Written by Veronika Martenova Charles
Foreword by Betsy Hearne.

This ground breaking book by renowned children’s author Veronika Charles provides teachers in the early grades with the background and practical approaches they need to maximize the potential of traditional tales with their students.

Charles outlines the contributions to our understanding of the fairy tale genre by Bettelheim, Favat, Rodari and Jung and then builds on the pioneering work of Vladimir Propp to create an easy to use symbol system which guides students to tell - orally, pictorially and in writing - their own stories based on archetypes that are fully developed in the book. Her approach has been tested in numerous classrooms with wonderful and often surprising results.

The book is heavily illustrated with full-colour examples of student work and contains appendices of stories to be read and a full set of reproducible action symbols.

Fairy Tales In The Classroom contains all the tools, suggestions and stories that teachers need to give their students life transforming experiences and a solid background for all their future writing.

Professionally Speaking:
The Magazine of the Ontario College of Teachers
"Charles offers teachers a wealth of strategies for using fairy stpries as a springboard for children to create and tell their own tales. She particularly stresses whole-classroom story-building that is student driven, open-ended and flexible. ...a practical and accessible guide to teaching story writing."

Resource Links
"This book is an excellent resource which shares a great way to teach fairy tales and inspire story building in children. The approach and methodology is refreshing and would be of interest to all children in the classroom."

CM Magazine - Highly Recommended
"Charles proves that, despite the digital age and the barrage of multimedia, storytelling today is alive and healthy in classrooms as a form of literary expression. …She has written a dynamic and useable resource to demonstrate this. A well documented book… that also gives teachers a proven method to encourage creative writing and drawing in early years classrooms. There is an impressive amount of research and information in this useful book."

Jack Zipes, University of Minnesota
“Veronika Charles uses her experience as writer/illustrator to propose new methods of teaching fairy tales to young students. Her book is extremely useful for teachers and librarians. Her approach is innovative and thoughtful. I even think the book will be valuable for parents to use with their children in their homes.” *****

Jeffery Canton, York University
“This is an absolutely amazing resource that should be an invaluable tool for teachers exploring fairy tales in the classroom. It's a treasure trove that every primary teacher needs to have in the classroom as a resource!”

Sal's Fiction Addiction Blog
"…The author provides valuable lessons to teachers that will encourage them to use fairy tales as a starting point for student writing and illustrating retellings of the old stories. It's empowering and insightful stuff. Using her approach to build a classroom story, the students drive the writing, inspiring inventive, spontaneous stories…"

Canadian Teacher Magazine
"This resource will be of great interest to any teacher who is fascinated by folk tales and story telling."