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This week we’re talking about folktales and fairytales. I wrote an article on the subject a year or so ago and heard that folktales and fairytales aren’t selling well as picture books. But fairytales have found a new home in novels for middle grade and young adult readers. You might say that fairytales have grown up.

Reka Simonsen, now executive editor for Harcourt, said in an interview, “Fairytales and folktales for younger kids are hard to publish successfully these days. That doesn’t seem to be true of novels for young adult readers, though. There are enough books, authors, and long-term fans to have turned the novel-length fairytale into a subgenre of its own, a particular type of fantasy that’s especially popular with adolescent girls.” Most popular are versions that give the classic tales a new twist–“a different setting or a stronger female lead character, for example.”

Heather Tomlinson, author of The Swan Maiden (Henry Holt, 2007) twisted a traditional story in Toads and Diamonds (Henry Holt, 2010). “In Charles Perrault’s original tale, a fairy rewards one girl with the gift of speaking jewels and flowers, while condemning her older sister to spew toads and snakes when she talks. I wondered what would happen if the two gifts were equally valuable–and equally dangerous.”

Tomlinson points to “many successful novels and series drawing on fairytale roots. But I think writers can increase their chances of success by retelling a lesser-known story, or finding a really fresh angle on a familiar one.”

Simonsen said, “Some people in publishing and bookselling are getting pretty tired of fantasy of all kinds, including fairytale novelizations. I think that response is mostly from the people who never liked these kinds of books anyway. Fantasy has been the bestselling genre for the past decade and it’s still going strong, so clearly kids are not sick of it. It’s a crowded market, so it can be hard to stand out, but there is definitely a big fan base for fairytale novelizations.”

Other fairytale-inspired books of recent years include:

Sisters Red, a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood by Jackson Pearce (Little, Brown, 2010)

Devoured, a retelling of Snow White by Amanda Marrone (Simon Pulse, 2009)

A Curse Dark As Gold, a historical retelling of Rumpelstiltskin by Elizabeth Bunce (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2008)

Beastly, a modern version of Beauty and the Beast (HarperTeen, 2007) and A Kiss in Time, a Sleeping Beauty retelling, (HarperTeen, 2009) by Alex Flinn

The Thirteenth Princess, based upon The Twelve Dancing Princesses story, by Diane Zahler (HarperCollins, 2009)

Beast, with Beauty and the Beast in ancient Persia, by Donna Jo Napoli (Atheneum, 2000)

Turning Old to New

So what if you want to write a fairytale based novel? Creative thinking can help writers break into the market.

Lise Lunge-Larsen, author of the picture book The Adventures of Thor the Thunder God (Houghton Mifflin, 2007) said, “The images and the plots of the old folktales a

Tansy Miller has always felt that her divorced father has never had enough time for her. But mistakenly getting caught on the wrong side of the law wasn't exactly how she wanted to get his attention. Enter Chrysanthemum "Chrissy" Everstar, Tansy's fairy in shining, er, high heels. Chrissy is only a fair godmother, of course, so Tansy's three wishes don't exactly go according to plan. And if bringing Robin Hood to the twenty-first century isn't bad enough for Tansy, being transported back to the Middle Ages to deal with Rumpelstiltskin certainly is. She'll need the help of her blended family, her wits, and especially the cute police chief 's son to stop the gold-spinning story from spinning wildly out of control. Janette Rallison pulls out all the stops in this fresh, fun-filled follow-up to the popular My Fair Godmother.

I really enjoyed the first book in this series My Fair Godmother. It's unusual for a sequel to be better than the original book but Janette Rallison managed this amazing feat with My Unfair Godmother.

This book is cute, clean and fun. I laughed out loud more times than I can remember. The references Janette makes to popular culture are hysterical. References from everything from Twilight to popular music are sprinkled throughout. I'm not sure if this book was supposed to make me cry but there is one scene near the end were I had tears in my eyes.

Well done Janette! My Unfair Godmother is a hilarious twisted tale that combined elements from Robin Hood and Rumplestiltskin into one fabulous adventure. If you enjoyed My Fair Godmother I'm sure you'll love this one. It can be read as a stand alone but I highly recommend reading My Fair Godmother first.

My Unfair Godmother is scheduled for release on April 12. 2011.

Content: Clean

Rating: 5 Stars

Source: Around the World ARC tour

I am in the process of transferring all of my items from my old Etsy shop Wickeddiana.etsy.com into my brand new shop Whimsical Fantasy.

Here is one print that I have just listed in my new shop, Whimsical Fantasy.

Autumn Fairy is an original Mixed Media Mini 4″x6″ Painted print.

