The Last Dragon
Jane Yolen, illustrated by Rebecca Guay
ISBN: 9781616558741
Read August 15, 2016
An introduction by Neil Gaiman is sweet, but unnecessary for this sweet and delightfully traditional dragon slaying fairy tale.
Once upon a time there was an island that was plagued by dragons, who just adored eating people. Apparently we taste good. The folk banded together and slayed them all. Now it's hundreds of years later, and dragons are a faded memory - all dead, all gone. Until one final egg hatches, and a new dragon begins to grow up in the woods, all fire and hatred and appetite.
We join a healer's family and a pair of young boys searching for a hero, all desperate to save their town from this re-born threat from the past.
The art is beautiful, the characters are individualized as much as possible given the short length of the story, and a sweet little romance doesn't detract from the plot to destroy the dragon and save the townsfolk.
Showing posts with label fairy tales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fairy tales. Show all posts
Monday, August 22, 2016
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Picture Book: Beauty and the Beast, Ursula Jones & Sarah Gibb
Beauty and the Beast
Ursula Jones, illustrated by Sarah Gibb
ISBN: 30018004473092
Read July 5, 2016
Sarah Gibb is a delightful artist, and I am really in love with her fairy-tale work right now. Beauty and the Beast is no exception. I am digging Ursula Jones' streamlined take on the fairy tale, and how the sisters are more more Cinderella-style evil. I like the straightforward approach of the Beast. It's lovely to have good bones to a story, and NOT having a good story to base off of is unforgivable. But truly (no offense to Jones) the star here is the absolutely delightful illustration style. It's about half-a-step away from too twee for words, and a whisker off from overworked and fiddly, but the balance is maintained, the characters and settings are lovingly created and technically fantastic, and the whole thing is just a delight. I just can't get enough of the mix of silhouette art and rich color and gilt details. It's striking, original, and deftly done. I can't wait for the next one.
Ursula Jones, illustrated by Sarah Gibb
ISBN: 30018004473092
Read July 5, 2016
Sarah Gibb is a delightful artist, and I am really in love with her fairy-tale work right now. Beauty and the Beast is no exception. I am digging Ursula Jones' streamlined take on the fairy tale, and how the sisters are more more Cinderella-style evil. I like the straightforward approach of the Beast. It's lovely to have good bones to a story, and NOT having a good story to base off of is unforgivable. But truly (no offense to Jones) the star here is the absolutely delightful illustration style. It's about half-a-step away from too twee for words, and a whisker off from overworked and fiddly, but the balance is maintained, the characters and settings are lovingly created and technically fantastic, and the whole thing is just a delight. I just can't get enough of the mix of silhouette art and rich color and gilt details. It's striking, original, and deftly done. I can't wait for the next one.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Storytelling Resource: Nonfiction: Victorian Fairy Tales, the Revolt of the Fairies and Elves, collected and edited by Jack Zipes
Victorian Fairy Tales: The Revolt of the Fairies and Elves
collected and edited: Jack Zipes
ISBN: 0415901405
Read June 18-22, 2016
An interesting collection of mostly lesser or unknown fairy tales by prominent Victorian authors (here meaning authors who were prominent in Victorian times, although most are unknown now). There are a few "known" tales sprinkled into the mix, and a few author names which are recognizable, even if the particular story is unknown. A few notable stories that I knew from before reading this collection: Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince, Kenneth Grahame's The Reluctant Dragon, and Jean Ingelow's The Prince's Dream. Notable authors that people might recognize are: Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, George MacDonald, Andrew Lang (of color fairy book fame) and Edith Nesbit, and Rudyard Kipling. I was thrilled to discover that so many of these favorite authors had written interesting (if not particularly always GOOD) fairy tales.
So what do we have here? A collection, with preface notes for each story (!) As a side note, I love a good preface note so very much - it adds so much to understanding and to context, and to placing the author and story into a framework to see why and how they did what they did. 22 fairy tales in all, from writers who were popular or well-regarded or at least prolific during the Victorian times, writing for children instead of adults, and MOSTLY not writing solely with a particular moral or societal axe to grind, but instead creating stories to entertain rather than to educate. Many of the stories also include the original artworks for covers or interior drawings, and those are less interesting to me, but nice to see included and replicated for art-lovers or scholars.
This was really fun, dense reading, and I deeply enjoyed it. More of most of these author's works can be found on Project Gutenberg or on Google Books, having been many years out of print and out of copyright.
Story summaries and thoughts;
1) Uncle David's Nonsensical Story about Giants and Fairies, by Catherine Sinclair.
Moralistic story of a lazy boy in the vein of Pilgrim's Progress, with a set of good and bad fairies and a boy-eating giant who just loves fat lazy boy for dinner. A happy ending that reinforces the value (and joy) in good clean fun and effort.
Very much like a Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Tale: treacly and mealy-mouthed and insufferably perfectly good boys and terribly bad lazy boys. The fairies and giant are an interesting touch, but could be easiily substituted with any sort of plot device without any changes necessary.
2) King of the Golden River/The Black Brothers, by John Ruskin
A hidden magical valley has beautiful weather until the landowning two brothers mistreat and abuse the visiting god of the winds one night. The youngest brother tries to intervene, but is beaten for his troubles. The winds then change and the valley withers, so the brothers head to the big city to swindle people there, taking work as cheating goldsmiths. When they are facing starvation, the youngest brother is forced to melt down his only prized possession: a gold cup bearing the face of a dwarf, but instead of gold, an actual dwarf emerges, and claims to be the king of the river in their original valley, and that anyone who reaches the spring at the top of the mountain with "holy water" will have unending riches and the valley will prosper again, but anyone who fails will be turned to a black rock. Obvs the older nasty brothers steal the birthright but they each fail in turn, and the younger thinks he fails because he squanders the holy water on the weak and suffering beings beside the river on the way up. But all is good, because charity is great or something, and everything ends beautifully (but they left the brothers to rot as stones - yay!)
This was a very interesting multi-part story, with complex fairy-tale underpinnings and a real sense of adventure and far-away-lands, and despite a bit of heavy-handed christlike suffering imagery at the end, it was a fun romp and a really great story. I would be shocked if no one had made it into a longer fantasy story - I'd like to do it myself.
3) Cinderella and the Glass Slipper, by George Cruikshank
Moralizing story where the stepmother is a gambler, and Cinderella's fairy godmother is a little person (referred to as a dwarf in the text) who is an anti-drink campaigner, who lectures the King himself about the refreshments to be served at the wedding reception.
Oh. My. God. Would have been funnier if it hadn't been so deadly earnest. What's funny is that the story troupes along with only the odd little side-light or comment to show the author is a dead bore and a kill-joy, UNTIL we get to the end, and fall straight into the rabbit hole where this dead-serious little person basically lays into the poor unsuspecting King, going on for almost a WHOLE page out of a roughly 12-page story, and entirely killing the pace and fun of the ending.
4) Heinrich/The Love of Gold, by Alfred Crowquill (best pseudonym ever for Alfred Henry Forrester)
Our main dude is a super-talented stonemason, but he doesn't love his work, he's just a work-a-holic with technical genius. He's hard at work late one evening and his just-finished gargoyle starts talking to him, and tells him the secret to gaining nearly limitless gold. Heinrich is all for it, and spends forver mining and digging and piling up gold - never thinking about the time he spends. He finally comes up for air and drops in on the gargoyle, who tells him he's a dumbshit and his whole life has gone by, and he goes and lives like a hermit in the mountains for a few weeks before he kicks it.
Interesting variant on the "don't waste your life" theme like the one seen in Golden Threads (the boy who gets the magic ball of his life's thread that he can pull out to make time pass quickly), but I was amused that the guy gets a few weeks of life to be a crazy holy hermit before he dies, so he can leave his greedy gold to the church as is only proper.
5) Bruno's Revenge, Lewis Carroll (from an earlier drafted version)
The author goes for a walk at a friend's manor fields, and interacts with a young fairy boy who is dissuaded from pulling a mean prank on his older sister for revenge.
Very quirky (as appropriate for Carroll, I suppose) and lighthearted and grounded - very much in the feel of Doctor Dolittle.
6) The Magic Fishbone, Charles Dickens
A king is given a magic fishbone to give to his daughter, who "will know when to use it" but keeps holding out despite many exaggerated difficulties. This is a short and very childlike and almost stream-of-consciousness or dream-like story, where the logic of adults is subverted and the child is the clever and conquering hero.
I really like this story, and the odd unsettling childish nature of the telling and the plot development. Very peculiar and quite individual. Extremely unlike his long work.
7) Cinderella, Anne Isabella Ritchie
Cinderella as a Regency romance, complete with foppish but sweet Prince Charming, and a delightfully vicious stepmother, and a neighboring Lady who acts the Godmother role with relish and an all-seeing eye.
Not particularly memorable, but a sweet homage to Cinderella in the vein of a classic Victorian romance, with all the mores and social climbing and details of dress and fashion that entail.
8) The Ogre Courting, Juliana Horatia Ewing
A nasty ogre lives as a local landowner, with a particularly nasty penchant for marrying beautiful young women and then having them mysteriously die within months or weeks. He sets his cap for Managing Molly, but she's more than a match for him, and manages him within an inch of his life.
LOVE this story. The only way it would be better is if it were called Managing Molly, and I'd like it a lot better. This one is really begging to be made into a picture book.
9) The Prince's Dream, Jean Ingelow
A young sheltered prince lives in a high tower room in the center of a great desert - all he knows are Bedouin and the herds they keep, until a stranger arrives for a brief stay and confirms for the Prince all the stories he's heard from the servants about Labour and Liberty and Gold.
A bit too allegorical for my tastes, but well-drawn, a fantasical Aladdin setting and with a light touch overall.
10) Charlie Among the Elves, Edward H. Knatchbull-Hugessen (what a name)
A slight story about a boy who takes a tumble down hill and is "captured" by the fair folk and spends an afternoon with them observing their amusements.
This one was unsettling, because all of the fair folk are in their more adult aspect, and the child has no agency or really character at all - he just sits and listens and watches, not allowed to participate or to comment by the adults. A very peculiar and slightly offputting story, with overtones of child-snatching and grooming behaviors.
11) A Toy Princess, Mary de Morgan
A solid fairy tale about a country where manners dictated no opinions or emotions to be shown, where the lovely sweet princess baby was replaced with an automaton by a kind fairy, who offers to reverse the switch when the girl reaches her majority, but the court and kingdom are stunned and disgusted with this open-hearted emotional and opinionated actual girl, and prefer to crown the automaton (with only a few mealy-mouthed stock phrases) as their ruler instead.
Saucy and sharp and beautifully crafted and neatly plotted and paced. A really excellent story, and I went onto Gutenberg to find some of her other works, and found them nearly as fine and enjoyable. Another good candidate for a good juvenile fantasy adaptation or a picture book.
12) The Day Boy and the Night Girl, George MacDonald
A witch finds and lures two pregnant ladies to her castle, and treats one to a sunny life and another to a shadowy night existence, then steals their infants after birth and sends one lady packing (the other one dies). The witch continues this regimen of night and day existence for the two children - the boy Photogen only knows of the day, and the girl Nycteris only knows of the night, until she grows ill and the children get old enough to start figuring things out on their own. They discover the opposite time, and are made frightened or weak because of it, but despite that, they work together to conquer the witch.
This is a freaking seriously amazing fairy tale, and I loved it unabashedly and wholeheartedly. I want to write something like this myself someday. It is beautiful and classic and delightful and perfect. The best out story out of the collection, by miles, and also one of the longer ones - 31 pages.
13) All My Doing - or Red Riding Hood All Over Again, Harriet Louisa Childe-Pemberton
Moralistic re-telling of Red Riding Hood set as a Victorian-era thriller/psychological horror story of a con man taking advantage of a naive child to sneak into and rob a rich manor house, nearly killing the grandmother and the girl's suitor.
Hoooooy boy does this lay the Victorian girl guilt on thick. This is some serious Uncle Arthur victim blaming bullshit here, and despite the fun trappings of a carefree girl being stalked and conned by a ruthless villain, the fun of the story is sucked right out by the militaristic insistence on feeling guilt and internalizing a sense of "female self-deprecation." Even with all of that leading up to the ending, the hand-wringing 'everything is ruined forever and it's all my fault' melodrama of the framing story and the narrator's coda left a nasty taste in my mouth.
14) Princess Nobody, Andrew Lang
A version of the classic "fetch the princess" quest tale, with the Prince a devoted but ugly person who is changed to become beautiful himself by fairy magic, and the princess basically a plot-point to allow the Prince to wander and suffer and encounter magical lands.
Eh. Very similar to many other stories where the hero has to find the macguffin. The pacing was also veeeeery draggy. I felt a little left down by my beloved Color Fairy Book collector.
