Retold Fairy Tales

[FaeDreamer]

One of my passions is retold fairy tales....I think my favorite so far is Beauty and the Beast but I've read quite a few others as well. heart

Here's a few:
Rose Daughter Beauty and the Beast - Robin McKinley
Beauty Beauty and the Beast - (a completely different version) also by Robin Mckinley
Ella Enchanted Cinderella - Gale Carson Levine
Fire Rose Beauty and the Beast - Mercedes Lackey
Spindles End Sleeping Beauty - Robin McKinley
The Fairy Godmother Mix of Bro. Grimm's - Mercedes Lackey

Anybody else know of any good retellings? I love them and they are hard to find.  

[NightIntent]

I've read Rose Daughter, Beauty, Ella Enchanted, and Spinde's End, out of the ones you've mentioned. A few others I've read that I found to be good were: Goose Chase, Patirce Kindl; The Goose Girl, Shannon Hale; Beast, I forget the author; and Just Ella, and I forget the author again. Just Ella is more like one of those "What happens after the fairy tale ending?" books. But I love it. And then there are fairy tales you can read at fanfiction.net. I write kinda re-told fairy tales. Just rather... weird fairy tales. But I've seen better ones around, somewhere or other. Oh, I almost forgot one of my favorite re-told fairy tales! Deerskin, Robin McKinley. It's not quite what you'd imagine for a fairy tale, but it's so good. I think it's a mix of Allerleirah (or however you're supposed to spell it), The Goose Girl, and... I forget the otehr I compared it to. But it's based on a fairy tale called Donkeyskin, which was written by... someone. She mentions who in the acknowledgements or something or other. Okay, enough typing.  

[cpt_morgan]

my favorite fairy tale is a Norse one called "East of the Sun and West of the Moon." Denis L. McKeirnan wrtoe it as "Once Upon a Winter's Night" which got me into the tale in the first place! agreat story! He also just released another re-told fairy tale, "Once Upon a Summer's Day" or something akin to that. it's about sleeping beauty i think. Also another re-told version fo the East/West tale was by Edith Patou simply titled "West". and (though its not techniaclly fantasy) Gregory McGuire writes new-fangled takes on old stories ie: "Wicked" "Ugly Stepsister" and two more i cant think of! @_@

ninja  

[FaeDreamer]

I've read just about everything by Robin McKinley, including Deerskin. I love her! I can't count the amount of times I've read Rose Daughter and Beauty. I can't always remember all the books I've read though, it's crazy. I think I've read Just Ella too, but thanks for the input on some of the others. 3nodding

I could kick myself 'cause I was at the bookstore last night and didn't write down any of the new books people are talking about that I haven't read *sigh* guess I'll have to do it next time. Guess it's no biggie since HP 6 is coming out very soon. cool  

[NightIntent]

Oh, right. I remembered another fairy tale I read. Snow. It's a re-telling of Snow White. A very, very odd version of Snow White. I didn't like it much. But I'm also not too partial to the story of Snow White these days.  

[Nebbie]

The Rose and the Beast, by Francesca Lia Block
Kissing the Witch, by someone I can't remember...

They're both collections of retold fairy tales. I've got a big copy of the Brother's Grimm versions too, and I like those too, except there's tons of stories that are very very similar.
My favorite fairy tale would be... well, from Greek mythology, so that's not quite a fairy tale.  

[Flux_o_color]

One of my favorite is Wicked by Gregory McGuire, and i think The Wizard of Oz should be considered fantasy....I mean the WIZARD of Oz?? mrgreen Anyways it was a great book and in turn made me read his other book, Confessions of An Ugly Step Sister, which is about Cinderella.  

[Nuala]

NightIntent

But it''s based on a fairy tale called Donkeyskin, which was written by... someone. She mentions who in the acknowledgements or something or other. Okay, enough typing.

Bearing in mind that the original plothook of Donkeyskin was incest, it''s one of those stories that only could be retold these days, rather than repeated in its original form.