It is a print of an original acrylic painting that has been mounted on illustration board and hand-embellished. As a result it is completely original and unique.

Materials I used: Fabric, metallic gold leaf paint, crystal studs, glitter, acrylic.

The fairy wings protrude outside of the 4 x6 surface. I leave it up to the buyer to decide how they would like to frame it and hang it.

On Framing: It might require a frame that is at least 8″ wide by 8″ high in order to include the wings inside the frame. It is also possible to put it in a smaller frame and allow the wings to protrude outside the frame edges. It is your personal preference.

The painting will be signed by me, the artist. It will be neatly wrapped and shipped in a secure package.

I've always been a fan of fairy tales where the main character's kindness to animals helps him or her become the hero of the story.The Queen Bee, by the Brothers Grimm is a good example. Baba Yaga and the Girl With the Kind Heart is another. Sometimes the main character is even mighty, and displays the wisdom of having humility even when one is rich and powerful, such as the legend of King

Happy New Year! I'm pleased to announce that my short story, The Scullery Boy Remembers, is now published in Enchanted Conversation, an online journal of fairytales. The theme of the premiere issue is Sleeping Beauty. I was inspired by this passage from the Grimms' version of the story:The horses, too, went to sleep in the stable, the dogs in the yard, the pigeons upon the roof, the flies on the

In Deconstructing a Fairy Tale, Colleen Mondor of Chasing Ray writes about the misconceptions regarding the nature of fairy tales plus a teaser review of a soon-to-be released retelling of Cinderella that captures the true spirit of struggle and sorrow in the story.

Enchanted Conversation, "a journal where lovers of fairy tales can write and read and find community" is calling for submissions for its first issue! The theme for the first issue is focused on the "Sleeping Beauty" fairy tale. Guidelines for submissions can be found on the site and authors will be paid for their work. The deadline for this first issue is November 15, 2009, so you have some time

The latest Etsy shop to delight me is that of Silver Acorn. I think of a lot of Acorngirl's wee felt people fall under the category of "Goth Waldorf" (if there's no such term, I'm coining it now). Her wee felt girl in a purple jumper is how I would envision a recreation of Lydia Purpuraria, the patron saint of dyers. No, Lydia didn't run around with Tyrian purple hair. That would have been

Here's the latest on the Consumer Protection Safety Improvement Act: CPSIA: It's February 10th, So Now What? Even though small businesses don't have to undergo testing of their items for children another year (but are liable if their products end up having a certain amount of lead or Phthalates), I'm still creating my nature table figures for people who are over twelve years of age. If you don't

RABBIT'S UNEXPECTED PARTY



Rabbit was having a lovely summer afternoon somewhere in the English countryside. The kind of warm day with miniature breezes that call you to laze about. But on this day, Rabbit had an unexpected visit from her dear friend, Dog. Dog felt that the day was so warm and fresh that a party was in order. Dog brought hats and tea and jelly tarts. A nice time was had by all...BUT, something was amiss. There was a static in the air and a low howl far in the distance....

Until Next Time:
Kim
Garden Painter Art

(Photo courtesy of ABC.com)

Okay. So maybe my cover doesn't look exactly like this, but hey...I thought it might catch your attention.

After catching the enthusiasm of my friend Margaret, I was off to my local chain bookstore between classes to pick up Tales of Beedle the Bard. I hadn't been planning of buying it, but Margaret has a way of upping the ante when it comes to fostering my love for Harry Potter (or Snape, as it were).

I took the advice of Susan over at Wizard's Wireless, and I didn't rush through...I took my time.

When readers open the book they find that it's "Translated from the Ancient Runes by Hermione Granger", has "Commentary by Albus Dumbledore", and has an "Introduction, Notes, and Illustrations by J.K. Rowling". This lends to feeling that the reader is back in the wizarding world and that the tales are part of the cultural reality of Harry and the gang.

Now, I am not one of those HP fans that remembers every last detail of every book. I do know kids like this. They can recite charms, list character facts and draw a map of Hogwarts at a moment's notice. Not me. But it didn't matter.

There are 5 tales within the book, and each tale is followed by Dumbledore's comments with additional footnotes by Rowling. Of the five, my favourite is "The Warlock's Hairy Heart". It's gruesome in the tradition of early Grimm, and is written is such a way that the reader has an amazing visual in mind. I was actually scared for a moment or two as well! What a treat to read fairy tales where I am not sure what is about to happen!

