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Here is the Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition from the Ink Gypsy, at Once Upon a Blog. It is fabulous.

In a series of sequential posts, you get:

General (& latest) fairy tale news headlines (that I haven't seen posted elsewhere)
Blog posts and/or articles discussing/using fairy tales
Friends and other fairy tale people
Fairy tales in performance & creative arts
Fairy tale artists & illustrators (past & present)
Fairy tale journals/magazines/online 'zines
Fairy tale films & movies
Fairy tale influenced books (and reviews)
Newly discovered online fairy tale retellings
Fairy tale fashion news
Home & garden fairy tale style
Fairy tale sports
Fun fairy tale finds
Fairy tale funnies
Fairy tale weather & the natural world
Fairy tale music
Food and dining fairy tale news
Classifieds/ads for fairy tale people Careers - fairy tale knowledge required!
From the archives: fairy tale articles to read again (or for the first time)
End notes & recap

WOW!

Troll's Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (Viking, 2009, upper middle grade, 199pp)

In their introduction to this anthology of re-imagined fairy tales, Datlow and Windling asked the contributors "to take a long, hard look at fairy-tale villains. Witches, wizards, giants, trolls, ogres: what's the truth behind their stories? And are the fairy-tale heroes and heroines pitted against them quite as noble as they first appear?"

The resulting fifteen stories and poems are variously delightful, funny, and disturbing. Some are fairly straight retellings of familiar stories from the point of view of the un-heroes, like "Rags and Riches," by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, the story of the goose girl's treacherous servant, and Peter Beagle's very entertaining telling of Jack and the Beanstock from the perspective of the giant's wife, "Up the Down Beanstalk: A Wife Remembers."

Other authors took their fairy-tales and ran off with them onto new ground, and several of these are rather more disturbing. Holly Black's story, "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," for instance, gives a horrifying back story to the Red-Riding Hood's wolf, and Kelly Link's contribution, "The Cinderella Game," is going to stick in my mind for a long, long time...even if I wish it wouldn't!

But the one I remember best isn't disturbing, just lovely--"Wizard's Apprentice," by Delia Sherman--"There's an Evil Wizard living in Dahoe, Maine. It says so, on the sign hanging outside his shop: Evil Wizard Books..." It raises the question of what constitutes an evil wizard in a truly delightful way.

In short, like all good anthologies, there's a lot of variety and a lot of great writing. I found the stories fascinating, even the ones I personally didn't care for much. But best of all, in my mind, is that many of the stories are lovely presentations of the awfully important fact that there are at least two sides to just about every story, and as someone who wants her children to think critically about what is presented as "the truth," I'm happy this book is in the world.

It is definitely for the upper end of middle grade onward--there's nothing desperately graphic or violent, but there's considerable subtlety, and, as I said above, some of the stories are disturbing.

Here's the list of all the stories and poems:

"Wizard’s Apprentice" by Delia Sherman
"An Unwelcome Guest" by Garth Nix
"Faery Tales" by Wendy Froud
"Rags and Riches" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
"Up the Down Beanstalk: A Wife Remembers" by Peter S. Beagle
"The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces" by Ellen Kushner
"Puss in Boots, the Sequel" by Joseph Stanton
"The Boy Who Cried Wolf" by Holly Black
"Troll" by Jane Yolen
"Castle Othello" by Nancy Farmer
"�Skin" by Michael Cadnum
"A Delicate Architecture" by Catherynne M. Valente
"Molly" by Midori Snyder
"Observing the Formalities" by Neil Gaiman
"The Cinderella Game" by Kelly Link

(note: I received a review copy of this book for my consideration as a Cybils panelist)

The Witch's Guide to Cooking with Children: A Novel by Keith McGowan; illustrated by Yoko Tanaka. Henry Holt Books for Young Readers. 2009. Brilliance Audio, 2009. Narrated by Laural Merlington. Review copy supplied by Brilliance Audio.

