Once upon a time, some Caravan fans requested fairy tale Olliblocks. Alma Loveland toiled and slaved and worked away, and months later, she granted her loyal followers’ request, with a set of 18 classic fairy tale characters.
We are so excited that Fairy Tale Olliblocks are finally here! All your tales are sure to end happily ever after with these adorable blocks. Paired with classic fairy tale books, they make the perfect gift! Read below for some insight into Alma’s process for this special set of blocks!
I knew that Hansel and Gretel absolutely had to make it into my set of Fairy Tale blocks. My children Oliver and Joan (4 and 2), who regularly hold hands were definitely an inspiration for these characters. I loved giving these characters a very German vibe… with moccasins? I call that artistic license. The funny thing in designing these characters is that I needed to reread all the original stories. I discovered some pretty horrible things. Do you remember why Hansel and Gretel were lost in the woods? Because their step mother convinced their father that they needed to abandon the children in the woods because the family was running low on food. Rude! The version of these stories that you choose to tell your kids is totally up to you. I might be doing a little editing.
As much as possible, I tried to choose characters that could work for multiple fairy tales. Here, the huntsman works for Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and Hansel and Gretel (the father). The girl works for Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White & Rose Red. The wolf works for Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs.
Speaking of the Three Little Pigs, come on. These are a new favorite of mine for sure. Here I had the challenge of making three pigs that had unique personalities and character, as well as making them different from my existing pig, which is part of the Zoo Booster pack. I liked the direction that the challenge pushed me and am very happy with the result!
Finally, one of my favorite things about this set is that characters can turn into one another, which happens a lot in fairy tales. As you can see in the first image of this post, the frog can turn into a prince! And if you’re feeling like it, you could turn the evil queen into a frog, or a pig! We all know she deserves it.
The fairy tales included in this set are:
Little Red Riding Hood (red girl, huntsman, wolf, grandma)
Town Mouse & Country Mouse (both mice)
Snow White (blue girl, wicked queen, huntsman, prince, witch/hag, possibly blue princess—sorry, no dwarves!)
Snow White & Rose Red (red girl, blue girl, prince, bear)
Three Little Pigs (pigs and wolf)
Frog Prince (Prince, Princess, frog)
Hansel & Gretel (boy & girl holding hands, witch, huntsman)
And by combining these characters in other clever ways, you could find other fairy tales as well! Possibly we have Beauty and the Beast, if we mix a frog with a wolf with a bear! What other fairy tales can you make?