Times Observer photo by Brian Ferry Warren Area Elementary Center Librarian Laura Demers talks to a second-grade class about a Chinese version of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale as part of a unit on folklore.

The beautiful young woman falls in the love with the hideous beast, breaking the curse and allowing him to return to his original form — a handsome prince.

Around here, one might imagine talking clocks and teapots hanging around a lion-man beast.

In China, the beast is a serpent.

In Switzerland, he is a bear.

There is little to no singing in the other versions, and no talking cutlery.

But, many of the other main plot points are shared.

In her yearlong Folklore unit, Warren Area Elementary Center Librarian Laura Demers introduces students to classics. “Kids aren’t really exposed to classic literature anymore,” Demers said. “It’s classic for a reason.”

“They love it,” she said. “If they didn’t, we wouldn’t have Disney World.”

The fairy tales, folk tales, and legends, area of the library is “one of the most circulated,” Demers said.

Most students were familiar with Beauty and the Beast – the tale Demers read with second-graders on Wednesday as part of Fairy Tales around the World. But that there are very similar and much older tales from Europe and Asia opened some eyes.

“I love getting them to see the differences in the cultures,” she said. “Every single culture does something to a fairy tale.”

“We make everything a musical and lots of extra characters,” she said.

And, we borrow all of our fairy tales. The United States is a young country. The classics are much older. “Everything we have, we took from other people,” Demers said.

At the beginning of the school year, Demers and the students worked on Cinderella. There are French, Chinese, and Egyptian versions.

Little Red Riding Hood, as we know it, came from a German tale. But the students read similar versions from Italy and Taiwan.

The Disney version of Beauty and the Beast is “very true to the French version,” Demers said.

Next up, if there is time by the end of the year, are Snow White and Hansel and Gretel.

“My goal is to get them to love stories,” she said.