Ariel is tired of living under the sea–she wants to be human and walk on land. She gets her chance after making a deal with an evil sea witch, but something’s fishy! Can Flounder, Sebastian, and Scuttle help make the little mermaid’s dream come true? Find out in this full-color retelling of Disney’s classic film, The Little Mermaid.

Disney's The Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid  is one of the most famous fairy tales of Danish Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875). I am still to read the whole collection but I got a copy of this book as I try to buy a few children's books every payday for our outreach program for child literacy on May 25, 2013 to be held at the  Museo Pambata.  We will spend half a day to read three stories to children aged 4-8 from the financially-challenged families of Manila, we will also feed them and give them loot bags that contain school supplies, candies, biscuits, etc. Then all the donated books will go to the Museo for their mobile library. If you want to donate, please communicate with me. Any amount or second hand children's books will do.  The movie adaptation of this book was the first VHS that I bought in 1995 for my daughter who was then an infant. Like most Filipino parents, I wanted her to appreciate the Disney characters and get acquainted with the English language even at her very tender years. This is the reason why most young Filipino middle or upper class parents speak to their small children in English. They would like their kids to get used to the sound of this international language by teaching them the simple conversational English. However, when their kids become older, it is either the parents feel that they've exhausted  naubusan na ng ingles  their knowledge of the language and probably they also start to think that their kids' teachers must have already taken over that role and so they revert back to speaking in vernacular (Tagalog or other Philippine dialects). It seems to me to be like a cycle. The kids speak in simple English when they were very young with their parents and teachers, but when they become older, they find out that the "real" world requires them to speak in their national language. Well, there are exceptions because they are really parents who require their kids to speak in English at home and of course, they have the facility and expertise in the language themselves. Most most Filipino parents talk in Tagalog everyday at home, at work or even in the streets but when they have a child, they talk to them in English until the child is in their schooling years. Then when the child becomes a parent he/she does the same.  The reason why I am mentioning this is that in  The Little Mermaid  story,  Ariel  the young mermaid, loses her voice in exchange of having a pair of feet. This is like those children who at their young age are taught and encouraged to speak in English. They become confused because they hear people outside their home speaking in Tagalog. It good if they attend an international school where students are mostly foreigners and they are all required to speak in English. But how about if they attend a local school? That's when they realize that they should speak in Tagalog like most of the children in their "normal" neighborhood. It's like Ariel coming into her senses that falling in love can do wonders and she does not need to forge a pact with the devil to have her feet and be human like her Prince Charming.

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Disney's The Little Mermaid

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