15) The Story of a King's Daughter, Mary Louisa Molesworth
A beautiful and kind-hearted princess cannot bear cruelty or unkindness, even to animals, and she spurns her betrothed husband when he injures a castle dog. He is untouched by her strength of character until he is abducted into the enchanted forest, and turned into a ravening beast until an even dozen forest animals are willing to rest on his back while he carries them from the woods. Obvs the princess and her forest friends are the ones to do this, and he sufficiently repents and is redeemed by her character and her forgiveness.
A VERY unfortunately named princess: Aureole. Eeek. Also a nasty bit of commentary about how she's not willing to be the queen because she's a woman and that's obvs not a woman's place. Sigh. Other than that, I'm willing to believe the change of heart of the suitor because it's given time and foreshadowed, and it's nice to have the princess doing the saving every once in a while.
16) The Happy Prince, Oscar Wilde
A gilded and be-jeweled statue of a prince sits in the middle of town, broken-hearted because he can see the needs of the poor and suffering, but can't do anything to help them. A sparrow stops by on his migration, and at the Prince's request, begins despoiling the statue to provide gems and gold to the needy people. The prince is rendered leaden and and bird freezes to death, and they get tossed in the rubbish by the city leadership.
Wilde and Hans Christian Andersen are horrid people who make me cry all the time, and I deeply resent the heavy-handed symbolism and heart-tugging. It makes the stories seem cheap and artificial and trying too hard, and I'm not inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to a story that purposefully and pedantically sets out to make me sad.
17) Wooden Tony, Lucy Lane Clifford
A couple in the Alps has a strange son who wanders about and makes odd whistles and music, but can't be bothered to work, or even to study or to learn anything. His father is a wood-carver, and hates him for being worthless and different, but his mother loves him and defends him as best she can. A traveling peddler stops by and offers to take the boy to the city and see if he can make a sensation of him with his odd music, but the man magically steals the song, and slowly turns the boy to wood and shrinks him down, and puts him into a cuckoo clock with one of his father's carvings. the story ends with his parents looking at him inside the clock, and knowing it is their son, but being unable to prove it or to save him.
This is like Victorian R. L. Stine craziness here. This is amazing horror, and a great creeping pace to it as you try and figure out where the story is going and what's going to happen to poor unfortunate Tony. I don't like the casual ableism - it's very easy to read Tony as being mentally handicapped, or having a processing disorder, and no one is willing to work with him, and people are very willing to take advantage of him or get rid of him, but it works for the story and is a very modern mindset to apply here. Still - a really great tale, and excellent atmosphere.
18) The Potted Princess, Rudyard Kipling
A clever Jack tale of a task set to rescue the princess from a pot, and all the emirs and sultans and rajas and princes learn arcane and powerful magics from the far ends of the earth in vain, and a potter's son walks up and just opens the pot. No magic - she was just in a pot.
This was funny and cute and slight, and the framing story was almost as funny.
19) The Rooted Lover, Laurence Housman
A gardener sees the princess and falls in love, and asks a local witch for help. She turns him into a fiery poppy and plants him in the princess's garden - if she picks him and wears him next to her heart, she'll fall in love with him and he'll be re-born as a man, but if not, he'll die when the flower dies at the end of the season. After many trials and an opposing suitor, the long-suffering poppy boy is rewarded at last when the princess sacrifices wealth and position to find and be with her dark-eyed red-haired dream lover.
An interesting twist where the boy becomes the flower, and a nice happy ending after lots of trials and suffering on each side, but I still don't like the "love spell" nature of the relationship. Would be interesting to try and adapt for a non mind-controlled version.
20) The Reluctant Dragon, Kenneth Grahame
A posh dragon, a very educated (but fight-loving) young boy, and Sir George all converge on the English countryside for a battle that ends up being entirely pro-forma, but none the less enjoyable.
I like this story more for the wry tones and asides and snarky commentary, but the basic story is cute and fun.
21) The Last of the Dragons, Edith Nesbit
A very emancipated princess and a reluctant knight make their way to the cave of the last dragon to entice it out with biscuits instead of her being forced to be captured and freed. Very much in the vein of Wrede's Dealing with Dragons concept, meshed with the Serendipity book The Muffin Dragon.
Cute and light.
22) The Spell of the Magician's Daughter, Evelyn Sharp
A fiesty magician's child daughter doesn't want to be a magician - she doesn't even study her spells, but she DOES want to be a princess. When she sees the young prince out in the woods, he's searching for the perfect princess, and she sets him up with a quest - creating a magic spell of course. Naturally because it's her first spell, she's got to go ahead of him and make sure everything's properly set up for him, so she travels the world with her wits and her cleverness, all the time he is following after the trail she's setting up. They finally meet at the end of the world, and they're all grown up, and quite fond of each other after their quasi-shared questing experience.
A really interesting story, and my second favorite after the MacDonald masterpiece. This one is more straightforward, but I really liked her fond telling of the characters, and the reveal of how they're all grown up now.
collected and edited: Jack Zipes
ISBN: 0415901405
Read June 18-22, 2016
An interesting collection of mostly lesser or unknown fairy tales by prominent Victorian authors (here meaning authors who were prominent in Victorian times, although most are unknown now). There are a few "known" tales sprinkled into the mix, and a few author names which are recognizable, even if the particular story is unknown. A few notable stories that I knew from before reading this collection: Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince, Kenneth Grahame's The Reluctant Dragon, and Jean Ingelow's The Prince's Dream. Notable authors that people might recognize are: Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, George MacDonald, Andrew Lang (of color fairy book fame) and Edith Nesbit, and Rudyard Kipling. I was thrilled to discover that so many of these favorite authors had written interesting (if not particularly always GOOD) fairy tales.
So what do we have here? A collection, with preface notes for each story (!) As a side note, I love a good preface note so very much - it adds so much to understanding and to context, and to placing the author and story into a framework to see why and how they did what they did. 22 fairy tales in all, from writers who were popular or well-regarded or at least prolific during the Victorian times, writing for children instead of adults, and MOSTLY not writing solely with a particular moral or societal axe to grind, but instead creating stories to entertain rather than to educate. Many of the stories also include the original artworks for covers or interior drawings, and those are less interesting to me, but nice to see included and replicated for art-lovers or scholars.
This was really fun, dense reading, and I deeply enjoyed it. More of most of these author's works can be found on Project Gutenberg or on Google Books, having been many years out of print and out of copyright.
Story summaries and thoughts;
1) Uncle David's Nonsensical Story about Giants and Fairies, by Catherine Sinclair.
Moralistic story of a lazy boy in the vein of Pilgrim's Progress, with a set of good and bad fairies and a boy-eating giant who just loves fat lazy boy for dinner. A happy ending that reinforces the value (and joy) in good clean fun and effort.
Very much like a Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Tale: treacly and mealy-mouthed and insufferably perfectly good boys and terribly bad lazy boys. The fairies and giant are an interesting touch, but could be easiily substituted with any sort of plot device without any changes necessary.
2) King of the Golden River/The Black Brothers, by John Ruskin
A hidden magical valley has beautiful weather until the landowning two brothers mistreat and abuse the visiting god of the winds one night. The youngest brother tries to intervene, but is beaten for his troubles. The winds then change and the valley withers, so the brothers head to the big city to swindle people there, taking work as cheating goldsmiths. When they are facing starvation, the youngest brother is forced to melt down his only prized possession: a gold cup bearing the face of a dwarf, but instead of gold, an actual dwarf emerges, and claims to be the king of the river in their original valley, and that anyone who reaches the spring at the top of the mountain with "holy water" will have unending riches and the valley will prosper again, but anyone who fails will be turned to a black rock. Obvs the older nasty brothers steal the birthright but they each fail in turn, and the younger thinks he fails because he squanders the holy water on the weak and suffering beings beside the river on the way up. But all is good, because charity is great or something, and everything ends beautifully (but they left the brothers to rot as stones - yay!)
This was a very interesting multi-part story, with complex fairy-tale underpinnings and a real sense of adventure and far-away-lands, and despite a bit of heavy-handed christlike suffering imagery at the end, it was a fun romp and a really great story. I would be shocked if no one had made it into a longer fantasy story - I'd like to do it myself.
3) Cinderella and the Glass Slipper, by George Cruikshank
Moralizing story where the stepmother is a gambler, and Cinderella's fairy godmother is a little person (referred to as a dwarf in the text) who is an anti-drink campaigner, who lectures the King himself about the refreshments to be served at the wedding reception.
Oh. My. God. Would have been funnier if it hadn't been so deadly earnest. What's funny is that the story troupes along with only the odd little side-light or comment to show the author is a dead bore and a kill-joy, UNTIL we get to the end, and fall straight into the rabbit hole where this dead-serious little person basically lays into the poor unsuspecting King, going on for almost a WHOLE page out of a roughly 12-page story, and entirely killing the pace and fun of the ending.
4) Heinrich/The Love of Gold, by Alfred Crowquill (best pseudonym ever for Alfred Henry Forrester)
Our main dude is a super-talented stonemason, but he doesn't love his work, he's just a work-a-holic with technical genius. He's hard at work late one evening and his just-finished gargoyle starts talking to him, and tells him the secret to gaining nearly limitless gold. Heinrich is all for it, and spends forver mining and digging and piling up gold - never thinking about the time he spends. He finally comes up for air and drops in on the gargoyle, who tells him he's a dumbshit and his whole life has gone by, and he goes and lives like a hermit in the mountains for a few weeks before he kicks it.
Interesting variant on the "don't waste your life" theme like the one seen in Golden Threads (the boy who gets the magic ball of his life's thread that he can pull out to make time pass quickly), but I was amused that the guy gets a few weeks of life to be a crazy holy hermit before he dies, so he can leave his greedy gold to the church as is only proper.
5) Bruno's Revenge, Lewis Carroll (from an earlier drafted version)
The author goes for a walk at a friend's manor fields, and interacts with a young fairy boy who is dissuaded from pulling a mean prank on his older sister for revenge.
Very quirky (as appropriate for Carroll, I suppose) and lighthearted and grounded - very much in the feel of Doctor Dolittle.
6) The Magic Fishbone, Charles Dickens
A king is given a magic fishbone to give to his daughter, who "will know when to use it" but keeps holding out despite many exaggerated difficulties. This is a short and very childlike and almost stream-of-consciousness or dream-like story, where the logic of adults is subverted and the child is the clever and conquering hero.
I really like this story, and the odd unsettling childish nature of the telling and the plot development. Very peculiar and quite individual. Extremely unlike his long work.
7) Cinderella, Anne Isabella Ritchie
Cinderella as a Regency romance, complete with foppish but sweet Prince Charming, and a delightfully vicious stepmother, and a neighboring Lady who acts the Godmother role with relish and an all-seeing eye.
Not particularly memorable, but a sweet homage to Cinderella in the vein of a classic Victorian romance, with all the mores and social climbing and details of dress and fashion that entail.
8) The Ogre Courting, Juliana Horatia Ewing
A nasty ogre lives as a local landowner, with a particularly nasty penchant for marrying beautiful young women and then having them mysteriously die within months or weeks. He sets his cap for Managing Molly, but she's more than a match for him, and manages him within an inch of his life.
LOVE this story. The only way it would be better is if it were called Managing Molly, and I'd like it a lot better. This one is really begging to be made into a picture book.
9) The Prince's Dream, Jean Ingelow
A young sheltered prince lives in a high tower room in the center of a great desert - all he knows are Bedouin and the herds they keep, until a stranger arrives for a brief stay and confirms for the Prince all the stories he's heard from the servants about Labour and Liberty and Gold.
A bit too allegorical for my tastes, but well-drawn, a fantasical Aladdin setting and with a light touch overall.
10) Charlie Among the Elves, Edward H. Knatchbull-Hugessen (what a name)
A slight story about a boy who takes a tumble down hill and is "captured" by the fair folk and spends an afternoon with them observing their amusements.
This one was unsettling, because all of the fair folk are in their more adult aspect, and the child has no agency or really character at all - he just sits and listens and watches, not allowed to participate or to comment by the adults. A very peculiar and slightly offputting story, with overtones of child-snatching and grooming behaviors.
11) A Toy Princess, Mary de Morgan
A solid fairy tale about a country where manners dictated no opinions or emotions to be shown, where the lovely sweet princess baby was replaced with an automaton by a kind fairy, who offers to reverse the switch when the girl reaches her majority, but the court and kingdom are stunned and disgusted with this open-hearted emotional and opinionated actual girl, and prefer to crown the automaton (with only a few mealy-mouthed stock phrases) as their ruler instead.
Saucy and sharp and beautifully crafted and neatly plotted and paced. A really excellent story, and I went onto Gutenberg to find some of her other works, and found them nearly as fine and enjoyable. Another good candidate for a good juvenile fantasy adaptation or a picture book.
