Systematic Student:
guest

A short while ago, I reviewed A Journey into Tomorrow by Veronica C. Tinto. (Read my review HERE.) I have been in contact with the author, and she was kind enough to write a short bio and guest post for my readers here, explaining a little bit more about herself, her background and why she decided to write poetry. Also, (and I think this is quite exciting) Veronica has offered to be available to respond to comments and questions left on this post! She'll be keeping track of reader comments and answering questions etc. with anyone who would like to ask questions, give feedback etc. This is a great thing for her to offer, so I definitely think it's something that you should take advantage of! In my experience, she's been a great correspondent! So, here is what she had to say for us!

Bio:

I am from Trinidad and Tobago and my only language is standard British English. My educational background is in Communicative Disorders and Psychology. However with that being said, first I must say that I have never written poetry before, it is talent that I never knew I had before the unfortunate circumstances of a very bitter divorce. The title of the poems came first to me and within five to ten minutes I would have them completely finished. I was inspired by different factors as I wrote these poems. Of course by my own feelings, but I was also inspired by the tremendous courage I saw in my baby boy's actions in terms of the resiliency that he showed dealing with these life circumstances. I was also inspired by the unconditional love and countless support that I received from my closest and dearest friend Jemeka who on many nights spoke with me on the phone until 3am many mornings as I dealt with the emotional turmoil that was happening in my life. The poems began as sending Jemeka a simple thought for the day via a text message. However, as weeks passed by the poems began to have a life of their own as my words began to transcend my own life altering experiences and began to touch the lives of family and friends. I should also add that I made reference to the elements of nature many times in my poetry because growing up in Trinidad and Tobago I had the first hand experience of seeing the natural wonder of Mother Nature which was always a soothing experience for me in my life.
In addition to this bio, she also wrote a guest post just for us! Here it is!

As funny as it sounds, my first experience writing poetry was almost my last experience! While attending high school in Trinidad and Tobago, my English teacher assigned the entire class a homework assignment to write a piece of poetry with personal meaning behind it. I dutifully went home that night and poured my ten-year-old heart and mind into the assignment. I returned to school the following morning proud of what I had created. I handed my piece to the teacher with all the confidence in the world, just knowing that it was an “A+” effort. After reading it, my English teacher promptly gave me an “F” and scolded me in front of the class for plagiarizing. Unfortunately my English teacher never acknowledged that the poem written that day for homework was only written by me the author. The hurt and embarrassment of that one experience so long ago stuck with me throughout my life. For this reason I never thought or even conceptualized that one day I would have been blessed with the ability to one day write a book of poetry entitled “A Journey into Tomorrow.”

Pushing that high school experience aside and through the inspiration, love and unconditional support I received from my closest and dearest friend Jemeka, and seeing the resiliency that my baby boy demonstrated, my healing process through poetry began. The words, thoughts, feeling and emotions flowed out of me like water in a torrent river. By turning my feelings into words, I was able to appreciate what was important in my life. For example the unexpected deepening friendship that occurred, the kindness of strangers, the simple pleasures I enjoyed and the lessons I learnt from my little angel, and the metamorphosis of my spirituality during this season of my life. Each experience that unfolded in my life as well as the lives of family and friends became the lyrical melody for my poetry.

It is my sincere hope for you my reader that these poems provide you solace during stressful or quiet moments in your life. The purpose of writing these poems were to also address the spectrum of human emotions from love to disappointment, to rage, to sadness, to the beauty of nature, to enjoying life to the sadness of death, to the past, present and future. I believe these are common themes that we all can relate with since these themes are the fundamental foundations of our human experiences. The poems were written to provide you food for thought without the use of vague metaphors and obscure analogies, because during the lowest moments in life, regardless of what circumstance generate these feelings, we all want to read words that speak directly to our hearts.

I'd like to thank Veronica for taking the time to talk with me, and write this up for me and my readers. Please, share your thoughts with me and Veronica. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Hey everyone!

I want you to run over and check out Shelly's blog, Write for a Reader. I've been working with her a little and I now have a guest post up over on her site. It's my review of Where the Red Fern Grows with just a few minor changes. It also includes a short bio and a photo as well. She's got a fun blog, so head on over and check it out! Leave us both a comment and let us know what you think!

Here it is everyone! A special thank you to author M. Clifford for taking the time to write up a post just for us. Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts!

Most of the time when people read my novel, THE BOOK (www.dontreadthebook.com) , they come away proud of the passion they always had inside for the written word and for storytelling. Some people close the novel with a fresh desire to read more paperbacks or to buy their books from used bookstores and sign the inside cover so that someone will always know that they owned that book and loved those pages. A lot of people ask me what my intentions were in writing THE BOOK and there are many. To follow through on my promise to give you a unique guest blog post, I'll touch on the one motivation I haven't discussed very much — the redemption of the storyteller. In my novel, I definitely glorify story and the ability to read it freely from an honest source. Reading is a private and very personal act. Authors are who they are because they love telling stories. Creating an arc and then another arc and then another until they reached the end of a much larger one that began somewhere in the beginning. I'm an intentionally self-published independent author. I've never sought representation from a major publishing house or even attempted to get an agent beyond a few query letters six years back. I'm sort of a rare breed in that I am passionately supportive of the indie author and I encourage them to get their work read, edited and uploaded so that story-lovers can keep finding things to read. Not everyone is a storyteller, even when they've written a book, and that's sort of the negative element to the benefit of being able to self-publish. Stay with me because I'll loop this back to the beginning and it'll all makes sense in a minute. I have often read books that are waiting for me to open them the moment I enter a bookstore. Stacks upon stacks of shiny covers waiting. I know hundreds of thousands have been printed and I almost feel a responsibility to take one for that fact alone. And then, when I get home and start reading, I have felt by chapter four that I've already listened to four different voices. Three other people have written a few sentences here and a paragraph there. I'm sure of it. Although publishing houses do a good service for the written word by printing and distributing and marketing high-quality stories, they are a still a business. A for-profit business. They will alter a story if need be, or convince an author to do so, simply to sell more copies. I wouldn't be surprised if there are authors today that, after submitting their work, get a reply like, "Solid book, but please make all your characters vampires. Send it back and we've got a deal!" That is obviously an outrageous, dramatic example. My point is that altering an original work is akin to someone being interrupted during the telling of a campfire story. I included a similar scene in my book, sans interruption. Campfire storytelling is a wonderful pastime where novels begin and the mind of the creative person is sparked toward a future in writing. The desire to tantalize and entice people around them, to get them to the edge of their log as they wait to find out where the man with the hook on his arm is hiding. Now picture this budding author telling his story, only to be interrupted by someone else at camp who thinks everyone needs to know that "one of the characters was also a vampire. Okay... go ahead now. Finish the story." Even though plenty of readers could find that to be more beneficial to the story, I think it is important for readers to know that when they buy a book from a bookstore, or from someone that isn't an independent author, they may not be getting a single story. They are getting one that has been edited with scissors and tape and red pen from multiple handwriting styles suggesting alternate story lines, characters, etc. When you read THE BOOK, it is 100% mine. Every idea is mine and every line is mine (other than what I reference from classic and contemporary literature) because no one has the ability to control my writing. Although this was not my main motivation, not even in the top 10, I do think it is important as we move into this new age of digital reading to discuss the future of publication. I would be lying if part of me wasn't afraid for the authors who have written stories that other people control. Who's to say that on the 50th anniversary of THE SHINING by Stephen King, the sales department at the publishing house will not only create a new cover, but alter the story to explain that the reason the main character went crazy and attacked his family was because of a full moon and that he was actually a werewolf or something. Sure it sounds interesting when you hear the idea, but Stephen King may not be alive when that happens, which means that he would be unable to defend the characters he created. Is that really fair to do that to him or his characters? In a sense, the publishing house owns those characters... so...

