Old fairy tale stories

10 Best Classic Fairy Tales For Your Kids

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” ― Albert Einstein.

Fairy tales often take people to the sweet memory lane of their childhood. The memories of magic, dragons, and evilness getting defeated never fail to bring a smile to our faces. 

Reading or listening to classic tales can help parents bond better with their children and nurture their creativity.

So, if you are looking for the best bedtime stories for your children, this blog will surely help you. Let’s explore some of the fascinating and timeless fairy tales that can bring lots of colors and blooms to your kid’s childhood. 

Cinderella is one of the most popular fairy tales of all time. Its story remains an all-time classic and will remain the same for future generations as well.

Cinderella was a young woman who lived with her wicked stepmother and stepsisters. Thanks to her glass slipper, she found her Prince Charming and escaped her difficult life. 

Cinderella’s story has been adapted in many variations over history. Cinderella’s popular version “The Brother Grimm” was published in 1812. Recently, in 2021, Disney has released a new Cinderella movie with a modern outlook. 

Moral: This story tells kids how they should never stop dreaming despite all the hardships that life presents them with.

Related Reading: Top Reading Apps for Kids: How to Use Screens For Stories 

Beauty and the Beast is a fairy tale that celebrates real royalty. In the story, a spoiled prince turns into a beast and imprisons a beautiful young lady named Belle. It’s only when he learns to love Belle that he becomes the prince again. 

This fairy tale is assumed to be inspired by a real-life couple who lived in France in the 1500s. The man had a condition called hypertrichosis. This condition causes abnormal hair growth on the body. 

So, he was referred to as a wild man and was kept in a cage for a long time. In a surprising turn of events, he married a royal court servant’s daughter, and they had 7 children.

Moral: We should value internal characteristics such as kindness over other superficial or physical qualities. 

Rapunzel is a beautiful and motivational fairy tale. The story shows how a poor couple lost their daughter Rapunzel when they stole fruit from their neighbor’s garden. It also focuses on how the angelic voice of Rapunzel reunites her with her lover. 

Moral: This story gives two bold messages that one should never steal, and evilness never wins. 

Related Reading: Best Children’s Books to Stimulate Kids’ Imagination & Creativity

Snow White is a young princess and is defined by her inherent kindness and pure beauty. In the story, an evil queen spends all her life envying Snow White’s beauty. 

But, in the end, Snow White finds her happiness by marrying the prince. In contrast, the evil queen loses her peace and leads an unhappy life while chasing meaningless physical beauty. 

Moral: This story has an insightful moral — if you lust over physical beauty, you lose your peace in the way. The story also encourages kids to be kind and pure like Snow White. 

A rebellious Red sets off alone to meet her grandmother with instructions to never step off the forest path. But she disobeys the instructions and attracts the attention of the bad wolf. 

Now, what happens next depends on the version you are reading. In the Charles Perrault version, Red gets gobbled up by the wolf. However, across Europe, North America, and many other tellings, she was saved by her hood or a guy with an ax. 

Moral: This fairy tale intends to teach children to follow directions and express their courage at the time of need.  

Jack is a rule-breaker and loves to prank. Once, he traded a family cow for a couple of magic beans in the hope of climbing the beanstalk and reaching the giant’s castle to steal his magic possessions. 

This story will help you teach your naughty little pranksters that no matter how daring you are, one should never cross certain boundaries in life. 

Moral: The story shows that undying greed for more will take away what you already have in your life. 

Related Reading: Learning Styles That Make Learning Easy-Peasy For Kids

Sleeping Beauty is slightly similar to Snow White. The story revolves around a Sleeping Beauty who was cursed by a wicked fairy. Beauty spends all her childhood sleeping, but on her 16th birthday, her prince charming finds her and wakes her up after years of slumber. 

Like other fairy tales, different interpretations of Sleeping Beauty are also available. However, Disney’s Maleficent in the year 2014 achieved the most success. 

Moral: The story shows that growing up has its own hurdles but in the end, love conquers all.

If you want to raise a little animal helper, this is the perfect story for you. Puss is a bold trickster who masquerades as the servant of a nobleman. His tactics bring him fame, fortune, and a wife at a young age. 

The boots in this fairy tale symbolize wealth and wisdom. The story is set back in the 16th century when people used to be barefoot. So, having boots at that time was a significant sign of wealth. 