12) The Day Boy and the Night Girl, George MacDonald
A witch finds and lures two pregnant ladies to her castle, and treats one to a sunny life and another to a shadowy night existence, then steals their infants after birth and sends one lady packing (the other one dies). The witch continues this regimen of night and day existence for the two children - the boy Photogen only knows of the day, and the girl Nycteris only knows of the night, until she grows ill and the children get old enough to start figuring things out on their own. They discover the opposite time, and are made frightened or weak because of it, but despite that, they work together to conquer the witch.
This is a freaking seriously amazing fairy tale, and I loved it unabashedly and wholeheartedly. I want to write something like this myself someday. It is beautiful and classic and delightful and perfect. The best out story out of the collection, by miles, and also one of the longer ones - 31 pages.
13) All My Doing - or Red Riding Hood All Over Again, Harriet Louisa Childe-Pemberton
Moralistic re-telling of Red Riding Hood set as a Victorian-era thriller/psychological horror story of a con man taking advantage of a naive child to sneak into and rob a rich manor house, nearly killing the grandmother and the girl's suitor.
Hoooooy boy does this lay the Victorian girl guilt on thick. This is some serious Uncle Arthur victim blaming bullshit here, and despite the fun trappings of a carefree girl being stalked and conned by a ruthless villain, the fun of the story is sucked right out by the militaristic insistence on feeling guilt and internalizing a sense of "female self-deprecation." Even with all of that leading up to the ending, the hand-wringing 'everything is ruined forever and it's all my fault' melodrama of the framing story and the narrator's coda left a nasty taste in my mouth.
14) Princess Nobody, Andrew Lang
A version of the classic "fetch the princess" quest tale, with the Prince a devoted but ugly person who is changed to become beautiful himself by fairy magic, and the princess basically a plot-point to allow the Prince to wander and suffer and encounter magical lands.
Eh. Very similar to many other stories where the hero has to find the macguffin. The pacing was also veeeeery draggy. I felt a little left down by my beloved Color Fairy Book collector.
15) The Story of a King's Daughter, Mary Louisa Molesworth
A beautiful and kind-hearted princess cannot bear cruelty or unkindness, even to animals, and she spurns her betrothed husband when he injures a castle dog. He is untouched by her strength of character until he is abducted into the enchanted forest, and turned into a ravening beast until an even dozen forest animals are willing to rest on his back while he carries them from the woods. Obvs the princess and her forest friends are the ones to do this, and he sufficiently repents and is redeemed by her character and her forgiveness.
A VERY unfortunately named princess: Aureole. Eeek. Also a nasty bit of commentary about how she's not willing to be the queen because she's a woman and that's obvs not a woman's place. Sigh. Other than that, I'm willing to believe the change of heart of the suitor because it's given time and foreshadowed, and it's nice to have the princess doing the saving every once in a while.
16) The Happy Prince, Oscar Wilde
A gilded and be-jeweled statue of a prince sits in the middle of town, broken-hearted because he can see the needs of the poor and suffering, but can't do anything to help them. A sparrow stops by on his migration, and at the Prince's request, begins despoiling the statue to provide gems and gold to the needy people. The prince is rendered leaden and and bird freezes to death, and they get tossed in the rubbish by the city leadership.
Wilde and Hans Christian Andersen are horrid people who make me cry all the time, and I deeply resent the heavy-handed symbolism and heart-tugging. It makes the stories seem cheap and artificial and trying too hard, and I'm not inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to a story that purposefully and pedantically sets out to make me sad.
17) Wooden Tony, Lucy Lane Clifford
A couple in the Alps has a strange son who wanders about and makes odd whistles and music, but can't be bothered to work, or even to study or to learn anything. His father is a wood-carver, and hates him for being worthless and different, but his mother loves him and defends him as best she can. A traveling peddler stops by and offers to take the boy to the city and see if he can make a sensation of him with his odd music, but the man magically steals the song, and slowly turns the boy to wood and shrinks him down, and puts him into a cuckoo clock with one of his father's carvings. the story ends with his parents looking at him inside the clock, and knowing it is their son, but being unable to prove it or to save him.
This is like Victorian R. L. Stine craziness here. This is amazing horror, and a great creeping pace to it as you try and figure out where the story is going and what's going to happen to poor unfortunate Tony. I don't like the casual ableism - it's very easy to read Tony as being mentally handicapped, or having a processing disorder, and no one is willing to work with him, and people are very willing to take advantage of him or get rid of him, but it works for the story and is a very modern mindset to apply here. Still - a really great tale, and excellent atmosphere.
18) The Potted Princess, Rudyard Kipling
A clever Jack tale of a task set to rescue the princess from a pot, and all the emirs and sultans and rajas and princes learn arcane and powerful magics from the far ends of the earth in vain, and a potter's son walks up and just opens the pot. No magic - she was just in a pot.
This was funny and cute and slight, and the framing story was almost as funny.
19) The Rooted Lover, Laurence Housman
A gardener sees the princess and falls in love, and asks a local witch for help. She turns him into a fiery poppy and plants him in the princess's garden - if she picks him and wears him next to her heart, she'll fall in love with him and he'll be re-born as a man, but if not, he'll die when the flower dies at the end of the season. After many trials and an opposing suitor, the long-suffering poppy boy is rewarded at last when the princess sacrifices wealth and position to find and be with her dark-eyed red-haired dream lover.
An interesting twist where the boy becomes the flower, and a nice happy ending after lots of trials and suffering on each side, but I still don't like the "love spell" nature of the relationship. Would be interesting to try and adapt for a non mind-controlled version.
20) The Reluctant Dragon, Kenneth Grahame
A posh dragon, a very educated (but fight-loving) young boy, and Sir George all converge on the English countryside for a battle that ends up being entirely pro-forma, but none the less enjoyable.
I like this story more for the wry tones and asides and snarky commentary, but the basic story is cute and fun.
21) The Last of the Dragons, Edith Nesbit
A very emancipated princess and a reluctant knight make their way to the cave of the last dragon to entice it out with biscuits instead of her being forced to be captured and freed. Very much in the vein of Wrede's Dealing with Dragons concept, meshed with the Serendipity book The Muffin Dragon.
Cute and light.
22) The Spell of the Magician's Daughter, Evelyn Sharp
A fiesty magician's child daughter doesn't want to be a magician - she doesn't even study her spells, but she DOES want to be a princess. When she sees the young prince out in the woods, he's searching for the perfect princess, and she sets him up with a quest - creating a magic spell of course. Naturally because it's her first spell, she's got to go ahead of him and make sure everything's properly set up for him, so she travels the world with her wits and her cleverness, all the time he is following after the trail she's setting up. They finally meet at the end of the world, and they're all grown up, and quite fond of each other after their quasi-shared questing experience.
A really interesting story, and my second favorite after the MacDonald masterpiece. This one is more straightforward, but I really liked her fond telling of the characters, and the reveal of how they're all grown up now.
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Fairy Tales: Magic Fairy Stories From Many Lands, Susan Taylor & Severino Baraldi
Magic Fairy Stories From Many Lands
Susan Taylor, illustrated by Severino Baraldi
ISBN: 0831757329 (Gallery Books, 1974)
A set of lesser-known fairy stories and folk tales with delightful classic-style illustrations throughout.
Baraldi's illustrations are beautiful and evocative; they remind me of the classic Dean's fairy tale illustrations, but these are a little more sinister and a bit more expressive, and also more representative of people of color or ancestry not in the classic northern european fairy tale mould.
Story summaries and comments below.
Foolish Frances: A variant of the Fisherman and his Wife story, where Mrs Luck tries to find someone who only wants something minor - someone who is mainly content and happy with their life so far. Mrs Luck finds Frances, who lives happily in a mud hut, and after some coaxing from Mrs Luck, after several demurrals, then wishes for a little cat to keep her company. Then of course she realizes she needs a goat to provide milk for the cat, and maybe a goat-shed, then a cow, then some hens, then she realizes she'd love to dance, but her dresses aren't good enough, and really she needs help with her hair also, and furthermore other people dance better than she does, and really she ought to have a big beautiful house to go with her beautiful hair and dresses, and won't Mrs Luck call her Madame Mayor now that she's hooked the leader of the town into marriage? The now-miffed Mrs Luck retracts all of the gifts, except the little cat, and that is why Lady Luck is so fickle and bad-tempered.
I would have liked this story a whole lot better if Frances had been the sort of "naive clever" rustic who shows the meddling Mrs Luck that bothering people with extra things when they've insisted they're perfectly happy is perhaps not helpful - as it is, it's too much of a Fisherman's Wife for me to really think much of it.
The Rich and Poor Widow (I also know it as Barren Wheat and as Why Sea Grass Grows): A haughty wealthy widow runs her husband's shipping company brilliantly with her business acumen, but her heart is cold and her soul is barren. During a famine, she and the other wealthy compete to find and display the most beautiful treasures of the world. A kind and loving sea captain (who is sweet on the widow, but she's spurned him) brings back a ship full of wheat to feed the hungry, arguing that charity and kindness is the greatest treasure, and that she would be beloved and blessed if she were to feed the wheat to the people of the city. She is unmoved, and dumps the wheat over the side of the ship into the sea. The famine worsens, everyone hates her, and she loses all her wealth and business. That summer, the dunes by the sea all grow what looks like wheat, but it's barren and inedible. Eventually the widow is reduced to gleaning in the fields, and she is humbled and kind. She's rescued by the kind captain, who is now wealthy and land-owning.
An interesting combination of the hauteur from Beauty and the Beast with the gleaning motif from the Book of Ruth in the Bible. I wish the widow had learned to be kind without having been reduced to starvation first, but that's fairy tales for you.
The Elf Boy: A barren woman and her farmer husband are given a half-elven child to raise, but the woman can't keep up with all the conditions laid upon her, especially to keep the elven rose water out of her eyes so she can't see fairy. The child is taken back, but he pines, so the woman is stolen away to be with him in fairy, until she's caught reciting the Lord's Prayer over him. When the child himself begins murmuring the prayer, he's reverted to fully human, and the child and woman are returned to the farm and to normal Christian life.
I'd really love to figure out a way to work this out so that the Christian overtones weren't necessary. I love the idea of a fae community realizing that a half-human child would need human parenting, but that the parents can't keep up with the strictures and the child has to eventually choose to be human or elven.
The Forest Prince (I know it also as The Wild Prince and The Royal Woodsman): A prince suffers a hunting accident and goes slightly mad in the woods as a result, before the "wild man" is then captured and placed in a cage on display in a neighboring King's garden. Pleas about his identity and his humanity are ignored, and the Prince finally bribes the Princess to release him by holding her golden ball hostage. When the King chases the escaped Prince, the Prince captures the King and keeps HIM in a cage until he grows matted and wild. The Prince tells the King that he'll only free him if the Princess marries the Wild Woodsman who was caged before (the King doesn't realize that his captor the Prince IS the Wild Woodsman). The Prince and Princess meet, the Prince passes a set of marriage tests with the help of the forest creatures he befriended in the woods and in the cage, and the King is set free, and the two royals marry.
A classic based on old tales of the knights of the round table, and other fables of wild men or hermits in the woods who are secretly royalty in disguise for various reasons. I like that the Prince is somewhat vindictive, but I wish the Princess had a bit more agency or time to fall in love.
The Rain Woman: A pair of young lovers and an older wise woman travel to the center of the earth during a drought to waken the Rain Woman to keep the land from burning under the attentions of the rampant Fire Man, after the boy's father refuses to let the pair wed unless the girl proves herself first.
This one is new to me, and I really liked it. I liked that the girl was the one who had to waken the Rain Woman, and that the boy helped her as best he could, and that the parents were reasonable and kept their promises, and I even liked the dichotomy of the Fire Man and Rain Woman, and the little Rumplestiltskin-esque trickery going on to find out the secret of where the Rain Woman was buried away.
The Glass Box: A sweet farm girl marries the Prince, and subsequently becomes Queen. Her two older sisters are bitter and jealous, and when the Queen delivers children, they steal them away and replace them with dogs and cats. The town and the King accuse the Queen of witchcraft, so she seeks the assistance of a wise woman and a sacred bird to prove her innocence and to find her children, using a glass compass to find her way to a valley where if you turn back, you're turned to stone. Of course she turns back. Then we skip to her children, who, after the deaths of their kind and good foster parents, are determined to find their parents, with the help of a wise woman and a sacred bird, led by a set of glass compasses. The boys in sequence fail, but the youngest girl (with a gold star on her forehead if you haven't figured it out by now) overcomes the trials and sets free her brothers, her mother the Queen, and a whole army of other idiots who turned around in the valley before getting to the bird. The bird confirms everything, and the army heads back to keep the King from marrying the Queen's nasty older sister.
This is a little bit of a "everything but the kitchen sink" sort of tale, but it was fun and the odd detail of replacing the babies with dogs and cats (that were then treated and raised like royalty) was interesting, as is the idea of a clear glass compass.