We see a lot of this today with Quirk Classics and their new release of Android Karenina. I'm not opposed to taking old stories and putting a new twist on them, I think it's really smart. I hope to dabble in that at some point in my future. It's fun and it's creative, but it only illustrates my point further. How destroyed would Jane Austen be to known that her characters were mangled and reformed into something comedic and disgusting? To know that the lines that she cried over, that mixed with the ink of her pen, were now spliced with a graphic image of a zombie tearing into the fleshy neck of some matriarch from a rich family while she's reading quietly in her stately home. The difficult thing is that there is not an easy answer for this question. That's why a lot of people have enjoyed discussing THE BOOK after buying it, because I ask a lot of unanswerable questions. Do we treat these books as just a collection of words? One after the other, after the other and the other, until there are enough pages to be clasped together and wrapped with a hard linen binding? Or are they unique works of art that must remain perfectly intact, structurally sound, exactly as the artist intended? Does it make it okay to chop it up and change it simply because enough time has passed? Maybe. It's a good discussion to have. What is great is that my book is gaining attention during the advent of popularity with these mash-up novels. I think that in ten or twenty years we'll really see how people go about augmenting this idea further. Here's the real truth in the matter: the moment you edit or add to an original manuscript, a line is crossed. Again, I'm not saying crossing that line is bad. But it is crossed and respect must still be given to the original. How far then do we walk past the line before it is too hard to get back? And, by then, when we reach the point of no return, will people even care? As an author, I know I would be devastated to hear that a hundred years from now someone could take my characters and change them any way they pleased, simply to make a profit. Those characters are pieces of me and I love them, as any author would. I poured my soul into them. But, in the same breath, although I would not agree with the actions of someone disfiguring my work, I'll fight to the death their freedom to do so. And maybe therein lies the real question — How much of this is an expression of freedom, and how much is a defacement of public property? The reader must decide, because it's not stopping anytime soon. M. Clifford

We have Laura here with us today, who blogs at Laura Howard: Finding Bliss, and she is talking about the differences between Fairy tales and Faerie tales! Let's hear what she has to say!

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When you think of fairy tales, do you imagine towering castles and lovely princesses — or perhaps adorable pixies with bluebell caps hiding behind azalea bushes?
As a girl, those are all the things I dreamed of. I spent hours reading stories of handsome knights and mysterious mermaids, picturing myself in the role of heroine.

It wasn't until after my 30th birthday that I discovered the darker side of fairy tales — Faerie Tales. My first taste came in the form of Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely. In this story, I met equally beautiful and terrible creatures that were nothing like the fairies I'd grown up with. I was hooked! I went on to read Holly Black's Tithe and once again was transfixed by the idea that pixies and elves would be more likely to trick you into dancing til your feet were stubs than to grant you your hearts desire.

Now, I've read dozens of spins on the darker side of Faerie. One in particular that inspired me in my own writing is the Sevenwaters series by Juliet Marillier. This series combines a retelling of the Seven Swans fairy tale with another twist on fairies. In her work, the creatures known as the Good People or the Fair Folk are actually the descendants of the Celtic gods of pre-Christian Ireland. The Tuatha de Danaan, or children of the goddess Dana, were forced underground once the humans took to Christianity.

The fun part of this magical race is that they see themselves as highly superior and when the mood strikes they will go to great lengths to cause trouble for humans.

Whether you like stories with sweet flower fairies or you prefer the dark and disturbing side of the Fae, it's easy to see why fairy tales remain so popular, even amongst thirty something's: they offer us a chance to leave the ordinary behind and play pretend while we're lost in their pages.

Today's guest post comes from author Jaclyn Dolamore (Magic Under Glass, Between the Sea and Sky). When I (Misty speaking, here) contacted her about being involved in FTF and possibly doing a pos
t on the behind the scenes stuff for Between the Sea and Sky (research loving dork that I am), I was understandably geeked when she agreed. And then she hit me with this awesomeness. Hope you love it as much as I do; if you do, make sure to leave her some comment love! And when you're done with this one, make sure to check out our interview and swagness! :)

My first novel, Magic Under Glass, involves fairies, but in many ways they are closer to a view of elves than fairies--forest-dwelling people with a connection to the earth. After all, there were already so many YA novels that involve fairy lore and do it better than I ever could. However, when I began my next novel, Between the Sea and Sky, and I knew it would be about a mermaid--Esmerine--and a winged boy--Alan, I had to consider, once again, how much I wanted to draw from myths and fairy tales. There aren't nearly as many mermaid stories (especially when I started writing it... little did I know that 2011 would be the year of the mermaid!) so I wanted to adhere closer to traditional tales in shaping my world.

One of the most common elements of mermaid (and selkie) tales is the idea of an object that can be stolen to entrap the mermaid. Selkies usually shed their pelt, but mermaids carry caps, belts, capes, combs... A human man can steal them and the mermaid will have to come home with him and marry him. Usually they have children, but one day the man leaves the object somewhere where the mermaid can get at it and she steals it back and leaves him and her children forever.

Fairy tales, when turned into actual novels with messy human emotions and details and explanations, tend to beg some questions. My first question was, how on earth did these mermaids end up with this enchanted object a man could use to enslave them? Were they BORN with a magical object? Not likely, right? They must have created it at some point, but why would you create something that, in essence, held your freedom? And why were these mermaids always hanging out where men could steal their stuff, then?

