Fairy Tale Wisdom

In my other post of a book review, I exposed how much of a loss I undergo when finishing a book, fortunately I choose to direct these feelings into writing these couple of lines about how much I loved the book I've been reading (which I sadly ended yesterday), The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (in spanish: Psicoanálisis de los Cuentos de Hadas) written by Bruno Bettelheim. Not only is it a powerful literary acquisition, but also a useful resource when fairy tales come to mind.

Bettelheim does an amazing job explaining why is it that these magical stories help so much to the learning process a child needs to undergo throughout his/her infant years. It attacks existential questioning that the little one bears in mind but is too afraid to express, not only giving the child the confidence that the questioning is an element completely normal to exist, but also providing him/her with a handful of resourceful solutions that may help him/her get their happy ending. Fairy tales take you to other lands, where princesses must meet princes and fall deeply in love and where evil witches and step-mothers get, at the very end of the book, what they deserve.
Fairy tales speak to us in so many ways, and that's the beauty of their nature: the meaning each and every story evokes is so different from person to person and helps each one of us in different stages of our evolution as human beings. Bettelheim writes beautifully portraying the child as a person, a special value that we, adults, have forgotten they possess.
Few are those books that have so many elements that make a special click with the way you feel and think about children, and this book does exactly so, in the same nature it addresses: magically and full of fantasy and imagery. Wonderful book to read, beautiful and simple, always keeping it real.
A true gem for parents, teachers and psychologists everywhere if you ask me!