The Plot: A modern retelling of Hansel and Gretel. Sol and Connie Blink's father and stepmother have decided they don't want their children around anymore; luckily, there's a witch who will take care of the children for them.

The Good: "I love children. Eating them, that is." So begins the tale of Faye Holaderry, witch.

Hansel and Gretel is one of the more disturbing of the Grimm's Fairy Tales. What's worse, the witch eating children or the ultimate betrayal, that it's your parents who abandon you?

McGowan takes these two horrors, embraces them, and balances scary with funny. In his tale, it's not just a parent abandoning a child in a time of famine; oh no, it's much worse. It's parents who willingly turn their children over to the witch for every reason from bad grades to being kind to homeless people. Derek Wisse, turned over for disappointing his parents, doesn't disappoint Fay; not when "baked with secret ingredients and served with my very yummy homemade key lime pie." Mmmm, key lime pie. I love how the author uses humor, but also ups the horror by giving the nameless murdered children names, personalities, histories. Recipes.

As in the fairy tale, Mrs. Blink is a stepmother; McGowan plays with some of the fairy tale aspects, making Mr. Blink not who he seems. Various standards from fairy tales are used, twisted, reinvented, such as riddles, helpers, hunters.

Sol is 11; Connie, 8. Sol fashions himself as a scientist and inventor, like his mother, who died years before. Sol's scientific mind is a nice contrast against the magic of Holaderry. Holaderry has had to adjust to modern times (no house made out of candy or bread); but she is a witch who has lived centuries. Magic remains, even if its the magic of herbs, of hiding in plain sight. Sol and Connie find people who help them along; people who hinder; but ultimately, they need to rely on themselves and each other.

I love, love, love the ending. It's delicious. Your young horror fans will be thrilled. Grownups may worry about The Witch's Guide being too scary for kids (witches eating children! bad parents!) but kids will eat it up. Professional reviews vary as to whether this is for 9, 10, or 11 and up; I say, it depends on how much the reader likes scary stories. For someone like my niece, who loves Goosebumps and scary stories and Jurassic Park? Age 9. For other kids, it will be older.

I listened to this on audio, and the narrator realistically gave voice to a boy, a girl, a witch. Upon visiting the author's website,

Ice, by Sarah Beth Durst (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2009, YA--14ish on up, 308pp), is a re-imagining of the fairy tale "East of the Sun, West of the Moon."

Cassie has lived all her eighteen years in an arctic research station, where her father studies polar bears. When she was little, her grandmother told her the story of how her mother disappeared one day, a story that began:

"Once upon a time, the North Wind said to the Polar Bear King, "Steal me a daughter, and when she grows, she will be your bride....and so, the Polar Bear King kidnapped a human child and brought her to the North Wind, and she was raised with the North Wind as her father and the West, South, and East Winds as her uncles." (page 1)

Cassie knows this is just a story. But one day, when she sets off by herself to tag a polar bear, she finds that fairy tales can be true...and that she can save her mother from the castle of the trolls where she is imprisoned, if she herself will consent to be the polar bear's wife. Agreeing to the bargain, she sets off to live in a beautiful palace of ice, with the bear at her side. Each night, in the dark, he takes on human form, and gradually love grows between them. Then one night, Cassie breaks the rules. Now she must set off to the land east of the sun and west of the moon, to save her bear husband from the trolls, whoever they might be.

It is not just her own happiness, or the fate of her unborn child, that is at stake. In an original twist to the tale, Durst's bear is a guardian spirit, a mumaqsri, charged with ensuring the rebirth of the polar bears over whom he watches. But things have been going wrong, and there are too few souls to give life to the babies being born. By saving her husband, Cassie can help set this balance right again--if she can outwit those who would trap her forever.

In her journey to rescue the polar bear, Cassie shows herself to be a formidable heroine. The story becomes a nail-biting test of her survival skills as she crosses the ice, and tests her wits and resolve, and her love for her husband, against a strange force of nature that wants to prevent her from reaching the castle of the trolls. Durst skillfully handles Cassie's emotions, making her a very real and (almost always) believable character, despite the improbability of her circumstances. The one truly jarring element is the return of Cassie's mother--this was ostensibly the main reason why Cassie married Bear, and it is rather summarily dealt with.