Bearing in mind that all of these stories''ve started in the oral tradition and then been gradually written down, codified in different forms and evolved over centuries, it''s nice to see another phase of that happening now. I just wish that a few people would concentrate on reminding folks that older versions exist - now that literacy''s so commonplace, it''d be a shame to lose them to time.  

[FaeDreamer]

Quote:

I just wish that a few people would concentrate on reminding folks that older versions exist - now that literacy''s so commonplace, it''d be a shame to lose them to time.

heart Oh I fully agree that the originals were awesome, if a bit dark. I have a full set of Grimm's and Anderson's fairy tales printed in 1893 and 1899 respectively on my bookshelf. But I love to see retellings in something other than Disney style (not that I have anything against Disney) because most of them seemed really shallow.

Quote:

One of my favorite is Wicked by Gregory McGuire, and i think The Wizard of Oz should be considered fantasy....I mean the WIZARD of Oz?? Anyways it was a great book and in turn made me read his other book, Confessions of An Ugly Step Sister, which is about Cinderella.

I always like WoO, I read most of the originals when I was a kid, they're definitely fantasy. I've seriously been thinking about reading McGuire's stuff, I saw Confessions at the bookstore. Did you like his stuff? biggrin  

[Merlinssister]

I love old celtic mythology best for some reason. I've read Ella Enchanted which I really loved but I still need to read Beauty  

[Cassandra_the_Prophetess]

Not really a fairy tale but Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett is a FANTASTIC parody of Shakespeare's Macbeth!  

[Flux_o_color]

Quote:

I just wish that a few people would concentrate on reminding folks that older versions exist - now that literacy''s so commonplace, it''d be a shame to lose them to time.

heart Oh I fully agree that the originals were awesome, if a bit dark. I have a full set of Grimm's and Anderson's fairy tales printed in 1893 and 1899 respectively on my bookshelf. But I love to see retellings in something other than Disney style (not that I have anything against Disney) because most of them seemed really shallow.

Quote:

One of my favorite is Wicked by Gregory McGuire, and i think The Wizard of Oz should be considered fantasy....I mean the WIZARD of Oz?? Anyways it was a great book and in turn made me read his other book, Confessions of An Ugly Step Sister, which is about Cinderella.

FaeDreamer"

Quote:

I always like WoO, I read most of the originals when I was a kid, they're definitely fantasy. I've seriously been thinking about reading McGuire's stuff, I saw Confessions at the bookstore. Did you like his stuff? biggrin

Yes I liked it very much.....I read confessions first and it was really interesting, but I loved wicked. It's not all that much fantasy though....well' that's not true, it's just kinda different, which made me really like it !!

 

[Nuala]

Flux_o_color

heart Oh I fully agree that the originals were awesome, if a bit dark. I have a full set of Grimm's and Anderson's fairy tales printed in 1893 and 1899 respectively on my bookshelf.

Likewise. And a rather interesting book comparing the codified Grimm/Perrault/whoever versions with earlier versions and/or versions from different countries, too. smile

Quote:

But I love to see retellings in something other than Disney style (not that I have anything against Disney) because most of them seemed really shallow.

They're products of their time and focusing on market forces. If I wasn't packing and due to leave on vacation this afternoon, I'd expand on that - it's something I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on.  

[Merlinssister]

I'm not a big fan of Disney movies because sometimes they just don't make sense. The whole happy ending thing for one, nothing could never end that perfectly, there'd still be emotional scars and of course the singing and speaking animals and random objects 3nodding  

[Nuala]

As far as I'm concerned, those endings aren't even for the kids - kids know full well that nasty things happen, which is why macabre authors like Roald Dahl (or more recently Lemony Snicket) do so well.

Those endings're for adults: partly as nostaligia value for the childhood Golden Age that they like top delude themselves existed, and partly because it makes them more comfortable about taking the little kiddies to the movies and spending money.

It's a sort of celluloid equivalent of rice pudding: bland, inoffensive and able to be shovelled down throats in gross quantities. That or a celluloid babysitting service.

That's my opinion, anyway. wink