The Three Oranges: a trio of brothers goes to a wise woman to learn their fortunes. She asks them what they most desire - the first wants a beautiful wife, the second a rich one, and the third, simply someone he would love, and who would love him. The wise woman tells them of a far-away castle with an orange tree with three ripe oranges. If they can retrieve the three oranges all together, without hurting the tree, all will be well and they'll have their heart's desire. Sadly, the brothers are all idiots or incompetent. They split up, hurt the tree, and fail to harvest the oranges, until the youngest brother, who does pick them, but only by tearing off the whole branch. Then the elder two brothers eat all their rations on the way home, and tear open the oranges in their hunger, and have nothing to offer the beautiful rich ladies who appear before them. The younger brother saves his, and feeds his new wife. Sadly, because he broke the branch, the wise woman has to punish him, and pricks his wife with a needle and turns her into a bird until the dumb man's mother figures out that the bird has a needle in it's neck. Then they go rescue the other brothers, and somehow despite their incompetence and stupidity, they also get the wives they were after.
A beautiful fairy-tale rendition of how life isn't fair, nor sensible. The visuals of the ripe oranges are arresting, but the tale itself is a bit muddled and has lots of stuff going on, from the clever youngest brother trope to the beautiful woman disguised as fruit or baubles.
Mrs Luck and Mr Money: a really long and frankly not very interesting morality contest between Luck and Money as to which one is really needed more, and which one is more important. The two are married, and trying to decide who will be the boss of the marriage, so they torment this poor farmer with a horrible life until he's destitute, then offer him assistance to see which helps him the most.
Not a fan.
The Magic Thread: seen this one in lots of places. A bright boy is given a magic ball with a gold thread peeking out of a hole in the side. The thread represents his life, and he can pull the thread out to make time pass more quickly for him. He (of course) pulls the thread to escape boredom and pain and anticipation and things desired but delayed, or wars or illnesses, until he's very old and realizes that he's missed most of the life that other people have. The ending has the man asking for the gift to be taken away, and he wakes again as a young boy with his whole life ahead of him again.
Another strongly moral offering, but still fun to see what the boy chooses to skip in life.
The Prince's Pilgrimage: another new one for me. A Queen is desperate for a son, and promises the (always unnamed yet capitalized) Holy Saint that the kid will do a year-long pilgrimage on his 18th birthday if she has a child. 18 years later, Prince is setting off on his pilgrimage, and mom offers him wise advise for finding a traveling buddy. A good friend is found, and the two are inseparable and loyal to each other, even when faced with the temptations of a meddling King who wants the Prince for a son-in-law. At the culmination of the journey, the friend is supposed dead, but the Prince personally carries the body to the shrine of the Holy Saint and the friend revives. The final test comes when, after marrying the Princess, the friend is sick unto death (caused by the King-in-law) and the Prince has to sacrifice his infant daughter to save his friend. He does so, and the Holy Saint appears and resurrects the child, blessing the parents for their loyalty to their friend.
HOLY GAY SUBTEXT BATMAN! Yeahhhhh, so about that close bosom friendship there.
Susan Taylor, illustrated by Severino Baraldi
ISBN: 0831757329 (Gallery Books, 1974)
A set of lesser-known fairy stories and folk tales with delightful classic-style illustrations throughout.
Baraldi's illustrations are beautiful and evocative; they remind me of the classic Dean's fairy tale illustrations, but these are a little more sinister and a bit more expressive, and also more representative of people of color or ancestry not in the classic northern european fairy tale mould.
Story summaries and comments below.
Foolish Frances: A variant of the Fisherman and his Wife story, where Mrs Luck tries to find someone who only wants something minor - someone who is mainly content and happy with their life so far. Mrs Luck finds Frances, who lives happily in a mud hut, and after some coaxing from Mrs Luck, after several demurrals, then wishes for a little cat to keep her company. Then of course she realizes she needs a goat to provide milk for the cat, and maybe a goat-shed, then a cow, then some hens, then she realizes she'd love to dance, but her dresses aren't good enough, and really she needs help with her hair also, and furthermore other people dance better than she does, and really she ought to have a big beautiful house to go with her beautiful hair and dresses, and won't Mrs Luck call her Madame Mayor now that she's hooked the leader of the town into marriage? The now-miffed Mrs Luck retracts all of the gifts, except the little cat, and that is why Lady Luck is so fickle and bad-tempered.
I would have liked this story a whole lot better if Frances had been the sort of "naive clever" rustic who shows the meddling Mrs Luck that bothering people with extra things when they've insisted they're perfectly happy is perhaps not helpful - as it is, it's too much of a Fisherman's Wife for me to really think much of it.
The Rich and Poor Widow (I also know it as Barren Wheat and as Why Sea Grass Grows): A haughty wealthy widow runs her husband's shipping company brilliantly with her business acumen, but her heart is cold and her soul is barren. During a famine, she and the other wealthy compete to find and display the most beautiful treasures of the world. A kind and loving sea captain (who is sweet on the widow, but she's spurned him) brings back a ship full of wheat to feed the hungry, arguing that charity and kindness is the greatest treasure, and that she would be beloved and blessed if she were to feed the wheat to the people of the city. She is unmoved, and dumps the wheat over the side of the ship into the sea. The famine worsens, everyone hates her, and she loses all her wealth and business. That summer, the dunes by the sea all grow what looks like wheat, but it's barren and inedible. Eventually the widow is reduced to gleaning in the fields, and she is humbled and kind. She's rescued by the kind captain, who is now wealthy and land-owning.
An interesting combination of the hauteur from Beauty and the Beast with the gleaning motif from the Book of Ruth in the Bible. I wish the widow had learned to be kind without having been reduced to starvation first, but that's fairy tales for you.
The Elf Boy: A barren woman and her farmer husband are given a half-elven child to raise, but the woman can't keep up with all the conditions laid upon her, especially to keep the elven rose water out of her eyes so she can't see fairy. The child is taken back, but he pines, so the woman is stolen away to be with him in fairy, until she's caught reciting the Lord's Prayer over him. When the child himself begins murmuring the prayer, he's reverted to fully human, and the child and woman are returned to the farm and to normal Christian life.
I'd really love to figure out a way to work this out so that the Christian overtones weren't necessary. I love the idea of a fae community realizing that a half-human child would need human parenting, but that the parents can't keep up with the strictures and the child has to eventually choose to be human or elven.
The Forest Prince (I know it also as The Wild Prince and The Royal Woodsman): A prince suffers a hunting accident and goes slightly mad in the woods as a result, before the "wild man" is then captured and placed in a cage on display in a neighboring King's garden. Pleas about his identity and his humanity are ignored, and the Prince finally bribes the Princess to release him by holding her golden ball hostage. When the King chases the escaped Prince, the Prince captures the King and keeps HIM in a cage until he grows matted and wild. The Prince tells the King that he'll only free him if the Princess marries the Wild Woodsman who was caged before (the King doesn't realize that his captor the Prince IS the Wild Woodsman). The Prince and Princess meet, the Prince passes a set of marriage tests with the help of the forest creatures he befriended in the woods and in the cage, and the King is set free, and the two royals marry.
A classic based on old tales of the knights of the round table, and other fables of wild men or hermits in the woods who are secretly royalty in disguise for various reasons. I like that the Prince is somewhat vindictive, but I wish the Princess had a bit more agency or time to fall in love.
The Rain Woman: A pair of young lovers and an older wise woman travel to the center of the earth during a drought to waken the Rain Woman to keep the land from burning under the attentions of the rampant Fire Man, after the boy's father refuses to let the pair wed unless the girl proves herself first.
This one is new to me, and I really liked it. I liked that the girl was the one who had to waken the Rain Woman, and that the boy helped her as best he could, and that the parents were reasonable and kept their promises, and I even liked the dichotomy of the Fire Man and Rain Woman, and the little Rumplestiltskin-esque trickery going on to find out the secret of where the Rain Woman was buried away.
The Glass Box: A sweet farm girl marries the Prince, and subsequently becomes Queen. Her two older sisters are bitter and jealous, and when the Queen delivers children, they steal them away and replace them with dogs and cats. The town and the King accuse the Queen of witchcraft, so she seeks the assistance of a wise woman and a sacred bird to prove her innocence and to find her children, using a glass compass to find her way to a valley where if you turn back, you're turned to stone. Of course she turns back. Then we skip to her children, who, after the deaths of their kind and good foster parents, are determined to find their parents, with the help of a wise woman and a sacred bird, led by a set of glass compasses. The boys in sequence fail, but the youngest girl (with a gold star on her forehead if you haven't figured it out by now) overcomes the trials and sets free her brothers, her mother the Queen, and a whole army of other idiots who turned around in the valley before getting to the bird. The bird confirms everything, and the army heads back to keep the King from marrying the Queen's nasty older sister.
This is a little bit of a "everything but the kitchen sink" sort of tale, but it was fun and the odd detail of replacing the babies with dogs and cats (that were then treated and raised like royalty) was interesting, as is the idea of a clear glass compass.
The Three Oranges: a trio of brothers goes to a wise woman to learn their fortunes. She asks them what they most desire - the first wants a beautiful wife, the second a rich one, and the third, simply someone he would love, and who would love him. The wise woman tells them of a far-away castle with an orange tree with three ripe oranges. If they can retrieve the three oranges all together, without hurting the tree, all will be well and they'll have their heart's desire. Sadly, the brothers are all idiots or incompetent. They split up, hurt the tree, and fail to harvest the oranges, until the youngest brother, who does pick them, but only by tearing off the whole branch. Then the elder two brothers eat all their rations on the way home, and tear open the oranges in their hunger, and have nothing to offer the beautiful rich ladies who appear before them. The younger brother saves his, and feeds his new wife. Sadly, because he broke the branch, the wise woman has to punish him, and pricks his wife with a needle and turns her into a bird until the dumb man's mother figures out that the bird has a needle in it's neck. Then they go rescue the other brothers, and somehow despite their incompetence and stupidity, they also get the wives they were after.
A beautiful fairy-tale rendition of how life isn't fair, nor sensible. The visuals of the ripe oranges are arresting, but the tale itself is a bit muddled and has lots of stuff going on, from the clever youngest brother trope to the beautiful woman disguised as fruit or baubles.
Mrs Luck and Mr Money: a really long and frankly not very interesting morality contest between Luck and Money as to which one is really needed more, and which one is more important. The two are married, and trying to decide who will be the boss of the marriage, so they torment this poor farmer with a horrible life until he's destitute, then offer him assistance to see which helps him the most.
Not a fan.
The Magic Thread: seen this one in lots of places. A bright boy is given a magic ball with a gold thread peeking out of a hole in the side. The thread represents his life, and he can pull the thread out to make time pass more quickly for him. He (of course) pulls the thread to escape boredom and pain and anticipation and things desired but delayed, or wars or illnesses, until he's very old and realizes that he's missed most of the life that other people have. The ending has the man asking for the gift to be taken away, and he wakes again as a young boy with his whole life ahead of him again.
Another strongly moral offering, but still fun to see what the boy chooses to skip in life.
The Prince's Pilgrimage: another new one for me. A Queen is desperate for a son, and promises the (always unnamed yet capitalized) Holy Saint that the kid will do a year-long pilgrimage on his 18th birthday if she has a child. 18 years later, Prince is setting off on his pilgrimage, and mom offers him wise advise for finding a traveling buddy. A good friend is found, and the two are inseparable and loyal to each other, even when faced with the temptations of a meddling King who wants the Prince for a son-in-law. At the culmination of the journey, the friend is supposed dead, but the Prince personally carries the body to the shrine of the Holy Saint and the friend revives. The final test comes when, after marrying the Princess, the friend is sick unto death (caused by the King-in-law) and the Prince has to sacrifice his infant daughter to save his friend. He does so, and the Holy Saint appears and resurrects the child, blessing the parents for their loyalty to their friend.
HOLY GAY SUBTEXT BATMAN! Yeahhhhh, so about that close bosom friendship there.
Friday, May 27, 2016
Juv Fantasy: Magic at Wychwood, Sally Watson, illustrated by Frank Bozzo
Magic at Wychwood
Sally Watson, illustrated by Frank Bozzo
ISBN: 0394914686 (library binding)
Read May 27, 2016
Juv Classic Fantasy. Very similar in feel and spunk to the more recent Tuesdays at the Castle.
This was a cute little short read, again found while helping a patron find an old childhood read. This one is about a royal family, in particular the youngest daughter: spunky, redheaded, un-ladylike Princess Elaine, and their various adventures concerning magical happenings in and around the castle. Extremely laid back, no real peril (people do get changed into animals and inanimate things, but everything always comes right in the end). Elaine is a delightful hero, and her big brother Arthur takes the stage a few times also, and he is determinedly chivalrous and delightful in his adherence to the Code, especially when everyone else in the family is being much more sensible.
Very cute, and a great choice for bedtime serial readings - each "chapter" is a self-contained story that only slightly builds on the ones before it, up til the very end when everything gets tied off delightfully.