This led me to the idea that the mermaid's belt (in my story, it's a belt) is an object of great magic, and the reason why is that a mermaid sings magical songs to fill it with power that lingers even after she has died. I figured that not ALL mermaids would have these belts. It didn't seem logical for a sustainable society! Only certain mermaids--the sirens, whose songs lure human men. And the reason their songs lure human men is because the sirens are, themselves, lured to the land and its people. After all, mermaids are half-human, so it makes sense they would be not entirely creatures of the sea. Interesting tidbit: the original mythological sirens actually had wings, and somewhere along the line mermaids took up the job, mythologically speaking. I bet there could be a story in that, too...

But back to mermaid fairy tales. The most famous one is still The Little Mermaid, and the original Hans Christian Andersen tale, like nearly ALL Hans Christian Andersen tales, is quite sad. The Little Mermaid is able to take on a human form, but only by giving up her voice and having every step feel like knives. I liked the idea of my mermaids having to sacrifice something to take on a human form, so I paid a little homage to this story too. The mermaids in my story can only walk with great pain, unless they give up their belt. Otherwise, their world is not nearly so depressing, I'll say that!

I was beginning to see my underwater society take shape from thinking about mythology, but the winged folk were really open for interpretation. Besides angels, which these people are not, there isn't much precedent for mythological winged folk. I wanted Alan's wings to work as logically as possible, so I didn't want him to look angelic--instead, his structure is more bat-like, with wings instead of, rather than in addition to, arms. He still couldn't really fly without a little magical help, but at least he could glide. But it also means the winged folk kind of have to sacrifice hands for wings. They do have a thumb and index finger and longer toes capable of grasping things, but I imagined these delicate flying people would have to make more use of tools and machines to be able to do various types of manual labor as effectively as humans.

In astrology, coincidentally, the air element represents the mind and intellect. I had written about a winged race some years before and they were very primitive and lived in mountain caves, but I wondered if maybe I should take these winged folk in the opposite direction--they pride themselves on scholarly attributes. And it makes sense, because they would be able to move and share ideas faster between cities and countries than any other people. Their world is about the equivalent of our 1800 and the more I thought about it the more wondrous it seemed to have wings back then, when even the train wasn't invented and roads were often terrible.

Now, I hope my readers will enjoy reading about these cultures as much as I enjoyed figuring them out!

Jaclyn Dolamore is the author of Magic Under Glass, and the upcoming companion, Between the Sea and Sky. You can find her online here:

Blog | Goodreads | Twitter | Website

We have something fun for you today. Right now on both The Book Rat and Books from Bleh to Basically Amazing, we're hosting 2 super cute guest posts (you can see mine below) and 2 Prize Packs to go along with them.
Alanna from The Flashlight Reader wanted to be involved in FTF, and wanted to get her students involved (which I was so on board with!), so she decided to have them do acrostic poems for Fairy Tale Fortnight, and I have 1 to share with you!
Check it out:

Forgotten by her stepmother
And evil stepsisters
Impossible, never ending chores
Resigned to be a slave, but
Yearning to be free

Today brings change with
A magical wand
Love at first sight while
Enchanted dancers
Swirl in to the night

To add to the awesome, she decided to sponsor a giveaway as well (well, 2 ---> the other one is on Misty's blog, along with another great acrostic!)

***GIVEAWAY***

1 lucky winner will get a fabulous prize pack of children's books, which includes:

1 copy of Swan Lake with an audio CD 1 copy of Sleeping Beauty 1 copy of Petite Rouge: A Cajun Little Red Riding Hood 1 copy of The Emperor's Kite by Jane Yolen + SURPRIZES!

To enter: Leave a comment with a way to contact you, and leave some love for Alanna and her students OR tell us why you want to win.
+1 for spreading the word
US/CAN only
Ends May 5th May 8th!

Today's guest post comes from Titania who blogs at Fishmuffins of Doom. She also wrote a guest post on Misty's blog that includes a giveaway! Make sure you read her thoughts on her favorite dark fairy tales!

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Fairy tales are adapted into films all the time. The most famous of these are the Disney films that eventually eclipsed the original tales they were adapted from in the minds of most of society. Here are a few reimaginings of fairy tales in film that don’t tell the story word for word, but tell it in a way that is completely unique from what has been seen before. Here are a few of my favorites:

Hard Candy

Hard Candy is the story of 14 year old Hayley who meets Jeff, an adult photographer, at a coffee shop after they have been chatting online for a while. They go back to Jeff’s apartment and drink screwdrivers. You think you know exactly where this is going to go, but you are terribly wrong. Jeff passes out as the result of a spiked drink and spends most of the movie tied up and tortured, physically and mentally. Hayley is like an avenging angel for every girl who was abused or raped. She is convinced that Jeff is a pedophile and possibly involved in the rape and murder of a local girl and is willing to do what it takes to make him confess. Throughout the course of the film, I switched sides so many times. It’s difficult to say through most of the film if Hayley is psychopath or a justified avenger and if Jeff is just a normal guy or a guilty pedophile. This is not an obvious adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood. It’s not an easy thing to identify the true Big Bad Wolf like in so many other retellings. This film is both brilliant and manipulative. Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson deliver flawless, realistic, and alternately sympathetic and alienating performances. Highly recommended.

The Red Shoes

The Red Shoes is a Korean horror film that tells the story of Sun-Jae, a woman who leaves her husband after discovering his infidelity. Her daughter was spoiled by her husband and only cares about him. Her friends are rude and blunt without any concern for her feelings. One day on the subway, she finds a pair of beautiful pink shoes and takes them home. She feels better when she wears them, but notices that other women seem to covet them, even her young daughter who steals them from her. Her rude and inconsiderate friend attacks the girl and takes them for herself before being killed in a most horrific way. These shoes seem to be followed by violence and death and Sun-Jae needs to figure out how to save her daughter and herself before it’s too late. The Red Shoes is a gruesome fairy tale on its own about greed, vanity, and dancing severed feet. This K-horror film adapts it beautifully, even acknowledging the 1948 film of the same title by including a ballet subplot. The film is even gorier than the tale and features an atmospheric creepiness as well as in your face blood and gore. As a whole, it’s suspenseful and tells a semi-ghost story and semi-murder mystery. The ending is a bit convoluted, but as a whole it was creepily enjoyable. I would also recommend other K-horror fairy tale adaptations for those interested, such as Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel.

