Project Idea: Fairy Tales of Madame D'Aulnoy

The remarkable Madame D'Aulnoy was the first professional woman writer in France, and she also coined the term "fairy tale" as we use it today. Her fairy tales are not as famous as those of Charles Perrault (another famous writer of fairy tales)... but they deserve to be! These are long, intricate, beautifully written stories of love and magic.

Research Tip: Start by learning something about Madame D'Aulnoy at Wikipedia, and then decide which of her fairy tales you like best; because her fairy tales are very long, you will probably want to choose just one fairy tale and divide it up into three or four episodes. There is a nice presentation of her stories at Sur La Lune, and in this online book: The Fairy Tales by Catherine d'Aulnoy. You can also find Wikipedia articles about some of the individual stories like The Green Serpent, Princess Belle Etoile, and so on. (The Wikipedia article has a list of all the tales with links to their specific articles.)

Past Project:

• The Princess and the Green Serpent