Each story is different than the one before, and I think there is something in there for everyone. There is also an interesting commentary on the censorship of children's stories (hhmmmm...wonder why?). "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot" was not only challenged by the Malfoy clan for the mixing of pure blood and muggle bloods (don't want to give the kiddies any wayward ideas), but it was actually rewritten by Beatrix Bloxam who believed that the tales of Beetle the Bard were "damaging to children, because of what she called their unhealthy preoccupation with the most horrid subjects, such as death, disease, bloodshed, wicked magic, unwholesome characters, and bodily effusions and eruptions of the most disgusting kind." (p.17)

Brilliant, I say.

These are fun, scary and sophisticated stories. Followers of Harry Potter would do well to give it a read. I think that fans of traditional fairy tales might want to give these a whirl as well.

Filed under "Things I Wish I Had Thought of Myself," here is author Sarah Beth Durst's collection of Obscure Fairy Tales, complete with commentary. For all the times you wondered, "What part of 'my brothers were turned into swans by a woman in a gown and crown with a majestic bearing and an evil disposition' did not arouse suspicion? (The Seven Swans) or, in the case of Molly Whuppie, "What sort

I shouldn’t be writing this.

I’m about four chapters (I think – I hope) from the end of a book that I actually began writing nearly two years ago. For various family reasons it then got put on hold for at least ten months – and I have nearly 26 different versions of the first four pages: I know, because I labelled them by the letters of the alphabet.

This is a long gestation, even for me. I’m not a writer who plans the book chapter by chapter, then does a first draft of the whole thing. I’m a writer who proceeds by a sort of instinctive groping, like someone following a path through thick mist. There’ll be landmarks on the way – things I come to with relief, because I’ve known from the beginning that they’ll be there. But how to get from one landmark to another – that’s a journey of discovery done step by step.

In my last book, ‘Troll Blood’, for example, I saw from the beginning that at some point the hero, Peer Ulfsson, would find a broken dragonhead from a wrecked longship, lying half submerged in a tide-pool. (This is a good example of a faun-with-an-umbrella: see my last posting!) But it wasn’t for months, when I finally came to write the scene, that I realised the dragonhead symbolised his dead father, and the dragonhead itself took on a spooky, malevolent life I’d never expected. These are things you find upon the way.

And the reason it took months to reach that point is that I write and rewrite every page over and over as I go. Till they feel perfect. This is frustrating for my editor, who has to take the book on trust – there’s never a point where she can ask to see an early draft – because there isn’t one. When I come to the last full stop on the final page, that’s when book is done, finished, complete at last. It’s an emotional moment, like when they finally hand you the baby you’ve been struggling to birth. I sometimes cry.

Fairy tales and folktales are full of stock phrases, repeated over and over with incantatory effect, not just, I think, to aid re-telling and memory but because like snatches of poetry they send a shiver down the spine and are recognised as emotional truth. Here’s one that’s works for me just now: in a Scottish folktale the hero has to travel ‘over seven bens and seven glens and seven mountain moors’ to accomplish his task. Here I am, several mountain moors still to go, but the seven bens and the seven glens are certainly behind me, and it no longer seems totally impossible that I shall, eventually, finish this book!

This Tuesday,July 1st at 8pm ET - Jack Zipes the preeminent writer about and translator of fairy
tales will be appearing on the Art of Storytelling with Children.

Jack Zipes writes…
At their best, the storytelling of fairy tales constitute the most profound articulation of the human struggle to form and maintain a civilizing process. They depict metaphorically the opportunities for human adaptation to our environment and reflect the conflicts that arise when we fail to establish civilizing codes commensurate with the self-interests of large groups within the human population. The more we give into base instincts – base in the sense of basic and depraved – the more criminal and destructive we become. The more we learn to relate to other groups of people and realize that their survival and the fulfillment of their interests is related to ours, the more we might construct social codes that guarantee humane relationships. Fairy tales are uncanny because they tell us what we need and they unsettle us by showing what we lack and how we might compensate for lack.