Black Swan

The ballet Swan Lake is based on a variety of folk tales from Germany and Russia and tells the story of Princess Odette’s tragic love story that usually ends in her or her love’s death. (There are several alternate endings to the ballet.) Black Swan is the story of Nina Sayers, an ambitious ballerina obsessed with perfection. Her dream role is to play the Swan Queen in Swan Lake, but is seen to have not enough passion or emotion to do the role. She is finally given the role after convincing the director of her potential. What follows is her descent into madness as she struggles to prepare for her dual role as the White Swan and the Black Swan. She experiences hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia. In a twisted way, her story reflects that of the ballet. Nina at first is Odette: innocent, naïve, and fearful. Thomas, the director at first embodies the Prince, but later is more like the Sorcerer. Odile, the Sorcerer’s evil daughter, is Lily, Nina’s ballet rival. They look alike, as in the ballet, but Lily primarily wears black, while Nina wears white. Lily is also mostly ruled by emotion and is more impulsive, which is true of Odile. As she becomes increasingly paranoid, she suspects Lily of deception and trying to take her role as Swan Queen, much like Odile tries to steal Odette’s love away. It’s an interesting modern interpretation of the original ballet with a psychological twist and it’s just a great film. Everyone acts exceptionally well, especially Natalie Portman as intense and driven Nina Sayers. The soundtrack is absolutely beautiful and complements the film well. Every aspect of the film works in harmony and is something truly exceptional.

Hello fairy-tale lovers! I’m back! Did you miss me? As a reminder, I’m Enna Isilee from Squeaky Books. I posted a guest post on “How Fairy Tales Changed My Life” last Friday on Misty’s blog, and now I’m here on Ashley’s blog to give you some recommendations and a giveaway!

I’ve compiled a list of fourteen (one for every day of the fortnight!) of my favorite fairy-tale retellings. Many of these have already been featured during Fairy Tale Fortnight, but I steered away from the well-known fairy tales (Beauty, Ella Enchanted etc.) on the chance that you some of these are new to you. Check out the end of the post for a giveaway!

Plain Kate Erin Bow (My Review | Goodreads | Amazon)
My thoughts: This book is not technically a twisted fairy tale, but I included it in this list because it reads like one. It’s light and fluffy, while still being deep and touching. While reading this book I laughed and I cried. It’s beautiful.

Entwined Heather Dixon (My Review | Goodreads | Amazon)
My thoughts: This one only just barely came out. It’s a retelling of the twelve dancing princesses and I love it because it does stick very closely to the original tale, while being completely unique. This story has a strong heroine, a dastardly villain, and the cutest love story ever. Fabulous.

Ice Sarah Beth Durst (My Review | Goodreads | Amazon)
My thoughts: There are lots of retellings of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” but this is my favorite one that I’ve found. Sarah has written a number of fairy-tale books, and I think this is my favorite. It follows the typical fairy-tale arc, but manages to keep you on your toes for the entire book.

Shadow Spinner Susan Fletcher (Goodreads | Amazon)
My thoughts: Based off the story of Scheherazade, this was one of the first twisted fairy tales I ever read. Susan has an AMAZING ability to tell a story. This book has a special place in my heart, as my mom read it aloud to me when I was a child, and I still have memories of me begging her to read just “one more chapter.”

Mira, Mirror Mette Ivie Harrison (My Review | Goodreads)
My thoughts: I included this book in the list because it’s so different. It takes its inspiration from Snow White, but is told from the perspective of the mirror, and the person trapped inside. Many people don’t like this book because of its odd format, and not-so-happy ending, but I found it powerful.

Keturah and Lord Death Martine Leavitt (My Review | Goodreads | Amazon)
My thoughts: This is also not based directly off a fairy-tale, I suppose it is a little like Scheherazade. This is a beautiful love story about an amazing girl and time period. I read this book years ago, and I still find snatches of its prose popping into my mind from time to time.

Wildwood Dancing Juliet Marillier (My Review | Goodreads | Amazon)
My thoughts: Honestly, all I can say about this book is that it’s brilliant! If you haven’t read it, do so now. It’s also based on the twelve dancing princesses, but only loosely. It’s more like a wild conglomeration of many tales.

The Swan Kingdom Zoe Marriott (My Review | Goodreads | Amazon)
My thoughts: I only just read this book a couple weeks ago and I absolutely ADORED it. It’s a retelling of “Wild Swans,” the only one I’ve read, in fact. By the time I reached the end of this book I was gasping, crying, and laughing aloud. Fabulous.

The Swan Maiden Heather Tomlinson (My Review | Goodreads | Amazon)
My thoughts: This was one of the first books I received for review. I loved it because it isn’t directly based off any tale (that I know of), but feels like it is. My absolute favorite part of this book is the French influences like that. There are lots of tales from Ireland, Eastern Europe, and such, but I’ve never read a French tale before. So nice.

Toads and Diamonds Heather Tomlinson (My Review | Goodreads | Amazon)
My thoughts: This was another recent read of mine. It’s based off the tale of the two sisters: one who speaks diamonds, one who speaks snakes. The author makes this tale so fascinating and original because both sisters see their “gifts” as a blessing, and strive to find out why they’ve been given their powers. It also is based in an Indian-like culture (as in India) which added some fabulous flavor. Only complaint about this one was that it was too short.

Dust City Robert Paul Weston (My Review | Goodreads | Amazon)
My thoughts: This book is so unique! It takes all the classic fairy tales you’ve ever read, and throws it into a New York setting. Ever wondered what the world would be like if there really were talking animals, fairies, and magic? Then what would happen if the magic went away? This book addresses all of those ideas in a very witty way.

Rapunzel’s Revenge Shannon Hale (My Review | Goodreads | Amazon)
My thoughts: I would be remiss if I didn’t throw in some Shannon Hale books. Rapunzel’s Revenge is a HI-larious take on the classic Rapunzel. Shannon wrote this book because she thought the tale was overtold, and I’m so glad! In this, Rapunzel is a kick-butt, lasso wielding, rockstar! This is a graphic novel, and is great for readers young and old!

The Goose Girl Shannon Hale (Goodreads | Amazon)
My thoughts: I mentioned in my guest post on Misty’s Blog that this was the book that sparked my voracious love of the twisted fairy tale genre, and it’s true. This book is full of beautiful prose, unforgettable characters, and one of the best plots I’ve ever read in my entire life. If you haven’t read this book yet, I BEG you to please go find a copy. Please.

Book of a Thousand Days Shannon Hale (My Review | Goodreads | Amazon)
My thoughts: I’m going to end with my favorite. And I’m serious when I say that. Most of you probably couldn’t name your favorite book of all time, I can. This is it. This was the first ARC I ever received, and it is my favorite book of all time. Have I mentioned that? It’s touching, heartwarming, beautiful, amazing, lyrical, and every other positive adjective you can think of. Khan Tegus (the love interest in this book) has ruined all real men for me. It’s the world’s most perfect book.