Sally Watson, illustrated by Frank Bozzo
ISBN: 0394914686 (library binding)
Read May 27, 2016
Juv Classic Fantasy. Very similar in feel and spunk to the more recent Tuesdays at the Castle.
This was a cute little short read, again found while helping a patron find an old childhood read. This one is about a royal family, in particular the youngest daughter: spunky, redheaded, un-ladylike Princess Elaine, and their various adventures concerning magical happenings in and around the castle. Extremely laid back, no real peril (people do get changed into animals and inanimate things, but everything always comes right in the end). Elaine is a delightful hero, and her big brother Arthur takes the stage a few times also, and he is determinedly chivalrous and delightful in his adherence to the Code, especially when everyone else in the family is being much more sensible.
Very cute, and a great choice for bedtime serial readings - each "chapter" is a self-contained story that only slightly builds on the ones before it, up til the very end when everything gets tied off delightfully.
Saturday, April 23, 2016
New Arrival: Picture Book: The Night Gardener, by the Fan Brothers
The Night Gardener
The Fan Brothers (Terry Fan & Eric Fan)
ISBN: 9781481439787
Haunting beautiful pencil-shaded textured pages and spreads of a full detailed world.
This book is just so pretty. I saw the cover and was hooked instantly, and the progression of sepia-toned drawings (with flashes of bright colors as highlights or grace notes) only served to keep me entranced and delighted until the end. It's just so pretty. The story is simple but mythic: a grim and depressing lane is changed by the mysterious development of topiary sculptures, made from all of their trees over the course of a spring and summer. The topiary begins with an owl (the cover image) outside the orphanage, slowly moves down the street, and by the time it reaches the park, our boy protagonist notices the old gardener, who kindly "needs" the boy's untrained help to complete the trees in the park. The next morning the park is transformed, the boy is hooked, and the gardener is gone, but he's left a pair of pruning shears as a gift.
Did I mention how beautiful this whole thing was? The story is so sweet that in the wrong hands it could be saccharine and nauseating, but the solemn and proud drawings keep it grounded. The flat-out gorgeous spreads and pages could overwhelm a lot of stories, but by keeping this story mythic and a little haunting, a little mysterious, it holds up because of the tone and the pacing.
A beautiful collaboration, and a brilliant first picture book for this talented duo.
The Fan Brothers (Terry Fan & Eric Fan)
ISBN: 9781481439787
Haunting beautiful pencil-shaded textured pages and spreads of a full detailed world.
This book is just so pretty. I saw the cover and was hooked instantly, and the progression of sepia-toned drawings (with flashes of bright colors as highlights or grace notes) only served to keep me entranced and delighted until the end. It's just so pretty. The story is simple but mythic: a grim and depressing lane is changed by the mysterious development of topiary sculptures, made from all of their trees over the course of a spring and summer. The topiary begins with an owl (the cover image) outside the orphanage, slowly moves down the street, and by the time it reaches the park, our boy protagonist notices the old gardener, who kindly "needs" the boy's untrained help to complete the trees in the park. The next morning the park is transformed, the boy is hooked, and the gardener is gone, but he's left a pair of pruning shears as a gift.
Did I mention how beautiful this whole thing was? The story is so sweet that in the wrong hands it could be saccharine and nauseating, but the solemn and proud drawings keep it grounded. The flat-out gorgeous spreads and pages could overwhelm a lot of stories, but by keeping this story mythic and a little haunting, a little mysterious, it holds up because of the tone and the pacing.
A beautiful collaboration, and a brilliant first picture book for this talented duo.
Friday, April 22, 2016
New Arrival: Picture Book: Interstellar Cinderella, Deborah Underwood & Meg Hunt
Interstellar Cinderella
Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Meg Hunt
ISBN: 9781452125329
Read April 15, 2016
This is SOOOO Cute! Cinderella in space, told in rhyme (only occasionally forced). Cinders is a crackerjack mechanic this time around, and she really wants to see the Prince's ship parade, but the evil family steals her toolbox and leaves her behind. Fairy god-robot steps in to save the day, and Cinders fixes the Prince's ship before zooming off at midnight. Instead of a shoe, the crystal is a special socket wrench (shades of sonic screwdrivers here) and the stepsisters are set to trying to fix the Prince's ship instead of cutting off their feet. Happy ending is skewed too, in just the right way: Cinders isn't interested in marriage, but she will take a job offer as the Royal Mechanic!
So cute, and a great updated take on the classic.
Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Meg Hunt
ISBN: 9781452125329
Read April 15, 2016
This is SOOOO Cute! Cinderella in space, told in rhyme (only occasionally forced). Cinders is a crackerjack mechanic this time around, and she really wants to see the Prince's ship parade, but the evil family steals her toolbox and leaves her behind. Fairy god-robot steps in to save the day, and Cinders fixes the Prince's ship before zooming off at midnight. Instead of a shoe, the crystal is a special socket wrench (shades of sonic screwdrivers here) and the stepsisters are set to trying to fix the Prince's ship instead of cutting off their feet. Happy ending is skewed too, in just the right way: Cinders isn't interested in marriage, but she will take a job offer as the Royal Mechanic!
So cute, and a great updated take on the classic.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Fairy Tales: Proud Knight, Fair Lady: The Twelve Lais of Marie de France
Proud Knight, Fair Lady: The Twelve Lais of Marie de France
Marie de France, translated by Naomi Lewis, illustrated by Angela Barrett
ISBN: 0670826561
Twelve early-medieval "fairy tales" about knights and maidens and courtly love.
Read April 12, 2016
So these are some of our earliest western fantasy/romance books, y'all. Marie lived and wrote somewhere in the 1160s-1220s, and she wrote (possibly) quite a lot, most likely under the protection and encouragement of the otherwise unlamented Henry (Plantagenet) the Second. We don't know who she was, but these Lais reveal a quick mind, good understanding of narrative convention and of interesting subject matters, and a fairly sharp humor.
So what we've got mainly are stories about courtly love. Usually this is between people who are not married, and what I find interesting here is the utter lack of time spent on moralizing about why and how and when they're wrong and bad for their actions. The affairs are often described to the audience as wrong, and the lovers often endure horrible suffering for their pains, but the people themselves (unless they are villainous) are held up as good ladies and gentlemen throughout, and in many more of the stories than I would have expected, the love affair itself is considered a courtly and acceptable thing: so long as the lovers remained in the bonds of considerate behavior and didn't flout their love in public or try to have their spouses killed off.
I'm also interested in the very mundane and realistic portrayals of life which are interspersed with the obviously fantasical and what we would consider fairy-tale. A good half of the stories have some touch of the fantastic. In Guigemar, we've got a magic boat, a knot and a belt that can only be unfastened by true love's touch, and a magic white hind with antlers (the male deer is the hart, and usually the one with antlers, making this even more interesting). In Bisclavret we've got a werewolf who is a devoted and loyal knight who is the one betrayed, which is all sorts of unusual. Lanval is a Galahad figure who feels no urge to love until he sees (what isn't explicitly stated to be, but cannot be anything but) an elven/faery maiden in the forest. Les Deus Amanz is more like a folktale, but does have a purported magic potion: made by a wise and learned old Duchess no less! Yonec tells of a hostage wife succored (and seduced) by a hawk-knight shapeshifter. And Eliduc has a miraculous Juliet-like death swoon lasting days reversed by the judicious application of magical restorative berries (and the most forgiving and understanding wife EVER).
The stories themselves are very short, and I think they're shorter still in the original verse format. This translation puts them into a more modern "short story" narrative format that makes them feel much like the carefully-constructed "stand-alone" stories that are made from ancient myths and religious narratives; the ones that don't actually stand alone, but were often looked at originally in light of the entire cosmology and literary/religious/cultural tradition that the audiences were familiar with. Likewise here I often get the impression that at least part of the clever commentary is lost to me because I don't know what exactly Marie is skewering, although her skills (and that of the translator) mean that I do know something's up.
It's interesting to read stories that are so good, but from a time when "good stories" required very different things than they do now. It's odd to me that the characters are mainly nonexistent, or are archetypes: the virtuous young girl, the brave and true knight, the good king, the jealous wife... The plots are likewise fundamentally archetypical: the courtly affair, the doomed love (several of those), the restoration of the fortunes of the virtuous, the rewards of constancy in love. Active plotting is likewise off the menu: characters don't often set out to do things, but have things either happen to them, or they're presented as dragged along by the hands of fate - especially in the falling-in-love arena, which is presented as an unstoppable and utterly expected and totally unavoidable progression based on being in the same space as the lovely representative of the opposite gender.
What's really most fascinating is that all those things we're told are necessary for a good story, but here are twelve interesting ones (some admittedly moreso than others, but still) that don't have any of that. What do they have instead? Details in situations, personal grace notes, odd moralistic touches or olive branches towards human nature. Focus on specific core ideals and motivations: love, jealousy, pique, greed, fear. A flair for the dramatic: the procession of ever-more-beautiful pairs of girls to the court as Arthur fumes and the council dithers and poor Lanval suffers in self-inflicted silence. A sense of humor: a wife's bitchy jealous commentary ends her up in a bind of her own making when she talks shit she knows isn't true about twins and adultery. (And perhaps a not so subtle mockery of readers who might also believe that old canard? The barb is pointed enough to withstand the additional targets.)
Anyway; the stories aren't earth-shattering, and for most fairy-tale lovers or romance readers (or anyone who has read the Once and Future King waaaay too many times, these will seem quite familar and enjoyable. Several of them are interesting and niggling enough that I wonder if anyone has taken them as the germ of an actual novel or fantasy. It would be a fitting tribute, I think, to a passionate and talented author from so long ago.
Marie de France, translated by Naomi Lewis, illustrated by Angela Barrett
ISBN: 0670826561
Twelve early-medieval "fairy tales" about knights and maidens and courtly love.
Read April 12, 2016
So these are some of our earliest western fantasy/romance books, y'all. Marie lived and wrote somewhere in the 1160s-1220s, and she wrote (possibly) quite a lot, most likely under the protection and encouragement of the otherwise unlamented Henry (Plantagenet) the Second. We don't know who she was, but these Lais reveal a quick mind, good understanding of narrative convention and of interesting subject matters, and a fairly sharp humor.
So what we've got mainly are stories about courtly love. Usually this is between people who are not married, and what I find interesting here is the utter lack of time spent on moralizing about why and how and when they're wrong and bad for their actions. The affairs are often described to the audience as wrong, and the lovers often endure horrible suffering for their pains, but the people themselves (unless they are villainous) are held up as good ladies and gentlemen throughout, and in many more of the stories than I would have expected, the love affair itself is considered a courtly and acceptable thing: so long as the lovers remained in the bonds of considerate behavior and didn't flout their love in public or try to have their spouses killed off.
I'm also interested in the very mundane and realistic portrayals of life which are interspersed with the obviously fantasical and what we would consider fairy-tale. A good half of the stories have some touch of the fantastic. In Guigemar, we've got a magic boat, a knot and a belt that can only be unfastened by true love's touch, and a magic white hind with antlers (the male deer is the hart, and usually the one with antlers, making this even more interesting). In Bisclavret we've got a werewolf who is a devoted and loyal knight who is the one betrayed, which is all sorts of unusual. Lanval is a Galahad figure who feels no urge to love until he sees (what isn't explicitly stated to be, but cannot be anything but) an elven/faery maiden in the forest. Les Deus Amanz is more like a folktale, but does have a purported magic potion: made by a wise and learned old Duchess no less! Yonec tells of a hostage wife succored (and seduced) by a hawk-knight shapeshifter. And Eliduc has a miraculous Juliet-like death swoon lasting days reversed by the judicious application of magical restorative berries (and the most forgiving and understanding wife EVER).
The stories themselves are very short, and I think they're shorter still in the original verse format. This translation puts them into a more modern "short story" narrative format that makes them feel much like the carefully-constructed "stand-alone" stories that are made from ancient myths and religious narratives; the ones that don't actually stand alone, but were often looked at originally in light of the entire cosmology and literary/religious/cultural tradition that the audiences were familiar with. Likewise here I often get the impression that at least part of the clever commentary is lost to me because I don't know what exactly Marie is skewering, although her skills (and that of the translator) mean that I do know something's up.
It's interesting to read stories that are so good, but from a time when "good stories" required very different things than they do now. It's odd to me that the characters are mainly nonexistent, or are archetypes: the virtuous young girl, the brave and true knight, the good king, the jealous wife... The plots are likewise fundamentally archetypical: the courtly affair, the doomed love (several of those), the restoration of the fortunes of the virtuous, the rewards of constancy in love. Active plotting is likewise off the menu: characters don't often set out to do things, but have things either happen to them, or they're presented as dragged along by the hands of fate - especially in the falling-in-love arena, which is presented as an unstoppable and utterly expected and totally unavoidable progression based on being in the same space as the lovely representative of the opposite gender.