The incorporation of spirit guardians, with its concomitant environmentalism, adds depth to this fairy tale retelling. And it's a very nice touch that Cassie is able to use her training as a scientist to help her bear with his mission, traveling with him as he delivers souls to the baby bears to gather data that improve the odds that the species will continue (in the original story, she saves her husband by doing laundry. This is much more cool).

By setting her fairy tale in the modern world, one where girls can be scientists, and polar bears are endangered, and by adding a spiritual dimension to the plot, Durst gave herself a place to reimagine an old story in an exciting and entertaining way, and does so rather splendidly.

Here are a few other reviews and recommendations, at Bib-Laura-Graphy, Grow Wings, The Book Butterfly, Book Geeks, and Kids Lit, and here's an interview with Durst at The Enchanted Inkpot.

Review copy supplied by the publisher at the request of the author.

Ash by Malinda Lo. Little, Brown. 2009. Reviewed from ARC. From BEA or ALA, not sure.

The Plot: A Cinderella retelling. Aisling, nickname Ash. Mother dies, father remarries to woman with two daughters, father dies, stepmother turns Ash into a servant, the Prince is looking for a wife, there's a ball, with fairy help Ash attends the ball. You know the rest. Or do you?

The Good: This retelling unfolds slowly, deliciously. It's an internal story; a story about Ash grieving the loss of her parents, shutting down from it, and eventually choosing life and love. This is a tale about recovering from grief and unbearable loss.

Cinderella has a fairy godmother, right? So it's only logical for Lo to create a world where fairies are real. They are dark and dangerous; the fairy world where girls risk enchantment and death for dancing and eating with these other-worldly folk. In Ash's time, fairy tales are viewed as stories to be told, except for a handful of people who still believed and followed other old ways. Ash's mother was one such; but not her father. Ash, 12 at her mother's death, believes that somehow, the fairies and her mother are connected; and that if she joins the fairy folk she will be reunited with her mother. This belief grows both with the death of her father and with her meeting those that she sought -- the fairy. Yes, they are real.

The metaphor here is obvious; joining the fairies will be a death, a rejoining with her parents. Her life as servant is so devoid of love, of anything, that this choice is not grim. In fact, as Ash reads fairy tale after fairy tale (Lo includes a number of them, all haunting) she is comforted by the promise of being lost to the fairy world, even when those tales are cautionary ones to keep young girls away from that world.

Here, Ash is thinking about Sidhean, the only fairy we meet by name, who revisits Ash again and again, promising that eventually she will join his people. "[Ash] felt the distance between her and Sidhean for the first time, and it made her long for him. She turned over onto her side and closed her eyes, trying to force herself to sleep. But in her mind's eye all she could see was him, and she wanted to be with him, all of his cold strangeness."

His cold strangeness; her death. Part 1, The Fairy, is about her obsession and longing for this strangeness, this escape, this reunion with the dead; Part 2, The Huntress, begins when Ash is 18 and is about her slowly coming alive again and wanting the living world. Instead of Ash and her books and her fairy stories, there is Ash getting to know other people (servants at another house), exploring the Wood, and meeting Kaisa, the King's Huntress.

Ash has been called a lesbian Cinderella; it says so right on Lo's website and it's also how I heard it pitched to librarians and reviewers. So I'm not giving much away when I say that Ash does not want Prince Aidan; she wants Kaisa. Another twist is that Sidhean is the fairy who helps Ash attend the Ball, fairy godfather rather than godmother. Considering the Ash/Sidhean relationship, I'd call this more a bisexual Cinderella.

