Once Upon A Time

• Explore a jungle environment
• Sit on the Monkey King’s throne
• Balance on a jungle log
• Try on animal costumes including a monkey, elephant, ostrich, and warthog
• Hunt for Anansi in a melon patch. An African folk tale from the oral tradition, Anansi is a spider who loves to trick his friends. The trickster is a common character in fairy tales, myths and legends. Anansi stories arose in the folktales of West Africa; when African slaves were shipped from their villages, they brought Anansi stories with them to America. The spider’s courage and ingenuity gave the slaves hope.

• Play a minuet on a harpsichord
• Stand on Beauty’s balcony
• Set the Beast’s banquet table with elegant dinnerware and delicious foods
• Use only the sense of touch to discover Beauty’s possessions in her dresser
• Sniff the scented flowers in the Beast’s garden
• Dress up as Beauty or the prince
• This tale was first published in France in 1756. Like many fairy tales, it illustrates how goodness and virtue triumph. It also shows that you should not judge by appearances – under this Beast’s appearance is a man with a generous, kind heart.

• Ride in Cinderella’s coach and see scenery pass by
• Sweep, mop, and cook like Cinderella in front of her kitchen hearth
• Activate images of Cinderella through the ages with a magic wand
• Try on the magical glass slipper and see the lights flash
• Dress up as the prince, or as Cinderella in rags or in her ball gown
• This French story by Charles Perrault was first published in 1697; It is the world’s favorite fairy tale and communicates the classic rags-to-riches story. There are more than 1,500 versions of this tale, which has been retold by almost every culture.

• Scramble up a beanstalk
• Slide down into the ogre’s lair
• Listen to the music of the ogre’s harp
• Hunt for the magic hen’s golden egg
• Count gold coins
• Climb onto the ogre’s massive stool
• Hide from the ogre in a kid-sized cubby hole
• “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.” This English tale was first published in 1809. The boy whose magic beans sprout a plant that reaches to the sky tells a tale familiar in many myths around the world: the small triumphs over the giant.

• Hoist the wolf to his doom using a pulley
• Try on traditional Asian costumes
• Explore English and Chinese versions of the story
• Open the window to discover the wolf looking for the children
• Roll the translator to move from English to Chinese writing
• This ‘Red Riding Hood’ story from China illustrates how fairy tales transcend cultures. In this version based on the Caldecott Medal-winning book by Ed Young, three sisters outsmart a hungry wolf (Lon) who disguises himself as the girls’ grandmother (Po Po).

• Crawl through the mole’s eight-foot tunnel and see tiny Thumbelina
• Change the seasons and see the differences
• Discover Thumbelina in her secret hiding places
• Search the sky for Thumbelina as she is carried away by a bird and a beetle
• Wear fairy wings for pretend play
• The famous Danish author, Hans Christian Andersen, published this story about the exciting adventures of a thumb-sized girl in 1835. In this tale, a small heroine uses her clever mind instead of size and strength to make her own way in the big world.

Select your characters

• Choose where and when your story happens
• Mix in some magic
• Create a heroic deed
• Write a fairy tale ending
• Publish your very own story
• The exhibit includes two specially designed computer kiosks where children can create their own illustrated fairy tales, print them, and take them home.