What's really most fascinating is that all those things we're told are necessary for a good story, but here are twelve interesting ones (some admittedly moreso than others, but still) that don't have any of that. What do they have instead? Details in situations, personal grace notes, odd moralistic touches or olive branches towards human nature. Focus on specific core ideals and motivations: love, jealousy, pique, greed, fear. A flair for the dramatic: the procession of ever-more-beautiful pairs of girls to the court as Arthur fumes and the council dithers and poor Lanval suffers in self-inflicted silence. A sense of humor: a wife's bitchy jealous commentary ends her up in a bind of her own making when she talks shit she knows isn't true about twins and adultery. (And perhaps a not so subtle mockery of readers who might also believe that old canard? The barb is pointed enough to withstand the additional targets.)
Anyway; the stories aren't earth-shattering, and for most fairy-tale lovers or romance readers (or anyone who has read the Once and Future King waaaay too many times, these will seem quite familar and enjoyable. Several of them are interesting and niggling enough that I wonder if anyone has taken them as the germ of an actual novel or fantasy. It would be a fitting tribute, I think, to a passionate and talented author from so long ago.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
2015 Review Round-Up: Fantasy Novella: Six-Gun Snow White, Catherynne M. Valente
Six-Gun Snow White
Catherynne M. Valente
ISBN: 9781481444729
Sets Snow White in the American West, with a side-plot giving the Wicked Queen actual motivation.
Read December 2015
This was an interesting and powerful retelling, and I finished it off quickly. I loved the addition of the sub-plot that gave the stepmother/wicked queen an actual motive for Snow's heart, and the interesting twisty development that ensued. I thought that the "six-gun" motif was undertilised and somewhat forgotten as the story progressed, and especially the detail of the gemstones seemed to fall by the wayside. Likewise the ending of the story felt a bit rushed, and the epilogue was peculiar. I had the oddest feeling that the story beforehand, all wild west and openly magical and folkloric, was the reality, and that the glimpse of modern life with professors and physics and apartments was the fantasy, all hazy and unreal. It was the strangest sensation of disjointed impressions I've ever gotten from a story that I liked.
Despite all that, it was a glorious magical (grim, depressing, hellish) world to visit for a short while, and Snow was a captivating protagonist to follow.
Catherynne M. Valente
ISBN: 9781481444729
Sets Snow White in the American West, with a side-plot giving the Wicked Queen actual motivation.
Read December 2015
This was an interesting and powerful retelling, and I finished it off quickly. I loved the addition of the sub-plot that gave the stepmother/wicked queen an actual motive for Snow's heart, and the interesting twisty development that ensued. I thought that the "six-gun" motif was undertilised and somewhat forgotten as the story progressed, and especially the detail of the gemstones seemed to fall by the wayside. Likewise the ending of the story felt a bit rushed, and the epilogue was peculiar. I had the oddest feeling that the story beforehand, all wild west and openly magical and folkloric, was the reality, and that the glimpse of modern life with professors and physics and apartments was the fantasy, all hazy and unreal. It was the strangest sensation of disjointed impressions I've ever gotten from a story that I liked.
Despite all that, it was a glorious magical (grim, depressing, hellish) world to visit for a short while, and Snow was a captivating protagonist to follow.
Friday, September 18, 2015
New Arrival: Picture Book: The Emperor and the Kite, Jane Yolen & Ed Young
A very pretty new arrival today, in the form of a lovely collaboration between the very talented Jane Yolen and the equally talented Ed Young.
The Emperor and the Kite
Jane Yolen, illustrated by Ed Young
ISBN: 9780399214998
Young's colorful and precise "papercut" artwork counterpoints Yolen's savvy and streamlined phrasing.
This is in the form of a Chinese fable, but I don't know if it actually is. I do know that this particular story is older, and this is a newly-released edition with updated (and absolutely stunning) artwork.
Our Emperor has strong and able sons, and they are like the suns in the sky. He also has beautiful and proper daughters, and they are like the moons in the night. He has (but has pretty much forgotten) one final small girl child, who is young and small and quiet. When hardship falls upon the Emperor, his lauded sons and beloved daughters weep and mourn for his dire fate (from a safe distance, of course), but the youngest actually gets up and does something for him.
Sweet and pat, of course, but that's a fable for you.
The Emperor and the Kite
Jane Yolen, illustrated by Ed Young
ISBN: 9780399214998
Young's colorful and precise "papercut" artwork counterpoints Yolen's savvy and streamlined phrasing.
This is in the form of a Chinese fable, but I don't know if it actually is. I do know that this particular story is older, and this is a newly-released edition with updated (and absolutely stunning) artwork.
Our Emperor has strong and able sons, and they are like the suns in the sky. He also has beautiful and proper daughters, and they are like the moons in the night. He has (but has pretty much forgotten) one final small girl child, who is young and small and quiet. When hardship falls upon the Emperor, his lauded sons and beloved daughters weep and mourn for his dire fate (from a safe distance, of course), but the youngest actually gets up and does something for him.
Sweet and pat, of course, but that's a fable for you.
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Fantasy: From a High Tower, Mercedes Lackey
From a High Tower (Elemental Masters)
Mercedes Lackey
ISBN: 9780756408985
Fantasy: mash-up of Rapunzel with a German wild-west tale.
Read June 2015
These last few books have struck me as odd for various reasons. This time around, I was perplexed by the jacket copy that gave away the entire story to the 3/4s mark. I was floored when I began reading and the story never picked up the pace - I was expecting the info in the jacket copy to be the set-up for the story, not the largest portion of the story itself! That just struck me as very strange.
Once I got over that, I did enjoy the tale. These are mostly light-hearted stories about good men and women who are masters (or adepts) at working with elemental spirits, and who stand against evil people who wish to use the elemental power (here presented as overwhelmingly neutral to human morality and affairs) for evil.
This particular story also involves the last heroine from Blood Red who has grown into her role as a legit ass-kicking guardian warrior, which was gratifying. There was also a sub-plot involving a tribe of Pawnee enduring racism and caricatured portrayals of themselves in an attempt to earn money to purchase titles to their ancestral land. I thought that was handled with skill and grace, but I am not native, so there may be issues I don't see.
Another fun little story, and a new set of interesting characters to add to the roster of interesting people in the overall series.
Mercedes Lackey
ISBN: 9780756408985
Fantasy: mash-up of Rapunzel with a German wild-west tale.
Read June 2015
These last few books have struck me as odd for various reasons. This time around, I was perplexed by the jacket copy that gave away the entire story to the 3/4s mark. I was floored when I began reading and the story never picked up the pace - I was expecting the info in the jacket copy to be the set-up for the story, not the largest portion of the story itself! That just struck me as very strange.
Once I got over that, I did enjoy the tale. These are mostly light-hearted stories about good men and women who are masters (or adepts) at working with elemental spirits, and who stand against evil people who wish to use the elemental power (here presented as overwhelmingly neutral to human morality and affairs) for evil.
This particular story also involves the last heroine from Blood Red who has grown into her role as a legit ass-kicking guardian warrior, which was gratifying. There was also a sub-plot involving a tribe of Pawnee enduring racism and caricatured portrayals of themselves in an attempt to earn money to purchase titles to their ancestral land. I thought that was handled with skill and grace, but I am not native, so there may be issues I don't see.
Another fun little story, and a new set of interesting characters to add to the roster of interesting people in the overall series.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Summer Reading Program: Fairytale Heroes
Penultimate Program!
Started with Sam and the Tigers again, (because seriously, so amazing)
Skippyjon Jones Snow What
Judy Chachner
ISBN: 9780803737891
Skippy dreams the story of Snow White (and other classic fairy tales) in "fractured fairy tale" fashion.
I'll be totally honest, when I realized I wasn't going to be able to give the program this time, I was relieved that I didn't have to do the Skippyjon Jones book. They're great for kids, everyone loves them, they're silly and fun and just subversive enough to be enjoyable for parents and kids, but I just don't like them that much myself. So it was nice to have at least one book this time around that I wasn't saddened to be missing.
Skippy's sisters are on a princess kick, but Skippy knows that the real story is about the hero. And who is that hero? Skippy himself, in a dream sequence that includes the seven Chihuahuas.
The Frog Prince Continued
Jon Scieszka, painted by Steve Johnson
ISBN: 0670834211
What happens AFTER the princess kisses the frog?
Scieszka is a crazy person, and all of his stories are looney tunes in the very best ways. Here we start off with the Frog Prince, who isn't too happy as a Prince, to be totally honest, and sets off into the Forest to figure out how to become Happily Ever After. Along the way he runs across as many different fairy-tale personages as can be squeezed into the plotline, and the ending has a twist ending that anyone over 12 will see a mile away.
Thursday, June 11, 2015
New Arrivals: Early Reader: The Princess in Black, Shannon & Dean Hale, and LeUyen Pham
The Princess in Black
Shannon Hale & Dean Hale, with illustrations by LeUyen Pham
ISBN: 9780763665104
Fairy-tale drawings don't quite do the spunky story justice.
I have to say, when it comes to perfect pairings, I would have thought this little book by Shannon and Dean Hale and illustrated by LeUyen Pham would have been just about everything my heart could have desired. This time, my knowledge of the previous works by these artists made this current book fall just a smidge flat for me. Compared to the witty and poignant work on Rapunzel's Revenge, and the beautiful cameo drawings of Bedtime for Mommy, I just didn't think this short chapter book quite measured up.
It's a cute romp; we meet Princess Magnolia (what a lovely Southern name that is) in her fairy-tale castle, entertaining the nosy noble Duchess Wigtower (and again with the names!). The duchess cannot know Magnolia's deepest darkest secret; she is also the Princess in Black, rescuer of the realm, defender of the innocent (usually livestock) and protector of the people! When an ogre in the deep dark caves manages to forget why ogres aren't allowed into the world above, the Princess in Black gets an alarm. Now she's really worried; what if the Duchess snoops while the Princess is away?
It's cute, don't get me wrong. It's also a lovely little girl-power story, perfect for a self-rescuing princess or budding Black Widow fan who isn't quite old enough for more lively (or bloody) derring-do. Still, I guess I just expected more from this particular trio.
Shannon Hale & Dean Hale, with illustrations by LeUyen Pham
ISBN: 9780763665104
Fairy-tale drawings don't quite do the spunky story justice.
I have to say, when it comes to perfect pairings, I would have thought this little book by Shannon and Dean Hale and illustrated by LeUyen Pham would have been just about everything my heart could have desired. This time, my knowledge of the previous works by these artists made this current book fall just a smidge flat for me. Compared to the witty and poignant work on Rapunzel's Revenge, and the beautiful cameo drawings of Bedtime for Mommy, I just didn't think this short chapter book quite measured up.
It's a cute romp; we meet Princess Magnolia (what a lovely Southern name that is) in her fairy-tale castle, entertaining the nosy noble Duchess Wigtower (and again with the names!). The duchess cannot know Magnolia's deepest darkest secret; she is also the Princess in Black, rescuer of the realm, defender of the innocent (usually livestock) and protector of the people! When an ogre in the deep dark caves manages to forget why ogres aren't allowed into the world above, the Princess in Black gets an alarm. Now she's really worried; what if the Duchess snoops while the Princess is away?
It's cute, don't get me wrong. It's also a lovely little girl-power story, perfect for a self-rescuing princess or budding Black Widow fan who isn't quite old enough for more lively (or bloody) derring-do. Still, I guess I just expected more from this particular trio.
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Fairy Tale / Fantasy: Uprooted, Naomi Novik
Uprooted
Naomi Novik
ISBN: 9780804179034
Beautiful and haunting fantasy-reworking of Beauty and the Beast.
This is the best book I've read all year, and I have read some truly mindblowing, amazing, masterful works of art this year. This is it. This is everything I ever wanted in a story forever and ever. This is what I want to write myself when I grow up. Nothing against any of the other wonderful authors and artists I've seen so far, or will see later in the year, this is just the pinnacle right here.
I simply and truly have no words. If you know that this is a Beauty and the Beast re-telling, that it's set in a fantasy kingdom with an encroaching malevolent Wood, and a politically-unstable dynasty, and an enmity with the neighboring human kingdom, you have everything you need to know to read it and be thrilled and swept away.
I can't wait to read it again!
Naomi Novik
ISBN: 9780804179034
Beautiful and haunting fantasy-reworking of Beauty and the Beast.
This is the best book I've read all year, and I have read some truly mindblowing, amazing, masterful works of art this year. This is it. This is everything I ever wanted in a story forever and ever. This is what I want to write myself when I grow up. Nothing against any of the other wonderful authors and artists I've seen so far, or will see later in the year, this is just the pinnacle right here.