Fairy tales hint of happiness. This hint, what Ernst Bloch has called the anticipatory illumination, has constituted their utopian appeal that has a strong moral component to it. We do not know happiness, but we instinctually know and feel that it can be created and perhaps even defined. Fairy tales map out possible ways to attain happiness, to expose and resolve moral conflicts that have deep roots in our species. The effectiveness of fairy tales and other forms of fantastic literature depends on the innovative manner in which we make the information of the tales relevant for the listeners and receivers of the tales. As our environment changes and evolves, so we change the media or modes of the tales to enable us to adapt to new conditions and shape instincts that were not necessarily generated for the world that we have created out of nature. This is perhaps one of the lessons that the best of fairy tales and teach us: we are all misfit for the world, and yet, somehow we must all fit together. Fairy tales have an extraordinary, uncanny power over us, and Georges Jean locates this power on the conscious level in the way all good fairy tales aesthetically structure and use fantastic and miraculous elements to prepare us for our everyday life. Magic is used paradoxically not to deceive us but to enlighten us. On an unconscious level, Jean believes that the best fairy tales bring together subjective and assimilatory impulses with objective intimations of a social setting that intrigue readers and allow for different interpretations according to one’s ideology and belief. Ultimately, Jean argues that the fantastic power of fairy tales consists in the uncanny way they provide a conduit into social reality. Yet, given the proscription of fairy-tale discourse within a historically prescribed civilizing process, a more careful distinction must be made between regressive and progressive aspects of the power of fairy tales in general to understand the liberating potential of contemporary tales for all human beings. Sigmund Freud’s concept of the “uncanny” and Ernst Bloch’s concept of “home” can enable us to grasp the constitutive elements of the liberating impulse behind the fantastic and uncanny projections in fairy tales, whether they be classical or experimental. In his essay on the uncanny, Freud remarks that the word heimlich means that which is familiar and agreeable and also that which is concealed and kept out of sight, and he concludes that heimlich is a word the meaning of which develops in the direction of ambivalence, until it finally coincides with its opposite, unheimlich or uncanny. Through a close study of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s fairy tale The Sandman, Freud argues that the uncanny or unfamiliar (unheimlich) brings us in closer touch with the familiar (heimlich) because it touches on emotional disturbances and returns us to repressed phases in our evolution: If psychoanalytic theory is correct in maintaining that every effect belonging to an emotional impulse, whatever its kind, is transformed, if it is repressed, into anxiety, then among instances of frightening things there must be one class in which the frightening element can be shown to be something repressed which recurs. This class of frightening things would then constitute the uncanny; and it must be a matter of indifference whether what is uncanny was itself originally frightening or whether it carried some other affect. In the second place, if this is indeed the secret nature of the uncanny, we can understand why linguistic usage has extended das Heimliche (‘homely’) into its opposite, das Unheimliche; for this uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien but something which is familiar and old-established in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the process of repression. This reference to the factor of repression enables us, furthermore, to understand Schelling’s definition of the uncanny as something which ought to have remained hidden but has come to light. Freud insists that one must be extremely careful in using the category of the uncanny since not everything which recalls repressed desires and surmounted modes of thinking belongs to the prehistory of the individual and the race and can be considered uncanny. In particular, Freud mentions fairy tales as excluding the uncanny. In fairy tales, for instance, the world of reality is left behind from the very start, and the animistic system of beliefs is frankly adopted. Wish-fulfillments, secret powers, omnipotence of thoughts, animation of inanimate objects, all the elements so common in fairy stories, can exert no uncanny influence here; for, as we have learnt, that feeling cannot arise unless there is a conflict of judgment as to whether things which have been “surmounted” and are regarded as incredible may not, after all, be possible; and this problem is eliminated from the outset by the postulates of the world of fairy tales.

Although it is true that the uncanny becomes the familiar and the norm in the fairy tale because the narrative perspective accepts it so totally, there is still room for another kind of uncanny experience within the postulates and constructs of the fairy tale. That is, Freud’s argument must be qualified regarding the machinations of the fairy tale. However, I do not want to concern myself with this point at the moment but would simply like to suggest that the uncanny plays a significant role in the act of reading or listening to a fairy tale. Using and modifying Freud’s category of the uncanny, I want to argue that the very act of reading a fairy tale is an uncanny experience in that it separates the reader from the restrictions of reality from the onset and makes the repressed unfamiliar familiar once again. Bruno Bettelheim has noted that the fairy tale estranges the child from the real world and allows him or her to deal with deep-rooted psychological problems and anxiety-provoking incidents to achieve autonomy. Whether this is true or not, that is, whether a fairy tale can actually provide the means for coping with ego disturbance, as Bettelheim argues, remains to be seen. It is true, however, that once we begin listening to or reading a fairy tale, there is estrangement or separation from a familiar world inducing an uncanny feeling which can be both frightening and comforting.

Actually the complete reversal of the real world has already taken place before we begin reading a fairy tale on the part of the writer, and the writer invites the reader to repeat this uncanny experience. The process of reading involves dislocating the reader from his/her familiar setting and then identifying with the dislocated protagonist so that a quest for the Heimische or real home can begin. The fairy tale ignites a double quest for home: one occurs in the reader’s mind and is psychological and difficult to interpret, since the reception of an individual tale varies according to the background and experience of the reader. The second occurs within the tale itself and indicates a socialization process and acquisition of values for participation in a society where the protagonist has more power of determination. This second quest for home can be regressive or progressive depending on the narrator’s stance vis-à-vis society. In both quests the notion of home or Heimat, which is closely related etymologically to heimlich and unheimlich, retains a powerful progressive attraction for readers of fairy tales. While the uncanny setting and motifs of the fairy tale already open us up to the recurrence of primal experiences, we can move forward at the same time because it opens us up to what Freud calls “unfulfilled but possible futures to which we still like to cling in fantasy, all the strivings of the ego which adverse external circumstances have crushed, and all our suppressed acts of volition which nourish in us the illusion of Free Will.”