Ash's friendship with Kaisa begins slowly; they meet in the Wood. They talk. Ash looks forward to meeting Kaisa; but, in part because of her connection to Sidhean, doesn't realize the depth of her feelings for Kaisa. It's someone else's observance that makes her realize it: "She wondered uncomfortably if she had done something to suggest it. And if she had -- did she feel that way? The idea was unsettling; it made her feel vulnerable." Note it's unsettling not because "I'm in love with a girl;" it's unsettling because it makes Ash vulnerable. Vulnerable to life, to love, to feeling, to not having her feelings returned. In Ash's world, no one looks askance at the thought of a female/female pairing. While we don't see another such couple in the book, in all honesty, Ash's world is so limited by being a servant that she doesn't see many couples at all in the book. This makes the story a "falling in love and recognizing love" story, not an issue story. Which is awesome.

I'm a bit of an author junkie, even though I know the book should stand alone. Still, after reading a book, it's fun to discover via a website more about the author. When I read The Devil's Kiss, I found that Sarwat Chadda is very, very funny. After Carter Finally Gets It, I visited Brent Crawford's website and found some fascinating information on jeans and the denim industry. Here, at Malinda Lo's website, I found she's an entertainment reporter and other fascinating stuff.

© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

Ash, by Malinda Lo (Little Brown, 2009--officially Sept. 1, but Amazon says it's in stock now, YA, 264 pp in ARC form).

In a land where the old magic has become more story than reality, and the Greenwitches, the wise women who practice the old ways, are being challenged by the philosophers spreading a religion of rational thought, a girl grows up reading fairy tales. But Aisling (Ash for short) lives at the edge of the deep woods, where the night can carry the voices of inhuman riders, and the hoof beats of their horses...and she knows there is truth in the stories.

When Ash's mother dies, her father does not wait long before he brings home a new wife and her two daughters from the city. Ash, sad and lonely, is drawn to her mother's grave at night, despite of the warnings that this might draw the fairy folk to her, or perhaps because of them. Her father dies soon after, and Ash is taken from her home to work as a servant in her stepmother's town house. But one day she is pulled back through the woods, along an enchanted path that leads again to her mother's grave, and there she meets a man of the fairy kind, Sidhean.

"What are you seeking?" he said, and his voice was silky and cold. Though they were separated by several feet, she was disconcerted by the intensity of his gaze; she felt as if he could pull her open form afar.

"I came to see my mother." (page 66)

He cannot, or will not, bring her mother back, but he does carry Ash on his white fairy steed back to her stepmother's house. After, when Ash walks into the forest, at times they meet again, and a strange and otherworldly friendship develops...

In the real world, Ash cleans, and cooks, and grows up dressing her stepsisters for their matchmaking endeavours. Scattered through those years like bright lights are Ash's meetings with the King's Huntress, Kaisa, a young woman whose skill at tracking deer for the king's pleasure is unsurpassed. Ash and Kaisa slowly begin to seek each other out, never quite acknowledging that each is pulling the other toward her...and Ash decides that she will do anything to go to the prince's grand ball, where Kaisa will be. So she makes a bargain with Sidhean, and caught in the thrall of his fairy glamour, it does not seem such a bad one. Until she realizes that it Kaisa she truly loves, and she remembers that not one of the fairy tales she has read ends with the human woman coming home, unchanged.

This is a lovely reimagining of the Cinderella story, and I think it is one of the best fairy tale retellings I've ever read. It has a subtle medieval tapestry feel to it (leaping stags, and hunters in pursuit, dark woods imbued with magic--the sense of the numinous, just around the corner), that makes the story sing without overwhelming the narrative. It is told in the third person, which adds to the fairy tale feeling by giving the reader a subtle remove from the action that separates the story from the real world. The elements of the original Cinderella (complete with enchanted carriage) are present, but made fresh by the compelling characters that Lo has created, and the twists she adds to the plot. My one criticism is that I think there should have been more tension and drama at the end--things resolved rather too quickly and easily for my taste. And some readers might find that the book in general moves slowly, and feel that Ash doesn't actually Do enough. I would say, rather, that it was peacefully engrossing.