Moral: The story’s moral is simple — your wisdom can help you win wealth. 

This tale talks about the hunger of the heart and stomach. Hansel and Gretel are abandoned by their stepmother in the forest. Both children can’t resist eating a real gingerbread cottage out of hunger. But they get caught by a cannibal witch who lives there.  

In the end, they shove the witch into the fiery oven to escape. 

Moral: This story will teach your kids how fortunate they are to have food on their plates. It will help them be grateful in life and never have any egos! 

In this story, a frog helps a princess to find her golden ball in the pond and then invites her to live in the castle. It is then that the frog turns into a prince. The storyline of The Frog Prince is quite similar to Beauty and the Beast.

Moral: The story teaches that it’s important to value kindness and goodness over physical beauty. It also tries to convey the importance of keeping our promises.

Related Reading: Best Riddles for Kids of all Grades (With Answers)!

Are you wondering how centuries-old fairy tales can benefit your child in this digital age? Well, no matter how old fairy tales are, they can always make your kid’s childhood happy and memorable.  

Be it The Brothers Grimm or Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, all the classic magic stories can benefit your child in a number of ways:

Storytelling plays a significant role in a child’s development. That is because 95% of the human brain develops by the age of six. Therefore, reading or listening to fairy tales can build imagination and literacy for your child. 

Your child can engage in fantasy land and learn to distinguish the fantasy world from the real world. They can learn to express their thoughts and ideas better. 

Some studies even indicate that storytelling helps to improve vocabulary and confidence among children. 

Through stories, children and even adults can learn how to handle certain problems. Cinderella’s story fits perfectly in this context. It tells how a young woman escapes her difficult life despite her wicked stepmother and stepsisters’ cruelties.  

Stories allow people to step into the character’s shoes and learn how they can easily conquer problems and presents children with an interactive method of learning. This is one of the reasons why SplashLearn creates visually appealing and character-based animated games. 

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Children connect better with the characters in the stories. This helps them learn from their favorite characters’ life stories. The stories can show children how to believe in goodness amidst problems and anxieties. 

For example, Beauty and the Beast portray how selfishness can turn a prince into a beast. It also shows how beauty and kindness can turn a beast into a prince again. 

Fairy tales can bring cultural flavors into your child’s life. Different versions of stories are available today that can help your children interact with different cultures.  

Fairy tales show that life isn’t perfect. Children discover that bad things happen to everyone. But if you are emotionally resilient, you can overcome all challenges. 

This helps children stay strong during hard times and always believe in the richness of life despite hardships. 

Exposing your child to the world of fantasy can stimulate their imagination. It might amaze you to see how children can give a spin to traditional stories and interpret them into something completely different. 

For instance, the University of Hawai’i conducted a study to evaluate the positive impact of fairy tales on children. In the study, researchers exposed children to different classic stories to understand their impact. 

Interestingly, after listening to Little Red Riding Hood, a seven-year-old boy draws the wolf to the size of an ant. He used his imagination to create a funny interpretation of the bad wolf and show his courage.  

So, when you introduce a story to your child, you are providing them with an opportunity to think and imagine different scenarios. 

Every fairy tale is attached to a moral lesson. Fairy tales often leave us with a strong message, whether it is being good or believing in love or friendship. 

You might have a hard time making your toddler understand where the difference between good and bad lies. But stories like “The Emperor’s New Clothes” can better show to your kids, the consequences of convincing yourself that something was true when it wasn’t.

Through classic fairy tales, parents can bond with their children in a great capacity. They can relive their childhood memories with their kids and build some new memories.

You can forget anything in your life, but you can never forget all the classic fairy tales that you have heard in your childhood. Have you ever thought, why? 

That is mainly because stories capture our interest in a much better way. And once we learn something with an interest, we tend to not forget that information. 

SplashLearn creates learning games to spike and capture kids’ interest. The engaging characters and visuals motivate the little ones to learn. Different mediums like games, worksheets and courses on Math and English can help them remember and retain concepts their entire life. 

Today, you can try SplashLearn with your kids to see how they actually interact with interesting learning mediums. 

Parents, sign up for free!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Which is the oldest fairy tale?

According to some researchers, The Smith And The Devil is the oldest fairy tale. It goes back by 6,000 years to the Bronze Age.

