A Fairytale World

My daughter is just starting to get into tales of fairytale creatures and lands that paint magical worlds, worlds that I grew up with as a little girl. The trials and obstacles in fairytales may have appeared fantastical to me when I was young, but they taught me more than just how a fairytale world differs from the world we live in. I learned to relate to the turmoils a fairytale creature experienced and how it overcame so many challenges. The tales showed me numerous different ways a character may be satisified with an outcome, some that I would not have felt comfortable with if I was the character, some that I questioned whether or not they were important, and some that surprised me and gave me a better understanding of how to reach goals.

I've been enjoying reading the fairytale books from my youth to my daughter, but one line that really grabs hold of my joy and makes me want to dive into reading and writing:

"Once upon a time, long ago and far away, in a deep forest, there lived a child - much like you." (Bruno Bettelheim)

What enchanting words to ease the reader into a fairytale world. As a writer-mama, I wonder if my daughter will find herself longing for fairytale lands more throughout her life as nature on our planet diminishes and changes even more during her lifetime. I usually begin my day by reading the news online and there is always at least one story that is about the depressing state of nature on our planet. Whether certain lands are bulldozed over or particular species are going extinct, our children may not have as much of a fantastical world to explore when they are adults. Perhaps the fairytale worlds will mean even more to them.

When I incorporate vivid images of naturalistic details in my writing, I wonder if the children who read it will feel inclined to believe the details as real and tangible or if the details will seem so foreign and rare that they must be make-believe, or even worse maybe they will feel unsettled reading about a piece of nature that is vanishing in their world and one they may never see or experience?

Would they rather read fairytales that they know aren't real to avoid feeling uncertain about the reality of nature and the direction it is heading?