Lon Po Po by Ed Young

This was a fun discovery. Lon Po Po is, as you can see, a Chinese variant of Little Red. Three sisters are left at home when granny comes calling--except it's really Lon Po Po, the wolf, pretending to be granny in order to eat the girls. Fortunately the eldest sister, Shang, figures out the ploy, and the girls in their turn trick the wolf into a tree and kill him. (Poor wolf! Oh, wait, he was going to eat them...)

Young doesn't pull his punches in this retelling, from the dark and elegant artwork to the graphic nature of the story (much like the version we are familiar with, in the Grimm version). It's definitely one to check out, for the artwork alone. Of course the fairy tale component makes this Caldecott winner extra desirable for my library....

Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

Shannon Hale has taken on one of the more obscure Grimm tales in this retelling of Maid Maleen. (Ever heard of it? I mean if you haven't already read Book of a Thousand Days....)

Hale has taken some creative liberty with the original tale, all for the best if you ask me. It's a strange tale... Anyway, she's set the story in a fantasy land inspired by the Asian steppes, and gives her characters the normal rich treatment I have come to expect from her work. As is typical for Hale, the story is satisfying and unexpected.

You can read sample chapters from this and most of her books at her wonderful website, which also features her wonderful and fascinating blog.

Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre: The Frog Prince

Ahhh Faerie Tale Theatre. The Disney alternative of my childhood--that paragon of parable, that which probably kept me from believing fairy tales were all about princesses falling in love and little else.

I do love Faerie Tale Theatre, in spite of somewhat dated special effects and an occasional tendency to go for the slapstick comedy. Having said that... The Frog Prince, the first installment in the series, is probably one of my least favorite. As I watch it now, as an adult, I can't help but feel that Robin Williams is just imitating himself. Weird but true.

Aside from that, it's a straightforward re-telling of the story: Princess drops ball in well, frog retrieves ball, Princess goes back on word, father reinforces, Princess throws frog: Ta da! Prince!

This episode suffers from the problem that a lot of the simpler tales in the series do: there's just not enough material and the series is rarely successful in stretching the stories to fit the hour time slot.

However, you can watch it for free on hulu (at least if you're in the U.S.), and the collection is selling for a decent price on amazon.com these days.

(I've chosen to review all the Faerie Tale Theatre episodes separately because they vary so much and cover so many different stories. Also: reading/watching the material for this blog takes a lot of time! I hope you enjoy the slightly more in depth reviews this way.)

Beauty by Sheri S. Tepper

Beauty is a particularly complex fairy tale retelling, touching on Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Cinderella, with references to others along the way. From the first time I heard of it, I was determined to read it, but broke. Fortunately I walked past the fiction section at the library and it yelled to me, "Here I am!" from the shelf where it had been waiting for me. True story.

I found this to be a very engaging book, holding my attention through the unusual plot twists. Although Beauty has received some criticism for hosting such disparate elements (from a 14th century princess to a future dystopia) I was utterly captivated while reading. Tepper manages to write an issues book without being preachy (although some readers will disagree with me; I thought the story was in the forefront the whole time, rather than the issues).

Overall, the book was much... BIGGER than I was expecting. Tepper bravely goes to a whole different level with her book. While some feel it's less successful, I have to give her mucho credit for her bold, unique book. It's certainly worth a shot.

Crazy Jack by Donna Jo Napoli

Crazy Jack is one of my favorites by Donna Jo Napoli, one of the big authors of fairy tale retellings. Sometimes her writing style doesn't really work for me: it really does for this story.

This one sticks pretty closely to the original story, as far as the bare bones. She doesn't rearrange many of the elements of the story, but rather fills them in delightfully, with a romance story that I found far more satisfactory than the relationships in Hush or Zel. Crazy Jack is so well told that even though I know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, Napoli's skillful weaving had me wondering until the meaningful and pleasing ending.