Do all fairy tales have morals?

Yes. Fairy tales are written with a motive to teach a lesson to children via interesting characters and a storyline

How do fairy tales affect child development? 

When children listen to fairy tales often, it affects their imagination and helps them to think about new things. The fairy tales affect the emotional, physical, and mental development of a child. 

Do fairy tales have the truth? 

Fairy tales have been passed down from many generations and cultures. However, today there’s no solid source from where these tales come from, but they have been inspired from somewhere. So, we can say that some fairy tales are adaptations of real-life events. 

Are fairy tales timeless?

Yes. The storyline might have changed in many tales with time, but the central idea has always been the same. 

What is the right time to read fairy tales to your child?

There’s no specific time to read stories to your kids. However, most parents prefer to read stories before bedtime. But you can read them to your child anytime as soon as they turn two.

The Most Popular Fairy Tale Stories of All Time — Fairy Tales for Kids

From rags to riches and beasts to beanstalks, these are the fairy tale stories that shape our happily ever afters.

Every editorial product is independently selected, though we may be compensated or receive an affiliate commission if you buy something through our links. Ratings and prices are accurate and items are in stock as of time of publication.

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Once upon a time

Fairy tale stories are part and parcel of childhood. Endlessly retellable (and spoofable—we’re looking at you, Shrek) and filled with sometimes-questionable life lessons, fairy tale stories for kids have evolved through the years thanks to children’s books, movies, and, in no small part, Disney characters. Here are some of the most popular fairy tales for kids that have captured the hearts of children and adults alike. You’re probably familiar with them, but there’s plenty you may not know about their origins and evolution. And if you can’t get enough of magic and fantastical lands, you’ll want to get your hands on the best fantasy books of all time.

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Cinderella

Once there was a hardworking girl with a wicked stepmother and a heart of gold. She got a makeover from a fairy godmother, scored a dance with a prince, and snagged a happily ever after in a pretty sweet castle. This story crossed the globe for thousands of years, winning hearts wherever it went. Although the most familiar version of “Cinderella” was recorded by 17th-century French writer Charles Perrault, the well-respected scholarly website Sur La Lune Fairy Tales estimates there may be as many as 1,500 traditional variants of the tale around the world. Those include “The Girl with the Rose Red Slippers” from ancient Egypt and a ninth-century Chinese version. The story has inspired countless modern retellings, including Walt Disney’s iconic 1950 cartoon, the blockbuster film Pretty Woman, the novel and movie Ella Enchanted, and too many others to name.  See which Cinderella quote made our list of favorite Disney movie quotes.

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Beauty and the Beast

When kind and virtuous Beauty falls in love with the beast despite his outward appearance, he’s transformed into a handsome prince. Who among us has not felt unworthy of a lover yet longed to have our inner value recognized? Who has not dreamed of romantic love with the power to redeem and transform? No wonder “Beauty and the Beast,” originally a French story, is the second most frequently visited fairy tale for kids on Sur La Lune Fairy Tales. Of all the many retellings, our favorite is probably French director Jean Cocteau’s surreal 1945 film version, La Belle et la Bête, but the Disney version is certainly the most prevalent (and lucrative). So far, Beauty and the Beast has rung the company’s cash register as a cartoon, a Broadway musical, a soundtrack album, and most recently, a live-action film starring Emma Watson.

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Little Red Riding Hood

In this fairy tale for kids—probably intended as a warning to follow directions—Red sets off alone to visit her grandmother with instructions not to step off the forest path. The rebellious Red promptly disregards this advice, attracting the attention of a talking wolf who sets out to eat and impersonate Grandma. What happens next depends on which version you read. In the 17th-century French version recorded by Charles Perrault, Red gets gobbled up by the wolf. The End. In other tellings, across Europe, North America, China, Japan, and Ghana, she’s saved at the last minute by a guy with an axe or the wolf chokes on her hood or he eats both Grandma and Red but is forced to vomit them up unharmed. Of the many recent retellings on page and on-screen, our favorite is the animated film Hoodwinked! with Anne Hathaway voicing a wonderfully sassy Red.

