Comments on: Time to Claim Your Fairy Tale

By: Christina

Christina — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:36:12 +0000

I am a big fan of fairy tale rewrites. I love them! Book of a 1000 Days was great and I liked Beast too.

Some of my favorites are also picture books with a twist on them. I read one to my boys last Christmas about the Three Bears and Santa was like Golidlocks. I can’t remember the title, but it was adorable.

By: Rena

Rena — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:47:58 +0000

I love retellings of fairy tales. We study them in school each year and try to spend a week on one, reading as many different versions as we can. My boys are young, so we stick to the picture books for now. I have a retelling coming out called The Marshmallow Man in December. It’s a retelling of The Gingerbread Man.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:18:02 +0000

Kate, I just got a few of Shannon Hale’s books from the library (Goose Girl, Princess Academy) to follow up on my reading of Book of a Thousand Days, and really enjoyed them. With a fairy tale, there is room to add so many interesting details.

I also checked out Shannon Hale’s website, and thought it was cool the way she adds “extra stuff”, e.g. early versions of a story. It’s encouraging that she does so many revisions — makes me feel there’s hope for my own stories, even with my constant rewriting.

As for my favourite fairy tale, I always loved the story of the twelve dancing princesses – something magical about that secret world under the palace and the invisible cloak the prince wears when spying on them.

By: Marva Dasef

Marva Dasef — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:47:13 +0000

I love any of the retellings of fairy tales, making them more up-to-date and, usually, funny. I even read an erotic version of Cinderella a few months ago. It was also pretty funny.

In my own WIP, I use fairy tale and folklore all over the place, but haven’t done a re-telling per se. I just steal everything I like.

For example, Rumpelstiltskin in my book is the Scandinavian version, Jtte Finn. He’s a ticked-off troll who’s griped because 1) the tales said he was a dwarf, and 2) the rotten humans tricked him out of snatching the kid. He’s had a chip on his shoulder ever since. He now serves as the Chief Advisor to Ole the Troll Mountain King.