Smart fairytailing that’s tonally on point? More of this, please.
31 Days, 31 Lists: 2020 Fairy, Folk, and Religious Tales
December 14, 2020 by
This year I was impressed by the sheer variety of the stories on display. Hope you like your tales done in all kinds of styles from all kinds of places! This year was a good one for this category.
31 Days, 31 Lists: 2019 Fairytales, Folktales, and Religious Tales
December 14, 2019 by
One of my favorite lists! Original and traditional tales for everyone to enjoy.
Review of the Day: Vasilisa the Wise and Other Tales of Brave Young Women retold by Kate Forsyth, ill. Lorena Carrington
July 25, 2019 by
Why not crank things up a notch and hand a kid a collection of fairy tales full of strong, clever, wily female characters that have to use their brains? If you’ve waited for such a collection, brimming over with strange stories and illustrated with even stranger art, this is the book you didn’t know you deserved until it arrived. Fairytale feminism, old school style.
Review of the Day: Cinderella Liberator by Rebecca Solnit, ill. Arthur Rackham
February 20, 2019 by
Want to look at Cinderella through the mores of the 21st century? I suggest pairing yourself up with an artist that’s been dead for 80 years. Why it’s so crazy, it just might work.
31 Days, 31 Lists: 2018 Fairy Tales, Folktales, and Religious Tales
December 15, 2018 by
Interestingly, 2018 turned out to be a very strong year for folktales, fairy tales, and religious stories. Why? Well, look closely and you’ll see that this is nothing so much as a gathering of small publishers. It’s like I always say. The more the big guys consolidate, the more cracks and fissures remain for the little folks to sneak through. Here then are the titles published in 2018 that really stood out and shone:
Review of the Day: Dwarf Nose by Wilhelm Hauff
March 11, 2016 by
Dwarf Nose By Wilhelm Hauff Illustrated by Lisbeth Zwerger Translated by Anthea Bell Minedition $19.99 ISBN: 97898888341139 Ages 8-12 On shelves April 1st It seems so funny to me that for all that our culture loves and adores fairytales, scant attention is paid to the ones that can rightfully be called both awesome and obscure. […]
Video Sunday: Wind’s in the East . . .
January 3, 2016 by
Fun stuff. Looks a lot like Harry Potter to a certain extent (mood, lighting, music, etc.). It’s the trailer for Roald Dahl’s The BFG. Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the link! A bit of an older video here. In my travels recently I discovered that the entirety of the Oliver Jeffers short film version […]
Review of the Day: Hansel and Gretel by Neil Gaiman
December 29, 2014 by
Hansel and Gretel By Neil Gaiman Illustrated by Lorenzo Mattotti Candlewick $16.95 ISBN: 978-1-935179-62-7 Ages 6 and up When a successful writer of books for adults decides to traipse headlong into the world of children’s literature, the results are too often disastrous. From Donald Barthelme’s self-indulgent Slightly Irregular Fire Engine to the more recent, if […]
The Fairytales and Folktales of 2013: An Accounting
January 21, 2014 by
If you’ve sat in the audience during one of my talks of 2013, any of them really, then at some point during my presentation I probably mentioned that my deep and abiding love for small publishers is due, in no small part, to the rise in the fairytales and folktales in the marketplace. It’s not […]
Fusenews: My proverbial hat tastes like flan
March 16, 2012 by
I was going to spend a lot of time on this Fusenews. Then I picked up Doug TenNapel’s Cardboard and lost most of my evening in the process. So it goes. I really am going to have to be brief today. To sum up: The Battle of the (Kids’) Books rages on in earnest! Wish […]
Fusenews: Now with more earthquaky goodness
August 25, 2011 by
The fabulous Colleen Mondor and Jackie Parker-Robinson have come up with a clever notion. Kidlitcon, the yearly conference for bloggers of child and teen literature, fast approacheth and this year, things are getting a bit switched. As Colleen says on her blog, “What we decided was to shift things just a bit, both by moving […]
Why Grand Theft Auto is like Hansel and Gretel
August 10, 2011 by
It isn’t. I explain. A children’s librarian may sometimes spend a certain amount of time defending a child’s right to read fairy tales or books that reference those tales. So when a parent complains about the severed heads in A Tale Dark and Grimm or the girl dancing to her death in Breadcrumbs, the librarian […]
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