What do you think? Have you read any of these? Would you like a chance to win one? Well, I like to consider myself TFT evangelist, and so I want to share these books with you! I’m going to give two people their choice of any book on this list! Unfortunately, my current financial situation and privacy limitations prevent me from shipping internationally, so this is only open to the US. But to two commenters I will give their choice of any of these fourteen books in any format you’d like (hardcover or paperback, availability permitting).

GIVEAWAY INFORMATION:

• Win your choice of any one of these fourteen books
• Giveaway runs 4/25-5/5 May 8!
• TWO winners will be chosen
• Must be 13yo or older
• Must have US shipping address

• Leave a comment with which book you’d want to win in order to be entered
• Be sure to include your e-mail so I can contact you if you win! Or you just need to keep a careful eye out for the winner announcement.
• Get an extra entry by naming another of your favorite YA twisted fairy tale that wasn’t listed

This evening, we have Ems guesting today! Emily (Ems) blogs at In Which Ems Reviews Books and I've known her for a long time. She's one of my favorite IRL buds to talk books with, and whenever books are involved, we always have a great time.:) I'll let Emily take it from here with her review of Princess of Glass by Jessica Day George.

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For those of you who read Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George, you’ll remember Princess Poppy. She was one of the sisters under the enchantment of the wicked King Under Stone (shudders).

Poppy makes a return appearance here, when she participates in a royal exchange program. The idea of the program is to create strong political alliances and possibly see some marriages too. It’s all going well, until we learn that a poor servant girl has been tricked by a wicked fairy godmother into impersonating a princess and trying to steal all the eligible men away from Poppy. The lengths she goes to in order to best Poppy are awesome. I couldn’t wait for each new ball to see what was going to happen next.

For lovers of fairy tales and fairy tale retellings, you’ll be in heaven. This one is masterfully done and seamlessly weaves elements of Cinderella in. You’ll get your fill of beautiful ball gowns, political and princess-y intrigue, fairy godmothers, and one rather plucky heroine.

I loved Poppy. She was one of my favorite characters in Princess of the Midnight Ball and I was thrilled to see her make a repeat appearance here. She’s the kind of heroine you can really get behind and cheer for. The gal who makes her own way in life, even though she’s a princess. The gal who takes matters into her own hands and doesn’t wait for someone else to do the dirty work. She’s a character who’s really easy to look up to.

LOVE.

I could go on and on about how much I love this book (and Jessica Day George’s other books too, for that matter), but I think you get the picture.

Just go read the book, okay?

This morning's guest is Jayme from Horribly Bookish. Jayme has an awesome post prepared for us today, one that brings back fond memories of my childhood and adds a lot of fun picture books to my need to read fairy tale pile.

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I spent the better part of my college years working at a book lover’s dream job... I was a circulation clerk at my local library.
I swooned over new arrivals, created book lists I will never be able to finish, talked shop with other bookies and discovered a genre that I had completely missed out on as a child.
The Fractured Fairytale.
I had read fairytales, of course. But they were your normal, run-of-the-mill fairytales. Most were adapted from the Grimm Brothers or Hans Christian Andersen for the young reader. But at the library I discovered a slew of stories, made up of familiar characters or setting but just not quite right;)
Rapunzel, A Groovy Tale by Lynn and David Roberts

In which our heroine lives in the sixties and is swept off her feet by the grooviest guy of all.
Sleeping Bobby by Mary Pope Osborne and Will Osborne

After waiting years to have child, the king and queen are finally blessed with a son which they regally named Bob. But when a wicked wise woman places a curse on him, its up to a princess to save the day.
Prince Cinders by Babette Cole

Prince Cinders isn’t hairy and big like his prince brothers so they make him clean and cook for them. On the eve of the Rock ‘n Royal Bash, however, a fairy godmother turns him a big and hairy... gorilla! How is he going to find his happy ending?
Grandma Chickenlegs by Geraldine MCCaughrean

A take on the stories of Baba Yaga and Cinderella, a young girl named Tatia is made to clean and cook all day long by her evil stepmother. When a needle is need for sewing, Tatia’s stepmother sends her into the clutches of Grandma Chickenlegs. She must find a way out or become Grandma Chickenlegs’s next meal.
Rumpelstiltskin’s Daughter by Diane Stanley

Tired of the king’s demands, the miller’s daughter ran off with Rumpelstiltskin and lived happily ever after. They had one child who found herself in the same predicament her mother had. But the clever girl comes up with a plan to keep her head and help the kingdom. Will the king ever learn?
Lovely fairy tales turned into silly, topsy turvy stories. If you get a chance pick up a few of these great books. They're fun and crazy and remind me of a time when life was a lot simpler:)

This awesome interview comes to us courtesy of Bonnie from A Backwards Story. We've already mentioned Bonnie and the sphere of awesome she inhabits — she's really gotten on board with Fairy Tale Fortnight, and on top of posting scads of awesome reviews on her blog during the event, she's also sending some pretty terrific content our way, to share with you.
For today's post, Bonnie sat down to talk with Heather Dixon, author of the debut fairy tale Entwined, based on Misty's childhood favorite, The 12 Dancing Princesses.
(Yay!)

Heather Dixon’s debut novel, Entwined, is a re-telling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. The novel is lush and fleshes out the classic tale in a beautiful, descriptive fashion. For a review of Entwined, please visit A Backwards Story or Books From Bleh to Basically Amazing

Heather was kind enough to not only sit down and take the time to answer some questions, but scrounge up some awesome Disney trivia for everyone! Thanks so much, Heather!

1) What were your favorite fairy tales growing up? What drew you to them?
I really loved Disney’s Cinderella, and, of course, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, for the same reason: the visual aspect! I loved watching Cinderella’s rags transform into a beautiful dress, and I loved going through The Twelve Dancing Princesses picture books and seeing all of their dresses, and the sparkling forests. Call me shallow…I like pictures.

2) Was it hard coming up with your own spin on The Twelve Dancing Princesses when you began world-building for Entwined? How did you bring everything together?
The early-early drafts of Entwined were horrendous. It was much closer to the original Grimm fairy tale, took place in the medieval time period, and there was a lot to do with witches and blood magic. But it was so dark; I didn’t enjoy how I felt when I worked on it. It wasn’t until I established the theme of the story—forgiveness between the princesses and their father—that it started to take off. The Victorian time period, with its rules and mourning, was the perfect backdrop. Not to mention the dancing with waltzes and balls, and the courtships! Like magic, everything unfolded after that.

3) What are some of your favorite fairy tale inspired novels and/or authors?
I like all of them, from Ella Enchanted to Beauty! My favorite though is Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt. It is a beautiful story with so much depth.

