Annette Freer
This is what makes fairy tales so important for children
Annette Frier is involved in the audio book “Märchenland für alle”.
© Mathias Bothor 2018
“Fairyland for everyone” is a special collection. Annette Frier is involved in the audio book and tells what fairy tales can mean.
Promoting self-confidence and tolerance in children is sometimes easy in a playful way, for example with books like “Everyone is different. That’s us!” or “My friends, happiness and me”. The collection “Fairytale Land for All”, edited by Boldizsár M. Nagy, is also inclusive and diversely told. The stories – traditional Hungarian fairy tales retold – are about princesses who would rather have adventures than to marry, about a rabbit with three ears or about princes who are looking for the prince of their hearts.
“Fairytale Land for All” became a bestseller in Hungary, despite high political opposition, before it was released in German-speaking countries. The audio book (Der Audio Verlag), an unabridged reading with, among others, Annette Frier (49), Christoph Maria Herbst (57), Abak Safaei-Rad (*1974) and Anne Düe (40), will be released on April 20th. In an interview with spot on news about the fairy tales, Frier reveals that she liked “The Ice King” very much: “Autocratic rule in an ice palace is a very strong social image that can probably only be dissolved with persistent love …”
The collection of fairy tales, with its heroic characters belonging to minorities, sends the message: It’s good to be different and diverse. In your opinion, why is it that fairytale stories in particular convey this message so successfully?
Annette Frier: By definition, fairy tales do not conform to any norm. They catapult us into any cosmos with the beginning words “Once upon a time…”. A utopian place beyond all social conventions, where everything is possible. Variety, diversity and real tolerance should therefore always feel welcome in the fairytale cosmos.
What do you associate with classic fairy tales?
Annette Frier: As a child, I loved fairy tales and used them to embark on my first adventures in my head. Things happen – for better or worse – that otherwise seem unspeakable, but whose potential existence we already suspect as children. For me they were my first fantastic experience with the abysses and oddities of life.
Novels by Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming and Roald Dahl, among others, are revised to rid them of language and descriptions that are no longer up to date. What do you think?
Annette Frier: This question is very difficult to answer. When it comes to the simple process of scribbling into a work and immortalizing the latest zeitgeist there, of course there is something presumptuous and very questionable about it. On the other hand, I myself recently read an updated version (Ebi Naumann) by Roald Dahl – “Sophie and the Giant” – in German for Hörverlag.
I haven’t checked every page against the original, but I can tell you that both I and my kids love it. As if the novel had come into existence now. Nothing dusty in the broadcast, it’s just an insanely good story that has been modernized a little bit in terms of language. What’s wrong with that? Once again, the children choose a good story instead of their smartphone display. That alone is enough for me as a good argument against the tough competition.