Research revealed one in five parents has ditched old classics such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Rapunzel in favour of more modern books. One third of parents said their children have been left in tears after hearing the horrible details of Little Red Riding Hood. And nearly half of mothers and fathers refuse to read Rumplestiltskin to their kids as the themes of the story are kidnapping and execution. Similarly, Goldilocks and the Three Bears was also a tale likely to be left on the book shelf as parents felt it forgives stealing.
The survey of 2,000 adults was conducted to mark the launch of the hit US drama GRIMM, which starts tonight at 9 p.m. on Watch, and sees six episodes(片段) based on traditional fairytales. The poll found a quarter of parents polled wouldn’t consider reading a fairytale to their child until they had reached the age of five, as they prompt too many awkward questions from their offspring(后代子孙).
Steve Hornsey, General Manager of Watch, said: “Bedtime stories are supposed to soothe children and send them off to sleep soundly. But as we see in GRIMM, fairytales can be dark and dramatic tales so it’s understandable that parents worry about reading them to young children.”
“As adults we can see the innocence in fairytales, but a five year old with an over active imagination could take things too seriously. Despite the dark nature of classic fairytales, as we see in GRIMM, good will triumph over evil and there is always a moral to the story.”
The study also found two thirds of mums and dads try to avoid stories which might give their children nightmares.
However, half of parents said traditional tales are more likely to have a strong moral message than a lot of modern kids’ books, such as The Gruffalo, The Hungary Caterpillar and the Mr. Men books.
小题1:Why don’t some parents want to read Rumplestiltskin to their kids?
A．Rumplestiltskin is too long.
B．Rumplestiltskin is too difficult.
C．Rumplestiltskin forgives stealing.
D．Rumplestiltskin may influence Children badly.小题2:We can learn from paragraph 3 that Grimm is ___________.
A．a fairytales book
B．a movie for children
C．a play loved by children
D．a drama based on traditional fairytales小题3:The underlined word “soothe “in paragraph4 can be replaced by___________.
A．put down
B．calm down
C．take down
D．come down小题4:What’s the author’s attitude towards traditional fairytales?
A．Optimistic
B．Not mentioned
C．Casual
D．Disapproving