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Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first animated full-length Disney film, setting the pattern for all those to come. According to Film Site, the movie “took almost four years and an astronomical (at the time) $1.7 million to create” and was also the first film soundtrack ever to be released separately as an album. Despite still being low-key terrifying, Disney’s version did spare its evil queen her original Grimm fairy tale punishment of being forced to dance to her death in red-hot shoes.

Despite ample criticism of the less-than-active main character—as feminist critics have put it, she is “an object to be displayed and desired … patriarchy’s ideal woman, the perfect candidate for queen”—Snow White remains a massively popular tale. Modern retellings, like Snow White and the Huntsman; Mirror, Mirror; Once Upon a Time; and more have provided much-needed updates to the character.  As for fairy tale books, we like Snow White, a graphic novel retelling set in 1930s New York City. If you’re looking for more great reads, check out our picks for the best short books.

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Jack and the Beanstalk

Young Jack trades the family’s only cow for a handful of magic beans. When a giant beanstalk sprouts overnight, Jack seizes the chance to climb to a giant’s castle and steal all of his magical possessions. The story we know is from England, and Jack himself is English. (Need proof? Consider the famous line “fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.”) But as Sur La Lune Fairy Tales points out, there are fairy tale stories based on this tale found among Europeans, Scandinavians, and Indigenous groups across Canada. And don’t forget Asia’s tale of the branch of the Bodhi of Buddha, which quickly grows skyward once planted.

As for modern adaptations, Jack (along with some of these other fairy tale characters) has a major role in the musical and movie Into the Woods and has had his story told through the live-action films Jack and the Beanstalk (2010) and Jack the Giant Slayer (2013). But unlike other fairy tale stories that have been told and retold (and retold again), this one still poses an exciting action-adventure opportunity for filmmakers.

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Sleeping Beauty

If you found Snow White annoyingly passive, meet Sleeping Beauty, whose main claim to fame is, obviously, her century-long snooze. According to Sur La Lune Fairy Tales, this fairy tale for kids dates to the “Volsunga Saga” from 13th-century Iceland but is found all across Europe, especially France, Italy, and Germany. It even appears in The Arabian Nights. In 1890, Russian composer Tchaikovsky wrote the musical score for a much-loved Sleeping Beauty ballet, and years later, the folks at Disney borrowed some of his music for their 1959 animated film version. Here’s a piece of Disney trivia you probably don’t know: Sleeping Beauty originally underwhelmed at the box office, and Disney achieved much greater success with 2014’s Maleficent, which retold Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the vengeful fairy.

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Puss in Boots

Plenty of fairy tale stories have animal helpers, but in this one, the animal is the star. Puss is a bold, swaggering trickster who masquerades as the servant of a great nobleman. The story was probably first recorded in 16th-century Italy, but Puss seems to have acquired his swashbuckling boots about 100 years later in France, in the same book of stories that features Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Beauty and the Beast, and he’s been rocking them ever since. In an age when the poor mostly went barefoot, shoes were an important status symbol, and clearly those boots were made for walking because Puss has managed to travel astonishingly far around the world. Scholars say the story “has been found in all parts of Europe, across Siberia, [and] onward to India, Indonesia, and the Philippines.”

More recently, the irrepressible Puss found new fans and stole the show in 2001’s Shrek movies. Voiced by Antonio Banderas, his signature introduction—”Puss…in Boots”—became instantly recognizable. The character was so beloved that he got his own spinoff movie, the 2012 flick Puss in Boots. If you have young kids, pick up one of the fiction books based on the lovable feline.

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Hansel and Gretel

In a time of famine, Hansel and Gretel are abandoned in a great forest by their wicked stepmother. Unable to resist eating pieces of a real gingerbread cottage, the hungry children are captured by the cannibal witch who lives there; in the end, they must shove her into her own fiery oven to escape. This narrative about the dangers of unwholesome appetite and children’s drive for survival is one of the most frequently visited fairy tales stories on Sur La Lune Fairy Tales—even without any publicity from Disney. Some scholars believe that the Great Famine of 14th-century Europe inspired the familiar German version of “Hansel and Gretel,” recorded by the famous Brothers Grimm some 500 years later. Regardless, this gruesome story is one of the most widely told around the world; variants include “The Story of the Bird That Made Milk” in southern Africa, the southern Indian tale “Kadar and the Cannibals,” and the Russian folk tales of Baba Yaga.