4) If you could live out any fairy tale, what would it be and why?
Yikes, I don’t know if I’d want to live one out. They’re all kind of Grimm. (Ber-dum ching!) I wouldn’t say no to Sleeping Beauty. She has a pretty cushy life and gets to sleep for 100 years. I could handle that.

5) Will you be writing any more fairy tale novels? Can you tell us anything about your upcoming work?
Right now I don’t have any fairy tales in the novel pipeline, but I can see myself doing a princess comic or picture book, or a long rhyming fairy tale. (A fun one: a retelling of Undine, but with the princess trapped in reflections rather than water.) I’d also love to do a novel of The Nutcracker or Candyland.

6) What’s your favorite Disney rendition of a fairy tale? What makes it so special?
I love all the Disney fairy tales. They do a tremendous job with their adaptations. I feel a real kinship with Disney’s Sleeping Beauty though because of the spectacular art. The beautiful Eyvind Earle backgrounds/art direction and the Tom Oreb character designs are so inspiring. I find it very touching.

And, because I'm a sucker for animation, here are a couple of tasties about Disney's fairy tales:

-Disney's Cinderella is based off of the Charles Perrault version, not the Brother's Grimm (Nearly all the versions of Cinderella I know of have been based off of Perrault's).
[Misty says: That's because Perrault is awesomesauce. Hands down fave.]

-The backgrounds in Disney's Snow White are muted and soft because the artists were unsure people could handle brighter colors in a feature-length film.

-Disney's new movie, Tangled, was originally meant to have a rococo look, but when the project switched direction, the makers chose Disney's Cinderella and Disneyland's Fantasyland (!) as inspiration for their new look.

-Some little-known fairy-tale adaptations Disney has done: The Tin Soldier (from Fantasia 2000) and The Little Match Girl (a short at the beginning of The Little Mermais’s re-release). They've also been working (off and on) with Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen.

-The tall, vertical trees and square bushes in Disney's Sleeping Beauty were based off of medieval tapestries.

-Right now Pixar is working on Brave, a fairy-tale story about a girl archer.

-Disney's Cinderella takes place in the late Victorian era.

With us today, we have Mette Ivie Harrison, author of The Princess and the Hound, The Princess and the Bear, The Princess and the Snowbird, Mira, Mirror and the upcoming Tris and Izzie. Her bio tells us that her name, Mette is Danish and when spoken, rhymes with 'Betty'. She currently lives in Utah with her husband and five children. And, she tells us 'I write during nap time, or at 4 in the morning, or while the broccoli for dinner is burning. Whenever Ig et a chance. I love to write the kind of books that I love to read. And I love to discover what it going to happen next, just like a reader would.' As if being a writer isn't enough, she also participates in triathlons.

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I wrote the first draft of The Princess and the Hound in 1997, and in that version, it was a retelling of the story of The Princess and the Pea. Doesn’t sound likely, does it? What happened as I was writing the first scene, in which the bedraggled princess knocks on the door of the castle to escape from a rainstorm, was that she came in with this hound. This big, black hound whom she would not let anyone take away from her. It was obvious they were very close, that their relationship was not like any other hound and girl. And Prince George, who told the story from the first, could not stop thinking about this princess and this hound. He had to find out the mystery behind their relationship.

So, it was a mystery and a romance from the beginning, and it was based on a fairy tale. But as I rewrote it many, many times over the next eight years before it was accepted for publication, it took on its current hints of Beauty and the Beast. In fact, I thought of it as a new fairy tale, a story that would make the reader sure that this was a fairy tale she had missed reading from the original Grimm’s collections, but in fact was my own invention. It wasn’t until my editor pointed out the hidden Beauty and the Beast that I realized she was right. There are many fairy tales based on Beauty and the Beast, however, and it is only if you look for it that you will see that as a backstory.

Some readers have complained that The Princess and the Hound isn’t a retelling at all. Well, it’s not like any other retelling you’ve probably ever read. I think my brain is just twisty this way, and as soon as I hear a story, I start thinking of the way I would tell it, and by the time I actually tell it well enough that it could be published, it doesn’t look very much like the original. I got some of the same complaints from readers of Mira, Mirror. If you want a retelling of Snow White, you might not be happy with Mira, Mirror, because Snow White appears in one sentence and then disappears. It’s the story of the mirror and the evil queen before Snow White and after. It’s my own story, one only I could tell.

I remember an experience at a writing conference I went to in 2010. Candace Fleming was there and she was teaching a section on writing historical non-fiction. She had just finished writing The Lincolns, a wonderful biography of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, and she told us about a bit of historical fact. Mary Todd had been stopped by a night watchman while running by the streets of Atlanta in the wee hours of the morning. The night watchman thought she would only be running toward an elopement, but in fact, she was going to an early morning poetry class, held at that hour so that the oppressive heat of the summer did not bother the students. We were supposed to work on telling only the facts of the story, adding in no details we could not verify. This was something I could not do. Really. I just wanted to go off in all directions on my own. In fact, I started working on a novel called The Asylum after this workshop, using the idea of a girl sent to an insane asylum (as Mary Todd Lincoln was sent by her own son after Abraham’s assassination) for no reason other than that she would not do as she was told.

Tris and Izzie, which will be out in the fall with Egmont, is a project I have been thinking about for a long time, as well. I studied German Literature in college and have a PhD in it. I read Tristan and Isolde in the original middle high German in grad school, and also listened to Wagner’s opera of it. It’s one of the greatest love stories of all time, but it’s also very frustrating to me. It doesn’t have very modern sensibilities about women, and I object to the adultery scheme. Plus the ending is wretched, not romantic at all. And I hate love triangles. So why in the world would I choose to do a retelling of that story? Well, the challenge of it always gets me excited. I feel like I tend to retell fairy tales I hate more often than ones that I like, because I want to fix them. Tris and Izzie is my “fixed” version of the original. I get to play with a love triangle, but in a way that I don’t find objectionable.

I often find that when I read a standard romance with a love triangle, I want to smack all three characters around. What are those two hot guys doing, waiting around to be chosen? They need to get a life, both of them, and dump her. Plus, what is her problem? Doesn’t she know she can’t hold guys on a string like that? If she seriously can’t choose, then she’s too stupid and young to have a romance right now anyway and she should go to an all girls’ school until she grows up. So, in my version of the love triangle, you can imagine things are a little different. I don’t want to give it all away, but I hope readers like my modern take.

Tris and Izzie is also the first time I’ve had a chance to try out a humorous slant on a retelling. It’s not slapstick funny, but Izzie tells the story and she has an ironic twang to her depiction of events that I think works well. There’s lots of action and big save the world stuff going on, but she can also make fun of herself and what’s going on at the same time. It may not feel like it’s as serious a love story or a meditation on life as The Princess and the Hound, but there’s some serious stuff hidden in there, too. I mention how I feel about love triangles, about girls who can’t choose who they love, and about girls who are fighting over the same guy. Also, what secrets do to relationships. And what has happened to our scientific world in which we have no sense of magic anymore. Those are some of the big themes that I think are touched on, while the readers are having a good time reading.

I've got a new website up: www.trisandizzie. com which I’m trying to promote. There is a “Dear Izzie” vlog there, where “Izzie” answers questions for the romantically and magically challenged. So I will give a free book away to the best question posted here in comments, with the understanding that all questions can be used on my blog. Hope you have fun!

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What a wonderful post Mette! It was awesome hearing more of the story behind the book. And Tris and Izzie looks amazing! Can't wait to read it!! Isn't that cover gorgeous?!

Alright everyone! You heard her! Go to www.trisandizzie. com and come up with some questions for Izzie for your chance to win a copy of The Princess and the Hound!

Be sure to leave your questions in the comments section of this post!!
Contest ends May 5th. May 8th!

Today our guest is Bonnie! Bonnie has been an amazing addition to Fairy Tale Fortnight! She contacted me, asking how she could be involved and managed to add seven (yes, seven) additional authors to our line-up. Those interviews will be coming up later in the event, and we'll give Bonnie another shout out with each of them, because she's pretty much awesome! In discussion with Bonnie about favorite fairy tales and retellings and Bonnie and I have decided that we are Fairy Tale Soul Twins. So now, I will let Bonnie introduce herself and then get to her awesome post! ~*~
Bonnie Lynn Wagner is currently hard at work on her own fairy tale novel, which she hopes to start querying later this year. She runs A Backwards Story, a book blog that focuses on reviews and design. Reviews for all of the aforementioned novels can be found here, as well as other retellings every day for the duration of Fairy Tale Fortnight. She is a life-long fan of fairy tales and would love nothing more than to wake up one morning and find herself living in one.
When most people think about fairy tales, they envision a magical realm brimming with triumph, valor, and true love. Who doesn’t love reading about the heroes and heroines destined to embark on virtuous quests or struggling to break free from a dangerous curse? There are so many repetitious elements linking such tales together that I’ve come to savor the flip side of the story no one ever thinks twice about. While I love the traditional classics we all grew up with, these days, I’m more interested in the unexpected. I don’t know if there’s an official name for this, but I tend to call the sub-genre “fractured fairy tales.” The current fairy tale novels I most enjoy are ones with unique takes on the stories we all know and love.

HEART’S BLOOD by Juliet Marillier (read my review here)

This was one of the best books I read last year. It’s also become one of my all-time favorite fairy tale renditions because it’s beautiful and well-developed. I think I like this version of Beauty and the Beast even more than the famous Robin McKinley rendition that was a staple in my Favorite Novels Collection for years. Blasphemy, I know, but true. I love the fact that Heart's Blood is grounded in “our” world and entwined with Celtic lore and the arrival of the Normans. This could have actually happened, for the most part. The “beast” wasn’t a human transformed into a frightening creature. No, this time around, he’s an Irish Chieftain who suffered from a terrible palsy (a stroke) as a child, causing him to be partly-paralyzed with lopsided features. He takes the heroine in as a hired scribe when she seeks shelter as a terrified runaway. Even the “curse” is something that could have possibly happened long ago (in some worlds, at least) and has nothing to do with bringing “Beauty” and “Beast” together.

MERMAID by Carolyn Turgeon (read my review)

This is one of my favorite books so far this year. When I saw it at the bookstore a few weeks ago, I was lured in by the unique way the novel retold The Little Mermaid. The point of view flips back and forth from the mermaid to the princess that the prince ultimately marries. I’d never seen a version from the princess’ perspective before and was stunned. On top of that, the descriptions were beautiful, especially while in the mermaid’s realm. I loved the book so much that I quickly purchased Turgeon’s other novels, Godmother and Rain Village (which is loosely based on Thumbelina, another tale seldom re-envisioned). Godmother reminds me a lot of The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey. Both novels deal with the life of a fairy godmother. How often do we think about these women outside of their traditional roles?

GODMOTHER by Carolyn Turgeon (read my review here) and THE FAIRY GODMOTHER by Mercedes Lackey

In Godmother, our heroine falls in love with Cinderella’s prince and is banished to our mortal world, an outcast for depriving her charge of a happily ever after. The novel is one of the darkest fairy tale renditions I’ve read. The way everything comes together really leaves you thinking. I also love the fact that Turgeon wove the true historical account of the Cottingley Fairies into the tale. The Fairy Godmother, on the other hand, is a lot more uplifting. I was enamored with the way Mercedes created The Tradition, which forces people into fairy tale roles at the expense of everything else. Sometimes, the magic goes wrong. If you’re put onto the Cinderella path because you have a stepmother and stepsisters, you might wind up with a prince much younger or older... or he might die before he can marry. If a person doesn’t fulfill his or her happily ever after, there’s a bad build-up of magic that accumulates around them. Our main character is one such person. Rather than give up her magic when her happily ever after doesn't pan out, she chooses to become a fairy godmother and help others. She becomes such a strong person that she breaks from Tradition and creates her own tale.

THE SEVENFOLD SPELL by Tia Nevitt (my review here)

Just this past week, I read this unique self-published e-book. It really challenged the way I think about fairy tales. What compelled me to download this to my nook was that it’s told from the POV of a village girl. We always hear about the heroes/heroines, or even the villains of a fairy tale. How often do we hear about how their happily ever afters effect the rest of the kingdom? This novella takes place in the world of Sleeping Beauty. It’s about a girl and her mother, two spinners whose spinning wheel is taken away. Having lost their sole source of income, the heroine is forced to dip into what little dowry she had. Now, she has no chance of marriage and must look at unsavory methods of work in order to make a living. Her life is completely destroyed by the curse placed on the princess. At the same time, Nevitt introduces a new twist on the original christening ceremony, one where a Sevenfold Spell is created specifically for the newborn princess. When one of the seven fairies is unable to lay down the final part of the spell in order to reduce the curse’s severity, it results in something unexpected that hinders the princess throughout her life.

There will always be an author who is able to look at things we didn’t notice when reading our favorite tales, pull it out, and create something fresh and exciting. I already have two shelves brimming with renditions; this is one of my favorite genres to curl up with. With all the movies and novels coming out in our genre over the next couple of years, I’m optimistic that I’ll soon have new favorites to discover and add to my bookcase.

What about you? What are some of your favorite alternative fairy tales, new and old alike?

Our current guest is Mel U from The Reading Life. Mel has an awesome post for us today about two of Oscar Wilde's fairy tales. I hope you enjoy the reading. I know it did.

