GCSE Poetry Anthology

Some of you will remember this from your school days, because that’s where I got this from! During my GCSEs I got my own copy of the poetry anthology but I had never read entirely through the collection. So of course I had to do that to tick it off of my tbr.

I didn’t make any additional notes on the new poems that I read, but it was quite interesting to read those I had made whilst I was studying. There was a good variety of authors in here from various countries, talking about their own individual live. However, I wouldn’t recommend this to someone. It does perfectly fine for education but the poems don’t quite work together as a collection and reading this for pleasure just doesn’t quite work.

An interesting read non-the-less and I’m glad it was something quick I could tick off of my tbr.

Classic Western Fairy Tales

You’ve probably heard some of these tales before, but likely, they were a little sweeter. The Brother’s Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen are known for their gory, not-for-kids, fairy tales, so when I saw this book compiling the both of them I knew I had to pick it up.

What I didn’t know when I purchased this book is that all of the authors changed the intensity of their stories over time. They started out writing for adults, and then when they received letters from parents complaining about the goriness they realised their stories were being told to children. It’s at this point that they started to tone down their tales. This does impact some of the stories, I was expecting horrific endings and some of the tales lived up to this, but many of them did not. So just be aware when you pick this up that they aren’t as bad as people make them out to be!

I did really enjoy seeing the base stories for many fairy tales and Disney stories which I’ve seen for years, and I also found it interesting that many of them don’t have any sort of moral attached to them. As this is a common feature of fairy tales when aimed at children.

This was a quick read, and one that I think you should go for if you’re even vaguely interested. These are the foundations of so many tales and stories in Western society and I personally think it’s really interesting to see their origin. I’d really like to pick up more origins of tales from a variety of cultures.

Comment down below any fairy tale stories you enjoy and whether you’ve read tales from the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen!