The Watchful Dragons

Fairy tales are really a marvelous thing. They allow us, if only for a short time, to escape from the mundane, the dreary, the darkness of our ordinary world, and into something much more fantastical. Beyond that though, they are a vessel for truth that can reach everyone, and that everyone can enjoy. C.S. Lewis said that fairy tales can "steal past those watchful dragons". The dragons being, of course, our own determination to not take in what we don't want to.

There is often an underlying theme of transformation in fairy tales, and this can draw parallels to our own transformation as Christians. Buechner talks about this in the third section of Telling the Truth, and it's readily apparent just from experience. Through these fairy tales, then, truth can be found, despite our own resistances to it. Someone that might not ever pick up a Bible or grace a church pew can be exposed to some seed of that truth through a fairy tale that they find in a used bookstore.
And so I think it’s important to encourage the reading of fairy tales by everyone, not just children, but also adults. Anyone can find something to take away from a well-written story, whether it’s “for kids”, or not.