Lo's use of the third person was a good choice, I think, in as much as Ash falls in love with another woman. First person narrative requires the reader to become the character at a certain level, but by keeping Ash a step removed from this, even readers for whom this relationship might seem foreign are able to empathise with the giddy, dizzying sensation of falling hard in love--and Lo writes these feelings exquisitely! And for those who like to crush on the male lead, the relationship between Ash and Sidhean provides that opportunity. It is, incidentally, a clean read--although it is YA, there is nothing here that would keep me from giving this to an older middle school girl (it's about the same level, romance wise, of something like McKinley's The Hero and the Crown).

Lo has created a world in which heterosexuality is the norm, but where same sex relationships are unremarkable, adding diversity to the fantasy genre without in the least bit didactically belabouring the point. She has also quite simply created a beautiful book, one that I know I will be re-reading through the years.

Other reviews can be found at The Compulsive Reader, In the Booley House, Killin' Time Reading, The Tainted Poet, and Presenting Lenore.

(ARC received from the publisher)

Alexandra Flinn, AKA Alex Flinn, has a lot going on in her writing life. Her newest book, A KISS IN TIME, is getting great reviews, and her book BEASTLY is being made into a movie starring Vanessa Hudgens, Alex Pettyfer and  Mary Kate Olsen.   How cool is that?

I recently read A KISS IN TIME and found that its fascinating premise nestled within the comforting framework of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale made for a read that kept me intrigued. The premise is: what would happen if Sleeping Beauty was kissed by her true love 300 years later, and that true love turned out to be a teenager from modern-day Florida? How would their two worlds collide? How would it end? After all, according to the fairy tale they’re supposed to marry and live happily ever after.  But Jack’s still in high school and not about to be married yet. Now what?

How old were you when you first started seriously writing?

Depends what you mean by “seriously.”  I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was five.  I wrote plays for the kids in the neighborhood to perform when I was 9 or 10.  I started writing a diary and trying to write my novel at 12.  I wrote most of a manuscript for a novel (then lost it) at 19.  I started writing with a real eye toward publication, researching the market, etc., at 29.  My first book was accepted when I was 32.

  What age child do you have in your head?

That is the age I picture myself reading my books.

How do you make up names for your characters?

I love names!  It’s one of my favorite parts of writing.

Sometimes, the characters just tell me their names, which is what happened with Jack in A Kiss in Time.  Other times, I think about it more.  Like with Talia the Sleeping Beauty of A Kiss in Time, I found that Talia was one of the names given to Sleeping Beauty in old stories.   She has a whole slew of middle names, which I got from a list of royal names and also, from other names for Sleeping Beauty (Aurora and Rose).

I often consider the meaning of the name.  For example, Kyle (the Beast in Beastly) is named Kyle because it means “handsome,” and after he becomes a beast, he changes it to Adrian which means dark.  The girl in the story is Linda, which means “pretty.”  Kendra, the name of the witch in that story, means magical. 

I consider impressions that names give me, and if I know anyone with that name.  Charlie Good in my book, Breaking Point, was named Charlie because I knew someone who looked just like him in middle school, and his name was Charlie, and I knew a boy named Alex Good in high school.  He used to say his name was spelled, “No E, just plain good,” which I thought was funny.  I have a book called Baby Name Personality Survey, which tells me what impressions the name gives other people. 

I had a really hard time naming my own kids, so it’s fun to get to name more people.

What’s the earliest childhood memory you can think back to? Does it appear in any of your writing?

I can remember REALLY far back, and I remember a lot.  I remember standing in my crib, biting the sides, waiting for my mother to come in.  But my first vivid memory was from when I was three years old.  I remember my mother coming in and telling me we were going to meet the little boy and girl who had moved in next-door.  I was wearing a white dress with red polka dots.  We went over to their house and sat on their back step.  The boy’s name was Peter, and the girl’s name was Wendy (No, I did not make this up after watching Peter Pan), and they were two and five respectively.  I never used it in my writing, but I’ve used other stuff.

Do you wake up in the night with fantastic ideas for books?

