“Once we were a thousand separate kingdoms, spread over a hundred magic worlds. We were kings and cobblers. Wizards and woodcarvers. We had our sinners, our saints, and our blatant social climbers. And from the grandest lord to the lowliest peasant girl, we were, for the most part, strangers one to another.” “It took an invasion to unite us.” Reimagining fairy tales is not necessarily a new endeavor. They have ranged from the cute and fun “Tangled” to the popular TV series “Once Upon A […]
Fractured Fairy Tales: The Robber Bridegroom
This short novel is a delightful mix of fairy tale and tall tale, with a healthy sprinkling of both humor and the macabre in it. The cast of characters includes a doting father, a wicked stepmother, a lovely daughter, a dashing but deceitful suitor, Mike Fink, a band of thieves and a hick named Goat. If you enjoyed Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird or Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, The Robber Bridegroom should be on your reading list. The tale begins in antebellum Louisiana with […]
Is this the beginning of the end?
So, I met Bill Willingham at a book signing between this book and the last one, Cubs In Toyland. That book was so freaking sad, and I told him as much and that I hoped that the next one would be lighter. That’s not what happened. Now, I’m not complaining, because as gut wrenching as it was, it was good. He just wants to make us cry,apparently. (Seriously though, he was really nice when I met him.)
“I’ll Get You, My Pretty!” ~ Boy, Snow, Bird
This highly acclaimed new novel by Helen Oyeyemi has been called a modern retake on the fairy tale of Snow White. In fact, it is a fairy tale that deals with tropes common to many fairy tales: wicked stepmothers, abandonment, evil forces that prey on innocent young girls, curses. But the overriding theme is female beauty, particularly society’s predilection for whiteness. We imagine beauty as powerful and empowering to those who possess it, but it frequently engenders fear and malevolence in others, resulting in endangerment […]