[ 21 ] INTRODUCTION: HOW TO READ A FAIRY TALE Jennifer Schacker and Christine A. Jones Fairy tales seem to be everywhere in contemporary culture—featured in picture books and anthologies of classic children’s stories; providing inspiration for postmodern iction, young adult novels, animation, feature ilms, and popular televi- sion series; depicted in ine art and fashion, on ceramics and quilting fabric; and ref- erenced in advertising, journalism, and political speeches. Approaching the reading of a fairy tale with an open mind and a fresh perspective can be something of a chal- lenge, but that is just the task we would like to set for you as a reader of this volume. As scholars trained in the ields of French Literature (Christine A. Jones) and Folklore ( Jennifer Schacker), we share a passion for teaching and research centered on the genre of the fairy tale. In our own experiences with undergraduate and gradu- ate students, and in our conversations with other academics in this ield, we have observed how close study of fairy-tale texts can explode and transform perspectives on this (seemingly) familiar genre. We have also noticed the enchanting efect that scholarship can have on popular ideas about and ways of reading fairy tales. Signii- cantly, though, there is something of a lag in the impact academic discourse has on the wider culture, which means that present scholarship awaits a future audience and past scholarship oten shapes how we read now. In fact, some past scholarship has become so ingrained in us as North American readers that stories can appear to mean only what such approaches could see in them. It is our hope to challenge the trends we have inherited by introducing teachers and students to new ways of talking about fairy tales. We want to emphasize that the perspectives foregrounded in this volume are those that are currently emerging in scholarship—some fully formed,