Fairy tales promise teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Swedish primary school an engaging and supposedly simple way to teach both language and cultural content. By its very nature the genre is didactic; it depends on moral absolutism to address questions on how best to live and act in the world. When the content proposes how to live and act sustainably in the Anthropocene, however, a contrast emerges between the clear-cut morality of the fairy tale genre and the complexity of any proposed solutions. In this article we approach Winterson’s fairy tale Hansel and Greta from the perspectives of the three pillars of sustainability as defined by the United Nations, namely environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and social sustainability. We identify a set of productive entry points for Swedish teacher educators to begin from when seeking to develop grades 4–6 (ages 10–12) student teachers’ sustainability literacy and critical literacy, both skills that teachers arguably need to make appropriate selections among the many children’s books that address sustainability. These entry points illustrate instances in the text where tensions spring up between the solutions offered by Winterson’s fairy tale and the complex and often challenging problems that it addresses. 

Roald Dahl’s classic children’s novel Matilda (1988/2018) has long been considered controversial by literary scholars on account of its stereotypes, sexism, and violence. At the same time, the novel has long been a favourite among educators for its ability to encourage children to read. This article suggests ways in which the controversial contents of Matilda can be harnessed to teach critical pedagogy and inclusion to pre-service student teachers for primary school. The article also reports on a small study carried out with a class of student teachers at a Swedish university. Students were asked to critically assess Matilda’s use in their future classroom as well as in their own education. The results of the study indicate that the novel has great potential for discussing social justice, inclusion and children’s literature in ELT, both on the teacher education programme and in the ELT classroom in primary school.

Sir Thomas Malory, author of the 15th century Le Morte Darthur, stood accused of rape and burglary of a monastery. ‘The moral paradox’ of a criminal author and a pious and chivalric book has troubled 19th and 20th century critics deeply, but the desire for a match between the morals of the man and those which critics find in his book has proved to be oddly resilient to developments in literary theory during the 20th century, from New Criticism’s ‘intentional fallacy’ to Barthes’ and Foucault’s death of the author. Rather than letting Malory the potential rapist and robber go, critics insist there cannot be a division between the man and his book in terms of morality.This article investigates the reasons for and consequences of the reluctance on the part of the critics to view Malory as anything but fundamentally one with his book. The absolute truth value of the fictional text, Le Morte, is seen to override historical documents, alter certain biographical accounts and create others. Above all, it forces critics to formulate theories of authorship, wrestling with a tension between ideas of medieval textual production and Malory as a Romantic genius. Eugène Vinaver, the editor of The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, builds one of the most elaborate and complicated theories of how the internal creative genius overtakes the personality and skill of the rough, non-intellectual Englishman in his transformation of the sophisticated French sources into something new and valuable. This article examines how ideas of nationality, religion and creativity have steered the theories of authorship which underpin the critical assessment of Le Morte Darthur and its problematic author.