get to know her better. They dated. When they got serious, he let her wear his class ring. One night, after a date, he pulled his car in front of her house. "Hey, do you still have my class ring? I want to see if it still fits me," he said.

Joanne handed him the ring. In the dark she couldn't see what he was doing, but he put the ring back into her hand. "Here you go," he said. But she could feel-though she couldn't see it-that the ring was different. It was an engagement ring.

The engagement was difficult for both of them because Charlie had been drafted into the army. Both were overjoyed when he returned and they finally celebrated their wedding. They lived long and fulfilled lives, raising three grandchildren and seeing seven grandchildren grow up. They all lived happily ever after.

You may have scoffed at that last line. Their lives certainly aren't perfect, but I don't think of "happily ever after" as meaning "perfect and with no more struggles," but "and they lived on to have many more adventures." Joanne and Charlie have been happily married now for over 55 years. I asked Joanne on their last anniversary (though I knew the answer, I just wanted to hear her say it) if she loved my grandpa as much as the day she married him. She responded without hesitation, "I'd say I love him more, because it's a deeper love."

Yes, Charlie and Joanne are my grandparents, and yes, every detail in this story is true. Other couples in my family have wonderful fairy tale stories, which I may share later.