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Rapunzel

Whether from Disney’s 2010 hit Tangled or 2002’s Barbie as Rapunzel from Mattel, you know the story: The girl with the climbable curls is isolated in a tower by a wicked witch. But as many fairy tale stories go, a handsome prince soon arrives to save the day. The original Grimm version of Rapunzel is grimmer (naturally) than the banter-filled cartoon movie (though fans of Into the Woods will be familiar with it): Rapunzel winds up in the witch’s clutches in the first place because her pregnant mother couldn’t stop stealing magic herbs from the old crone’s garden. Later, using Rapunzel’s hair as a lure, the witch catches the prince and throws him to the ground, where thorns pierce his eyes. She leaves him to wander alone for years in the wilderness. But it is a fairy tale, so eventually, Rapunzel runs into him by chance; her tears fall onto his face, miraculously restoring his vision and leading the couple to their belated happily ever after.

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Sources:

• Sur La Lune Fairy Tales: “Cinderella”
• Sur La Lune Fairy Tales: “Beauty and the Beast”
• Sur La Lune Fairy Tales: “Red Riding Hood”
• Scholastic: “Lon Po Po: A Chinese Fairy Tale Lesson Plan”
• Kid World Citizen: “Little Red Riding Hood: 3 Multicultural Versions”
• Filmsite: “Filmsite Movie Review 100 Greatest Films: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)”
• Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar: “The Madwoman in the Attic”
• Sur La Lune Fairy Tales: “Sleeping Beauty”
• Oh My Disney: “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Sleeping Beauty“
• Sur La Lune Fairy Tales: “Puss in Boots”
• Sur La Lune Fairy Tales: “Hansel and Gretel”
• Pook Press: “Hansel and Gretel”
• Sacred Texts: “Story of the Bird That Made Milk”

Originally Published: January 11, 2022

Russian folk tales, fairy tales for children read online with pictures

Tales

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To read Russian folk tales means to join the culture of the people, to one's roots, to begin to understand its past and foresee the future. The tradition of reading bedtime stories to children has not disappeared. It is fairy tales that teach children to distinguish good from bad, truth from lies, good from evil. Ivan Tsarevich, Baba Yaga, the Frog Princess, the cunning fox and the simpleton wolf remain with us for the rest of our lives. nine0003

Russian folk tales

Russian fairy tale - a gift to the whole world. A. N. Afanasiev

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin Russian fairy tales

Ivan Bilibin's fairy tale brush

Folk and literary tales

Tales of Hans-Christian Andersen. Danish Tales

— Andersen is the love of my life! - admits Lyudmila Braude, translator. — His fairy tales are for everyone — both for children and adults... Continued

King of fairy tales. A story about Andersen in the rubric "Life of wonderful children"

Tales of Charles Perrault. French fairy tales

Fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. German fairy tales

Real fairy tales should be a little scary and very alluring. Like a gingerbread house in which a terrible witch lives. In winter, it's time to re-read the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, in which Hansel and Gretel show miracles of resourcefulness, getting out of the gingerbread house! Continued

Tales of Wilhelm Hauff. German fairy tales

German folk tales

English fairy tales

Swedish fairy tales

Tales of Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl. Russian fairy tales

Tales of Leo Tolstoy. Russian fairy tales

Fairy tale Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak.

Tales of Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky

Tale of P. P. Ershov. Russian fairy tale

Tales of Maxim Gorky. Russian fairy tales

Tale of A. Pogorelsky. Russian fairy tale

Tales of Konstantin Dmitrievich Ushinsky. Russian fairy tales

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Tales of S. Topelius. Finnish fairy tales

Tales of Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin. Russian fairy tales

Tales of Gianni Rodari. Italian fairy tales

About fairy tales

Competition for young local historians "Fairytale Russia"

Fairy tales Page 1 || Page 2

Soviet fairy tales - read for free online

Soviet fairy tales are works loved by many generations of families. In them, the writers and poets of the USSR showed the young reader what he should be like in situations and events familiar to him. Fairy tales from the time of the Union chose ordinary boys and girls as their heroes, in whose lives fantastic incidents occurred against the background of their everyday life. Soviet fairy tales teach eternal things: how important it is to be kind, just, to come to the aid of a comrade, class, team, the whole country, to strive for knowledge and create goodness around oneself, and not wait for the appearance of a magician.

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