I simply and truly have no words. If you know that this is a Beauty and the Beast re-telling, that it's set in a fantasy kingdom with an encroaching malevolent Wood, and a politically-unstable dynasty, and an enmity with the neighboring human kingdom, you have everything you need to know to read it and be thrilled and swept away.
I can't wait to read it again!
Friday, May 15, 2015
New Arrivals: Fairy Tales: Hansel & Gretel, Neil Gaiman and Lorenzo Mattotti
I've been waiting FOREVER go get my hands on this little creepy beauty! For lovers of Gorey and the Addamses, here is the grimdark inky-washed terrifying tale of Hansel and Gretel in all it's original frightful glory.
Hansel & Gretel
Neil Gaiman, illustrations by Lorenzo Mattotti
ISBN: 9781935179627
This is a DARK story. Mattotti's illustrations are mostly thick opaque swaths of blackness, crowding across the page and looming over the chinks of light and the outline figures of our characters. Trees reach over and clutch, houses ooze darkness from the walls, rooms become wicker cages with tendrils of blackness twining to bar the light.
This is a DARK story. Gaiman does away with the attempts to lighten the mood - the kids are abandoned by their parents; mother and father conspire, and while father is not an enthusiastic participant, he is an active party. The story lingers on macabre descriptions of food, the bloody hanks of meat brought from the butcher, bejewelled with green flies and yellow wasps, the weak broth of old cabbage, the hard crunch of dry bread, the unabashed desire of the old woman for meat. Even Gretel is more purposeful and hardened - her defiant shove not a mad swing of inspiration and luck, but a carefully plotted and cultivated goal.
This is how fairy tales were - warnings against the evil of mankind, using witches and old women in the woods as allegorical threats to balance against the very real threats of cruel parents or desperate starving times.
Brilliant. A facet of obsidian lit by the last rays of a dying day, fierce in inky cold sharpness.
Hansel & Gretel
Neil Gaiman, illustrations by Lorenzo Mattotti
ISBN: 9781935179627
This is a DARK story. Mattotti's illustrations are mostly thick opaque swaths of blackness, crowding across the page and looming over the chinks of light and the outline figures of our characters. Trees reach over and clutch, houses ooze darkness from the walls, rooms become wicker cages with tendrils of blackness twining to bar the light.
This is a DARK story. Gaiman does away with the attempts to lighten the mood - the kids are abandoned by their parents; mother and father conspire, and while father is not an enthusiastic participant, he is an active party. The story lingers on macabre descriptions of food, the bloody hanks of meat brought from the butcher, bejewelled with green flies and yellow wasps, the weak broth of old cabbage, the hard crunch of dry bread, the unabashed desire of the old woman for meat. Even Gretel is more purposeful and hardened - her defiant shove not a mad swing of inspiration and luck, but a carefully plotted and cultivated goal.
This is how fairy tales were - warnings against the evil of mankind, using witches and old women in the woods as allegorical threats to balance against the very real threats of cruel parents or desperate starving times.
Brilliant. A facet of obsidian lit by the last rays of a dying day, fierce in inky cold sharpness.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Tuesday Storytime: Almost-Fairy-Tales
These are fairy-tale-ish stories that I've enjoyed, but aren't as long or complicated as actual fairy tales, nor as short and simplistic as nursery rhymes. Halfway between.
Knick Knack Paddy Whack
SteveSongs, illustrated by Christiane Engel
ISBN: 9781846861444
Lively collage village full of people and activity.
This doesn't keep to the original rhyme, and the last stanza is horribly out of meter, but regardless, it's cute and fun, and a good simple introduction to this sort of nursery-rhyme song. And yes, I do sing. Badly today, as I'm suffering a bit of a cold, but it was sung.
The Wee Little Woman
Byron Barton
ISBN: 0060233877
Blocky shapes, thick black outlines, and bright primary colors identify this as a Barton book.
I love the simple message of this story - words have power. A wee little woman has gone and gotten milk from her wee little cow (I'm eliding the many wee little implements and steps this process takes) but her wee little cat snitches the milk that she left on the table. She yells, he flees, and they're both sad until he returns to find her waiting with a bowl of milk just for him. Perfect narrative structure, perfect amount of conflict and peril (kitty looks very sad in a black page full of stars), and perfect simple reconciliation.
Big Bad Wolf
Claire Masurel, illustrated by Melissa Iwai
ISBN: 0439282438
Die-cut holes reveal aspects of the "Big Bad Wolf" who really isn't so bad in person.
The villagers live in fear of the big bad wolf, but he's really a sweet dad wolf who works and plays in the woods all day, then goes home for dinner with his cubs and then transforms into a super-scary wolf to chase them all into bed and give them kisses. Adorable, and a nice short big-bad-wolf story. (Another excellent one is Wolf's Coming (Joe Kulka, ISBN: 9781575059303), which is a LOT more ominous in tone - I've actually made kids cry with that one.)
Knick Knack Paddy Whack
SteveSongs, illustrated by Christiane Engel
ISBN: 9781846861444
Lively collage village full of people and activity.
This doesn't keep to the original rhyme, and the last stanza is horribly out of meter, but regardless, it's cute and fun, and a good simple introduction to this sort of nursery-rhyme song. And yes, I do sing. Badly today, as I'm suffering a bit of a cold, but it was sung.
The Wee Little Woman
Byron Barton
ISBN: 0060233877
Blocky shapes, thick black outlines, and bright primary colors identify this as a Barton book.
I love the simple message of this story - words have power. A wee little woman has gone and gotten milk from her wee little cow (I'm eliding the many wee little implements and steps this process takes) but her wee little cat snitches the milk that she left on the table. She yells, he flees, and they're both sad until he returns to find her waiting with a bowl of milk just for him. Perfect narrative structure, perfect amount of conflict and peril (kitty looks very sad in a black page full of stars), and perfect simple reconciliation.
Big Bad Wolf
Claire Masurel, illustrated by Melissa Iwai
ISBN: 0439282438
Die-cut holes reveal aspects of the "Big Bad Wolf" who really isn't so bad in person.
The villagers live in fear of the big bad wolf, but he's really a sweet dad wolf who works and plays in the woods all day, then goes home for dinner with his cubs and then transforms into a super-scary wolf to chase them all into bed and give them kisses. Adorable, and a nice short big-bad-wolf story. (Another excellent one is Wolf's Coming (Joe Kulka, ISBN: 9781575059303), which is a LOT more ominous in tone - I've actually made kids cry with that one.)
Thursday, February 12, 2015
New Arrivals: Bilingual Picture Book: Little Roja Riding Hood, Susan Middleton Elya & Susan Guevara
Little Roja Riding Hood
Susan Middleton Elya, illustrated by Susan Guevara
ISBN: 9780399247675
A modern Red sets off to bring Abuelita some hot soup, but a wolf barges in and gets more than he bargained for.
Very similar to her previous Bebe Goes Shopping, with Steven Salerno, which I have used before, a long while back. A bibliography at the beginning gives us all the Spanish terms we need, and thereafter, they're sprinkled through the story with no translation given (nor really needed). Roja heads for Abue with some hot soup, but is distracted by the wolf and the colorful flowers. While she dawdles, he nicks her cloak, books it to Granny, and the traditional exchange is swapped - this time it's sharp Granny (holding a Jesu statue that is giving Lupe some serious side-eye) who is questioning the false "Roja" who is growing ever nearer. Abue's stalling works, Red barges in and douses the wolf with Checkov's hot soup, and the two of them pop online to find the old bird a security system to prevent further incursions. Fun, funny, and sprightly, with poppy rhymes and enough of a difference to be cute without becoming precious.
It is a teensy bit on the long side for a storytime, but it would be great for an event or a Summer Reading Program for the slightly older ones. I might be able to shoehorn it into this summer as a "hero" book, in fact.
Susan Middleton Elya, illustrated by Susan Guevara
ISBN: 9780399247675
A modern Red sets off to bring Abuelita some hot soup, but a wolf barges in and gets more than he bargained for.
Very similar to her previous Bebe Goes Shopping, with Steven Salerno, which I have used before, a long while back. A bibliography at the beginning gives us all the Spanish terms we need, and thereafter, they're sprinkled through the story with no translation given (nor really needed). Roja heads for Abue with some hot soup, but is distracted by the wolf and the colorful flowers. While she dawdles, he nicks her cloak, books it to Granny, and the traditional exchange is swapped - this time it's sharp Granny (holding a Jesu statue that is giving Lupe some serious side-eye) who is questioning the false "Roja" who is growing ever nearer. Abue's stalling works, Red barges in and douses the wolf with Checkov's hot soup, and the two of them pop online to find the old bird a security system to prevent further incursions. Fun, funny, and sprightly, with poppy rhymes and enough of a difference to be cute without becoming precious.
It is a teensy bit on the long side for a storytime, but it would be great for an event or a Summer Reading Program for the slightly older ones. I might be able to shoehorn it into this summer as a "hero" book, in fact.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Juv Fantasy: The Castle Behind Thorns, Merrie Haskell
The Castle Behind Thorns
Merrie Haskell
ISBN: 9780062008190
A lush and leisurely re-working of Sleeping Beauty set in Brittany in 1518, with saints and magic and themes of family betrayal, friendship, trust, and forgiveness.
Read December 28, 2014
Lovely to read through, but it will be a very specific middle-grade reader to appreciate the vocabulary, dense thematic structure, and really superbly slow narrative pace. It's fun for me as an adult, as a fast reader, and as someone who appreciates fairy-tale re-workings and historical fiction, but I think that it might easily fail to grab attention.
Sand (great name for a smith) wakes up in a fireplace, and realizes he's in the Sundered Castle, which has been hidden behind thorns since his father was a child. The castle is still hidden behind thorns, but now they are keeping him prisoner as well.
I'll try to remain vague to avoid spoiling everything.
I loved the slow build of exploration and discovery.
I loved the focus on mending and repairing, especially how it relates to the other characters.
I loved the unapologetic hatred towards war and violence.
I loved the way that forgiveness was presented - not as a religious or civic duty, but as an act of self-preservation and personal mental/emotional health.
I loved the mending magic, the saints, and the Greek afterlife complete with Lethe, shades, and pomegranate seeds.
I loved Sand's enormous complicated blacksmithing solution.
I loved that the resolution was prosaic and mundane and that the "punishment" for the guilty was self-inflicted (although that was a little too perfectly settled, and I really feel for that priest and those poor knights).
The author has another fairy-tale re-working (12 Dancing Princesses) that I have almost picked up several times and just never felt like it grabbed me: The Princess Curse. Now that I've read this one and have high opinions of the language and writing style, I might give that one a try even if the storyline itself doesn't seem as personally interesting.
Merrie Haskell
ISBN: 9780062008190
A lush and leisurely re-working of Sleeping Beauty set in Brittany in 1518, with saints and magic and themes of family betrayal, friendship, trust, and forgiveness.
Read December 28, 2014
Lovely to read through, but it will be a very specific middle-grade reader to appreciate the vocabulary, dense thematic structure, and really superbly slow narrative pace. It's fun for me as an adult, as a fast reader, and as someone who appreciates fairy-tale re-workings and historical fiction, but I think that it might easily fail to grab attention.
Sand (great name for a smith) wakes up in a fireplace, and realizes he's in the Sundered Castle, which has been hidden behind thorns since his father was a child. The castle is still hidden behind thorns, but now they are keeping him prisoner as well.
I'll try to remain vague to avoid spoiling everything.
I loved the slow build of exploration and discovery.
I loved the focus on mending and repairing, especially how it relates to the other characters.
I loved the unapologetic hatred towards war and violence.
I loved the way that forgiveness was presented - not as a religious or civic duty, but as an act of self-preservation and personal mental/emotional health.
I loved the mending magic, the saints, and the Greek afterlife complete with Lethe, shades, and pomegranate seeds.
I loved Sand's enormous complicated blacksmithing solution.
I loved that the resolution was prosaic and mundane and that the "punishment" for the guilty was self-inflicted (although that was a little too perfectly settled, and I really feel for that priest and those poor knights).
The author has another fairy-tale re-working (12 Dancing Princesses) that I have almost picked up several times and just never felt like it grabbed me: The Princess Curse. Now that I've read this one and have high opinions of the language and writing style, I might give that one a try even if the storyline itself doesn't seem as personally interesting.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Picture Book/Modern Fairy Tale: Pumpkin Light, by David Ray
I really wanted to like this, as I love Halloween, and I really enjoy modern created fairy tales (Jane Yolen's Girl in the Golden Bower is a perfect example), but I was not entranced or even interested in this stolid story with little magic or interest, and painfully workmanlike illustrations.
Pumpkin Light
David Ray
ISBN: 0399220283
I wanted to like it - a book about an early Americana farm boy who loves pumpkins and gets cursed? Sounds great! Sadly, the author/illustrator bit off more than he could chew, with both the story and the illustrations getting away from him right from the beginning. This is a quote from the set-up of the story; "Now there was one other thing Angus loved as much as his mother and father and almost as much as pumpkins and that was to draw and paint."
