The simplistic structure of fairy tales teaches children the basic components of stories such as the story arc of introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. This helps kids gain a better understanding of literature.
The argument
The simplistic nature of traditional fairy tales makes them an appealing way of introducing children to stories, and this argument treats that simplicity as the whole point rather than as a limitation to be corrected. Traditional tales tend to contain very basic plot points: they introduce the characters, show the obstacle or problem the character must overcome, and then deliver the resolution. Nothing is nested, withheld, or told out of order, so the shape of the story is visible to a listener who does not yet know that stories have shapes. This basic structure gives children the fundamental outline of how stories work — not as a lesson stated to them, but as a pattern they meet again and again. Repetition is what converts the pattern into understanding. After a child reads multiple fairy tales, they will likely pick up on the commonalities between the arcs of the stories, and begin to anticipate what a story is doing rather than merely following it. That anticipation is the beginning of comprehension: a reader who expects an obstacle and a resolution has a framework to fit new material into. Learning about the basic components of a story helps a child develop better literacy skills, and by reading traditional fairy tales children gain a starting place for reading and understanding stories generally — including the more complex ones they will meet later. This is where rewriting becomes a risk rather than an improvement. If authors altered the characters or the plot, this could make the story too complicated for the child, and the clarity that made the tale useful as a first story would be lost in the process of updating it. It is their simplicity that makes traditional fairy tales worth reading to children. For that reason, this argument holds, fairy tales should not be rewritten for the modern world.
Premises
Counter-arguments
By sticking with traditional fairy tales, it narrows a child's perspective of the world. At such a young age, it is critical for a child to understand that there are people that look, act, and practice different traditions than they do. If a child is only exposed to their own family's perspective and the narrow perspectives of fairy tales, they adopt a closed-minded view of the world. Fairy tales could instead be written with the same amount of characters that portray different people. In addition, rewriting a fairy tale does not necessarily mean making it more complicated. Even if fairy tales were rewritten, children would understand the basic parts of a story and benefit more from the diversity portrayed.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] The traditional tales are not uniformly simple — the canonical versions carry digressions, cruelty and abrupt reversals — and the texts being defended were themselves already reshaped repeatedly by Perrault, the Grimms and Victorian editors, so the "traditional" version is itself a rewriting. [Rejecting P2] Nothing ties the structure to the content: the same characters-obstacle-resolution arc is taught by fables, picture books, television narratives and newly written stories, so the literacy benefit does not depend on preserving these particular tales. [Rejecting P3] Rewriting does not entail added complexity — a retelling can keep the same number of characters and the same three-beat arc while changing who appears in it — and confining children to a single inherited perspective carries a developmental cost of its own.