Not in the night.  I usually think up story ideas when I’m supposed to be doing something else.  Like, once, I wrote a short story in my head while watching Piglet’s Big Movie with my kids.

Why write a take off on a fairy tale?

Initially, because part of the story wasn’t fleshed out enough for my liking.  I wanted to know more about the Beast, or it bothered me that Sleeping Beauty just got plunked down in another century.  Now, because kids don’t read fairy tales anymore.   They watch the DVD, and if there is no DVD, if Disney hasn’t done it, it’s dead.  You have no idea how many emails I get, asking who the bear in Beastly was supposed to be.  He’s from Snow White and Rose Red, but none of them have heard of that story.  I’m working on a novel now that is all fairy tales that haven’t been done by Disney.  Some of them, even I hadn’t heard of until I started researching.

What is your favorite fairy tale?

Sleeping Beauty was my favorite as a child.  Now, I sort of like adventure stories like The Brave Little Tailor, Lazy Jack, or The Golden Bird, where the hero has to surmount obstacles to gain the hand of the princess.

What do you have hidden in a dresser drawer? (We won’t tell, will we, everyone?)

Nothing.  It’s not that I’m so organized (I’m not), or that I don’t have hiding places (I do).  That’s just not one of them.  And I’m not going to tell you my hiding places because my kids are old enough to go online.

What do your favorite jammies look like?

Grey short gown with an embroidered pink kitty-cat on it that says, “It’s all about me-ow.”

Who would you rather have a date with (given you weren’t married), Strider from THE LORD OF THE RINGS, Dr. Watson, Wolverine, or Simon Cowell? Why?

Simon.  I was a music major in college, and I pretty much agree with everything he says (except when he ridicules the disabled, but I would try to cure him of that).

Have you ever been abducted by aliens? If so, what color were their jammies? And did they tell you the titles of any of their favorite books?

Well, if they abducted me, they must like my books, right?  And they weren’t wearing jammies.  In fact, they all looked exactly like Simon Cowell and were wearing black Tee-shirts and jeans.

Will you name a character in your next book after me?

Um, maybe.  Do you want me to?  How many other people have you asked to do this?

Thanks, Alex! 

(Who knows, maybe we’ll have a spate of characters named Shutta soon.)

Ciao!

Shutta

* Many of Alex Flinn’s books have made the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults lists, as well as Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers. They have also received such teen-selected honors as the International Reading Association Young Adult Choices list (Breathing Underwater, Nothing to Lose, and Fade to Black). Flinn’s books seem to appeal to teens who might otherwise prefer not to read, which is the charge of the Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers list. Her books have also been nominated for numerous state awards. Breathing Underwater won the Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Award in 2004. Beastly is nominated for the 2009 Lone Star State (Texas) Award.  (Wikipedia entry: Alex Flinn.)

(Alex Flinn author Portrait by J.A. Cabrera.)

One of the constant threats that small libraries have to contest with is threat of closure. In Vermont where I live many small libraries just barely stay open because people in the town advocate for them and the decision ultimately rests with the town. If they want to pay for it, they get to keep it. In Indiana there is a movement afoot to consolidate the state’s libraries to, I believe, one per county. It’s at the initial stages, a plan by the governor, at this point. Small libraries are discussion the issue wiht their boards, and other libraries. The plan would cut the total number of libraries from 238 to 92 via consolidation. This would, apparently save property tax money and “streamline” government somewhat. We’re talking about a state that has advertisements on its government site search. The Indiana State Library website doens’t have any immediately available information on this topic that I could find through basic searching.

It’s pretty clear that this would mostly shift library costs to the patron (travel, re-learning systems, fees?) and staff (lost jobs, retraining, commuting) and away from the funding bodies. So, sure there is money to be saved but would a reorganization scheme actually work? I find the concept chilling but I haven’t really started reading about it yet. For people who are interested in this issue, I suggest the Save Our Small Public Libraries blog and the INpublb archives (view by thread to find consoludation discussions) [ttw]