Just, no. I'm sorry to be blunt, but those are not the lines of a good story, or a good tale to read aloud to someone. Sadly, it was like that all the way through.
Bare bones story:
Pumpkin-loving artistic kid stays up too late on Halloween, gets sent to bed without supper, has a very complex bad dream, and wakes to find everything better again.
Longer version:
Angus was born in the fall, under a pumpkin sun, and loves pumpkins and art. He always goes to town on Halloween to draw the jack o'lantern display at the General Store, then goes home and hangs his pictures on his bedroom walls. One Halloween he stays too late drawing and runs home (past jeering children who are out there being hateful for no reason at all) and returns home after dark to angry parents who send him to sleep with no dinner, and no pumpkin pie, and no time to hang his drawings on the walls.
Suddenly he's in a hayloft in a barn overlooking his house, watching his mother set a pumpkin pie out on the windowsill to cool. He's hungry, so he sneaks over, steals the pie, and hides under a scarecrow (why god why) to eat it. The spirit of the scarecrow (because there has to be a scarecrow spirit) is angry at him for stealing the pie when he was sent to bed with no supper. So the scarecrow turns him into a dog, and names him Autumn (Why? Who knows.) and passes on the terms of the curse - "Autumn" has to spend every night in the barn loft, guarding a "magic pumpkin" (wtf?) until "a forgiving soul carves it and releases the power to change you back into a boy." Ok.
So now Angus' parents are super sad because their little boy is gone, but the little dog keeps them company, except it insists on sleeping in the loft (and no one asks why this dog is so attached to the loft, or ever goes to check). A whole bloody year later, somehow the parents magically know the dog's name is Autumn (not even going there) and the boy-dog finally gets a clue that perhaps he can trick Mom into carving the magic pumpkin for her (apparently only once-a-year) pumpkin pie.
He nips and drags at her until she gets up there, sees this lovely pumpkin, and (still not asking WHY a pumpkin is in her hayloft) she drags it home and begins to cut it open, but overcome with memories, decides to try to carve it into a jack o'lantern like her missing son would have done. The pumpkin lights up magically, and yay, Angus is back! About here is where I notice that dad has gone suspiciously missing through this whole ordeal.
The light from the pumpkin grows brighter and blinds the magically recovered boy, and when he blinks to clear his eyes, he's home in bed, with his parents hanging up his pictures on his walls, and a pumpkin pie smell wafting in from the kitchen (she baked a fresh one for breakfast, apparently). A lengthy (everything about this book is lengthy) coda explains how Angus always afterwards treasured a special painting of a dog and a pumpkin.
Ok, so this is obviously trying for Film!Oz territory, where it's all a dream, or is it!? However, it just seemed like it was trying too hard. A scarecrow spirit cursing a boy for disobedience ought to be right up fairy-tale alley, easy to accept, but it fell flat, and begged for an explanation. Why a dog? Why the deal with guarding the pumpkin? What would happen if he didn't? It just didn't make any sense, but so much time was spent explaining things that didn't need explaining, it made the magical (and not-explained) personages and events stick out terribly.
I hate when this sort of thing happens, because I want to fix the story, and it isn't mine, and I can't do anything about it. Perhaps I'll write my own Halloween fairy-tale with a jack o'lantern obsessed child and see if I can do any better.
Pumpkin Light
David Ray
ISBN: 0399220283
I wanted to like it - a book about an early Americana farm boy who loves pumpkins and gets cursed? Sounds great! Sadly, the author/illustrator bit off more than he could chew, with both the story and the illustrations getting away from him right from the beginning. This is a quote from the set-up of the story; "Now there was one other thing Angus loved as much as his mother and father and almost as much as pumpkins and that was to draw and paint."
Just, no. I'm sorry to be blunt, but those are not the lines of a good story, or a good tale to read aloud to someone. Sadly, it was like that all the way through.
Bare bones story:
Pumpkin-loving artistic kid stays up too late on Halloween, gets sent to bed without supper, has a very complex bad dream, and wakes to find everything better again.
Longer version:
Angus was born in the fall, under a pumpkin sun, and loves pumpkins and art. He always goes to town on Halloween to draw the jack o'lantern display at the General Store, then goes home and hangs his pictures on his bedroom walls. One Halloween he stays too late drawing and runs home (past jeering children who are out there being hateful for no reason at all) and returns home after dark to angry parents who send him to sleep with no dinner, and no pumpkin pie, and no time to hang his drawings on the walls.
Suddenly he's in a hayloft in a barn overlooking his house, watching his mother set a pumpkin pie out on the windowsill to cool. He's hungry, so he sneaks over, steals the pie, and hides under a scarecrow (why god why) to eat it. The spirit of the scarecrow (because there has to be a scarecrow spirit) is angry at him for stealing the pie when he was sent to bed with no supper. So the scarecrow turns him into a dog, and names him Autumn (Why? Who knows.) and passes on the terms of the curse - "Autumn" has to spend every night in the barn loft, guarding a "magic pumpkin" (wtf?) until "a forgiving soul carves it and releases the power to change you back into a boy." Ok.
So now Angus' parents are super sad because their little boy is gone, but the little dog keeps them company, except it insists on sleeping in the loft (and no one asks why this dog is so attached to the loft, or ever goes to check). A whole bloody year later, somehow the parents magically know the dog's name is Autumn (not even going there) and the boy-dog finally gets a clue that perhaps he can trick Mom into carving the magic pumpkin for her (apparently only once-a-year) pumpkin pie.
He nips and drags at her until she gets up there, sees this lovely pumpkin, and (still not asking WHY a pumpkin is in her hayloft) she drags it home and begins to cut it open, but overcome with memories, decides to try to carve it into a jack o'lantern like her missing son would have done. The pumpkin lights up magically, and yay, Angus is back! About here is where I notice that dad has gone suspiciously missing through this whole ordeal.
The light from the pumpkin grows brighter and blinds the magically recovered boy, and when he blinks to clear his eyes, he's home in bed, with his parents hanging up his pictures on his walls, and a pumpkin pie smell wafting in from the kitchen (she baked a fresh one for breakfast, apparently). A lengthy (everything about this book is lengthy) coda explains how Angus always afterwards treasured a special painting of a dog and a pumpkin.
Ok, so this is obviously trying for Film!Oz territory, where it's all a dream, or is it!? However, it just seemed like it was trying too hard. A scarecrow spirit cursing a boy for disobedience ought to be right up fairy-tale alley, easy to accept, but it fell flat, and begged for an explanation. Why a dog? Why the deal with guarding the pumpkin? What would happen if he didn't? It just didn't make any sense, but so much time was spent explaining things that didn't need explaining, it made the magical (and not-explained) personages and events stick out terribly.
I hate when this sort of thing happens, because I want to fix the story, and it isn't mine, and I can't do anything about it. Perhaps I'll write my own Halloween fairy-tale with a jack o'lantern obsessed child and see if I can do any better.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Storytelling: Diamonds and Toads/Mother Hulda (fairy tale)
This one is another old favorite. If you want to get into the nitty-gritty of fairy tales (you know you want to) this one is an Aarne-Thompson 480; "Kind and Unkind Girls" which should be subtitled "Who Get What They Richly Deserve."
The two classic versions are known as Diamonds and Toads and Mother Hulda, respectively.
In Diamonds and Toads, the youngest daughter of a widow is the only nice one in the family, and thus gets the short end of the stick, doing all the work. She's out at the well one day, and kindly draws extra water for an old beggar lady, who (of course) is a great fairy in disguise, and who blesses her for her kindness by decreeing that diamonds, pearls, and roses will fall from her lips every time she speaks. Despite the awkward nature of this gift, it's a lovely thought, and the girl's nasty mother thinks so as well. She sends the older, nastier sister out as well, but the girl is an idiot as well as mean, so the fairy curses her to drop toads and vipers from her mouth instead.
Mother Hulda is a bit more complicated. Instead of helping the beggar by the well, our virtuous heroine (this time a stepdaughter) jumps down the well after a fallen spindle, and ends up in a magical country where she finds everything in disarray, and industriously helps a lady sort things out. The lady is (of course) the fairy ruler of that realm, who covers her in gold and pops her back up the well back home, but the family can't remove the gold to steal it. So, stepmother shoves stepsister down the well, but the lazy girl doesn't bother to help (in some versions even actively opposes the lady just to be a brat), so the lady rolls her in pitch (tar) and returns her back home as well.
There's a delightful cajun-flavored version by the delightful duo of Robert D. San Souci and Jerry Pinkney, called The Talking Eggs, where it's set down in creole country, with a family of poor black women. The fairy lady now owns a strange farmstead out in the woods, and the wondrous items (that fall at the good girl's feet, not from her lips) are gained from magical eggs who kindly indicate their use, despite their appearances.
This one makes the list mainly because there is evidence of this tale being adapted by southerners, but what makes me most happy is that, again, this is a story of clever people (especially clever women) who are clever AND kind and generous, and who get rewarded for those qualities, while the less-smart, less-kind, and less-generous representatives ALSO get what's coming to them, but it's no-one's fault but their own.
I also like the idea, as in Little Gold Star, that bad behavior gets made physically obvious on the person, either permanently, or until they repent and behave better.
Finally, this one is another where there is no supernatural evil or "villain" to conquer, just an exploration of human nature and the consequences of selfish or hurtful behavior.
References:
Online:
Toads and Diamonds, via Project Gutenberg (from the Blue Fairy Book, collected/edited by Andrew Lang)
Annotated Diamonds and Toads via SurLaLune
Mother Hulda (Frau Holle) via SurLaLune
Mother Holle, via Project Gutenberg (from Fairy Tales, by the Brothers Grimm)
Picture Books:
Toads and Diamonds
Charlotte Huck, illustrated by Anita Lobel
ISBN: 9780688136802
The Talking Eggs
Robert D. San Souci, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
ISBN: 9780803706194
Others:
Toads and Diamonds
Heather Tomlinson
ISBN: 9780805089684
(Juvenile/Middle-Grade fiction, set in India)
The two classic versions are known as Diamonds and Toads and Mother Hulda, respectively.
In Diamonds and Toads, the youngest daughter of a widow is the only nice one in the family, and thus gets the short end of the stick, doing all the work. She's out at the well one day, and kindly draws extra water for an old beggar lady, who (of course) is a great fairy in disguise, and who blesses her for her kindness by decreeing that diamonds, pearls, and roses will fall from her lips every time she speaks. Despite the awkward nature of this gift, it's a lovely thought, and the girl's nasty mother thinks so as well. She sends the older, nastier sister out as well, but the girl is an idiot as well as mean, so the fairy curses her to drop toads and vipers from her mouth instead.
Mother Hulda is a bit more complicated. Instead of helping the beggar by the well, our virtuous heroine (this time a stepdaughter) jumps down the well after a fallen spindle, and ends up in a magical country where she finds everything in disarray, and industriously helps a lady sort things out. The lady is (of course) the fairy ruler of that realm, who covers her in gold and pops her back up the well back home, but the family can't remove the gold to steal it. So, stepmother shoves stepsister down the well, but the lazy girl doesn't bother to help (in some versions even actively opposes the lady just to be a brat), so the lady rolls her in pitch (tar) and returns her back home as well.
There's a delightful cajun-flavored version by the delightful duo of Robert D. San Souci and Jerry Pinkney, called The Talking Eggs, where it's set down in creole country, with a family of poor black women. The fairy lady now owns a strange farmstead out in the woods, and the wondrous items (that fall at the good girl's feet, not from her lips) are gained from magical eggs who kindly indicate their use, despite their appearances.
This one makes the list mainly because there is evidence of this tale being adapted by southerners, but what makes me most happy is that, again, this is a story of clever people (especially clever women) who are clever AND kind and generous, and who get rewarded for those qualities, while the less-smart, less-kind, and less-generous representatives ALSO get what's coming to them, but it's no-one's fault but their own.
I also like the idea, as in Little Gold Star, that bad behavior gets made physically obvious on the person, either permanently, or until they repent and behave better.
Finally, this one is another where there is no supernatural evil or "villain" to conquer, just an exploration of human nature and the consequences of selfish or hurtful behavior.
References:
Online:
Toads and Diamonds, via Project Gutenberg (from the Blue Fairy Book, collected/edited by Andrew Lang)
Annotated Diamonds and Toads via SurLaLune
Mother Hulda (Frau Holle) via SurLaLune
Mother Holle, via Project Gutenberg (from Fairy Tales, by the Brothers Grimm)
Picture Books:
Toads and Diamonds
Charlotte Huck, illustrated by Anita Lobel
ISBN: 9780688136802
The Talking Eggs
Robert D. San Souci, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
ISBN: 9780803706194
Others:
Toads and Diamonds
Heather Tomlinson
ISBN: 9780805089684
(Juvenile/Middle-Grade fiction, set in India)
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