Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard 1386

Yes, well ... allowing for other ways to make the kids think twice before doing something like that, I can find several (thin) volumes that are all of readable, somewhat effective, and not scary (though some are by Scarry).

But, really, these aren't fairy tales of the traditional style. And as for the traditional ones ... well. Most of them weren't meant for kids originally, at all, and many were educational only in the religious-education sense (that would often be pagan religion by many people's standards today) or flat out non-educational.

Looking at a less well-known branch of the Cinderella story, with a male protagonist, no step-parents of any kind and ... well. I suppose the lesson in this one might be that ghosts (of dead people) aren't as such anything to be afraid of, possibly even the very opposite. The thing is more like anti-scary ...

This book being the 1920 layman's edition, I can't quote exact date and location where the example was collected, though, but the first scholarly edition would have been published 1852 -- 1866 in 4 volumes. (Eero Salmelainen, "Suomen Kansan Satuja ja Tarinoita")

Now, the clearly educational stories in there do seem to have significant elements that are at least somewhat scary, at least most of the time. The non-scary educational story seems to have grown in popularity lately.

-- #Not speaking for my employer. No warranty. YMMV.