Obviously, Freud would not condone clinging to our fantasies in reality. Yet, Ernst Bloch would argue that some are important to cultivate and defend since they represent our radical or revolutionary urge to restructure society so that we can finally achieve home. Dreaming which stands still bodes no good. But if it becomes a dreaming ahead, then its cause appears quite differently and excitingly alive. The dim and weakening features, which may be characteristic of mere yearning, disappear; and then yearning can show what it really is able to accomplish. It is the way of the world to counsel men to adjust to the world’s pressures, and they have learned this lesson; only their wishes and dreams will not hearken to it. In this respect virtually all human beings are futuristic; they transcend their past life, and to the degree that they are satisfied, they think they deserve a better life (even though this may be pictured in a banal and egotistic way), and regard the inadequacy of their lot as a barrier, and not just as the way of the world. To this extent, the most private and ignorant wishful thinking is to be preferred to any mindless goose-stepping; for wishful thinking is capable of revolutionary awareness, and can enter the chariot of history without necessarily abandoning in the process the good content of dreams.

What Bloch means by the good content of dreams is often the projected fantasy and action of fairy tales with a forward and liberating look: human beings in an upright posture who strive for an autonomous existence and non-alienating setting which allows for democratic cooperation and humane consideration. Real history which involves independent human self-determination cannot begin as long as there is exploitation and enslavement of humans by other humans. The active struggle against unjust and barbaric conditions in the world leads to home, or utopia, a place nobody has known but which represents humankind coming into its own: The true genesis is not at the beginning, but at the end, and it starts to begin only when society and existence become radical: that is, comprehend their own roots. But the root of history is the working, creating man, who rebuilds and transforms the given circumstances of the world. Once man has comprehended himself and has established his own domain in real democracy, without depersonalization and alienation, something arises in the world which all men have glimpsed in childhood: a place and a state in which no one has yet been. And the name of this something is home or homeland.[x] Philosophically speaking, then, the real return home or recurrence of the uncanny is a move forward to what has been repressed and never fulfilled. The pattern in most fairy tales involves the reconstitution of home on a new plane, and this accounts for the power of its appeal to both children and adults.

In Bloch’s two major essays on fairy tales, “Das Märchen geht selber in Zeit” (“The Fairy Tale Moves on its Own in Time”) and Bessere Luftschlösser in Jahrmarkt und Zirkus, in Märchen und Kolportage” (“Better Castles in the Air in Fair and Circus, in the Fairy Tale and Popular Books”), Bloch is concerned with the manner in which the hero and the aesthetic constructs of the tale illuminate the way to overcome oppression. He focuses on the way the underdog, the small person, uses his or her wits not only to survive but to live a better life. Bloch insists that there is good reason for the timelessness of traditional fairy tales, “Not only does the fairy tale remain as fresh as longing and love, but the demonically evil, which is abundant in the fairy tale, is still seen at work here in the present, and the happiness of ‘once upon a time,’ which is even more abundant, still affects our visions of the future.”

It is not only the timeless aspect of traditional fairy tales that interests Bloch, but also the way they are modernized and appeal to all classes and age groups in society. Instead of demeaning popular culture and common appeal, Bloch endeavors to explore the adventure novels, modern romances, comics, circuses, country fairs, and the like. He refuses to make simplistic qualitative judgments of high and low art forms, rather he seeks to grasp the driving utopian impulse in the production and reception of art-works for mass audiences. Time and again he focuses on fairy tales as indications of paths to be taken in reality. What is significant about such kinds of “modern fairy tales” is that it is reason itself which leads to the wish projections of the old fairy tale and serves them. Again what proves itself is a harmony with courage and cunning, as that earliest kind of enlightenment which already characterizes “Hansel and Gretel”: consider yourself as born free and entitled to be totally happy, dare to make use of your power of reasoning, look upon the outcome of things as friendly. These are the genuine maxims of fairy tales, and fortunately for us they not only appear in the past but in the now.

Bloch and Freud set the general parameters for helping us understand how our longing for home, which is discomforting and comforting, draws us to folk and fairy tales. They provide clues and reveal why we continue to be attracted to the uncanny.