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"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." — Albert Einstein
Fairy tales and their cousins the fable and parable are the sources of much wisdom. They evolved in time into the novel and the short story. They have been around probably longer than the written word. They came before Homer and the great Indian Epics. I was very happy to see the announcement for Fairy Tale Fortnight and decided I would do a post on two of my favorite Oscar Wilde fairy tales.

"The Selfish Giant" by Oscar Wilde (5 pages, 1888)

Oscar Wilde (1854 to 1900-Dublin, Ireland) is the author of Portrait of Dorian Gray (1890) read and loved to this day by readers all over the world. I loved it many years ago when I read it for the first time for the many epigrams that seem to defy the conventional too adult world. Like many people, I wished I could come up with remarks like those spoken in The Portrait of Dorian Gray or even to know someone who could. It is also a great study of the corruption and hypocrisy of late Victorian English high society.

Wilde also wrote and published a number of short stories done in the style of a classic fairy tales. Among the more famous is "The Selfish Giant". As the story begins the giant is returning from a long trip and is not happy when he sees the beautiful gardens surrounding his castle have become the play ground for local children.

One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend the Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After the seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his conversation was limited, and he determined to return to his own castle. When he arrived he saw the children playing in the garden.
"What are you doing here?" he cried in a very gruff voice, and the children ran away.
"My own garden is my own garden," said the Giant; "any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself." So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board.

TRESPASSERS
WILL BE

PROSECUTED

When the spring returns next year there are flowers, and birds and happy scenes in all of the gardens but that of the selfish giant. It is still winter in his garden. Wilde's prose is simple and echoes masterfully the rhythm of simple fairy tales.

'I cannot understand why the Spring is so late in coming,' said the Selfish Giant, as he sat at the window and looked out at his cold white garden; 'I hope there will be a change in the weather.'
But the Spring never came, nor the Summer. The Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, but to the Giant's garden she gave none. 'He is too selfish,' she said. So it was always Winter there, and the North Wind, and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees.

Here is a simply perfect description of winter:

He did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that it was merely the Spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting.

If you like, The Portrait of Dorian Gray I think you will like this simple story. It is also an easy way to sample Wilde's style. I read it on line here and I enjoyed seeing the original illustrations by Charles Robinson that were published with the story. It appears all of Wilde can be read on line. This story can be read in just a very few minutes and it is well worth your time, I think.

"The Happy Prince" by Oscar Wilde (1888, 7 pages)

As "The Happy Prince" opens we are given a description of a statue that has sort of become the symbol of the town.

High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt.

"When I was alive and had a human heart," answered the statue, "I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans — Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot chose but weep.

I read it on line here and I really liked the inclusion of the original pastel illustrations.

Today's guest post comes to us from Kristin of My Bookish Ways. She has a great mini-review of Ash by Malinda Lo as well as a chance to win a copy!

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Oh, how to describe this beautiful novel? Yes, it is a "retelling" of Cinderella, however, Malinda Lo took me into a world that I've never experienced with such feeling. Her prose is stunning, and she creates a melancholy that's just perfect for curling up with on a rainy day. We follow Ash as she experiences the utter grief of her father's death, as she is thrust into the hands of her vindictive and hateful stepmother, and as she meets the Faery Prince Sidhean, and the mysterious and enchanting Kaisa, the King's Huntress. Ultimately this is a novel of love and sacrifice, and as we journey through ancient forests, heavy with ancient and powerful magic, we are taught what it really means to follow your heart. This is a love story that shouldn't be missed! Keep an eye out for Ms. Lo's new novel, Huntress , coming in April!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ GIVEAWAY Details:
Open Internationally Must be at least 13 to enter Ends May 5th May 8th! To enter:
Leave me a comment about why you want to read or own Ash. Include your email. If I can't contact you, we can't get you your prize.
Be sure to stop by Kristin's blog, My Bookish Ways and thank her for an awesome giveaway!

Today our guest post comes from Jennifer, who blogs at Carbohydrates and Conjugations. This is a great post and I can't wait to hear your thoughts!!

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One of the earliest fairy tales I can remember is the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty. My parents took me to see it in theatres, and I watched repeatedly a VHS copy of it recorded from the Disney channel. That VHS tape got pretty worn down, and eventually Disney released Sleeping Beauty from the vault and I got an “official” copy. When DVDs became popular, I upgraded to the DVD. And this was the case for many other Disney movies: Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin... you get the picture.

Naturally I thought Sleeping Beauty was a beautiful love story, and couldn’t believe how lucky Briar Rose/Princess Aurora was to have found her True Love. She made it look so easy! First, you meet the man of your dreams. Then, you gaze into each other’s eyes and fall instantaneously in love. Tragically, someone tries to prevent your happiness (probably because for some reason their prince never came for them!), but in the end everything works out perfectly and there is a beautiful wedding.

Beauty and the Beast was the first Disney movie to give me an eye-opening experience. Belle was so different from Princess Aurora; she didn’t fall in love with the first man who proposed to her--in fact, she refused to settle! She was her own woman, unwilling to let any man dictate how she would live her life. And, at the age of 9, my perspective on fairy tales became drastically altered.

Please don’t get me wrong--I still love a good love story like Sleeping Beauty, where the heroine does absolutely nothing to warrant Mr. Right falling in love with her. Sometimes I even wish it were that easy. But it’s not. Little girls grow up with these expectations, and for some of us one day it just clicks. We are in charge of our own destinies; love is not something that can just be taken for granted.

One thing that most fairy tales never show us is what happens after Happily Ever After. In Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix, we are introduced to Ella, a girl who took charge and went to Prince Charming’s Ball just to spite the Step-Evils. Because she is the most beautiful girl in the village, Prince Charming will have no one but Ella. Now living in the palace, Ella has a hard time adapting to a life of luxury. Why should a maid stoke the flames for her when Ella has two perfectly good hands capable of doing the work for herself?

There aren’t any fairy godmothers, pumpkin carriages, or shape-shifting mice in Just Ella. She even pokes a bit of fun at the fairy tale when she says, “Why did everyone like that story so much when it wasn’t true? Why was everyone so eager to believe it? Was it because, in real life, ever after’s generally stink?” (p. 189) The lesson that Ella soon learns is that “happiness was like beauty--in the eye of the beholder”. (p. 218) Though Just Ella doesn’t end in your traditional Happily Ever After, it ends exactly the way Ella wants it to. And that’s satisfaction enough for me.

I will probably never stop loving traditional fairy tales, but every now and then I want a heroine that thinks for herself and creates her own happiness--with or without her Prince.

Thanks again Jennifer! I loved reading your thoughts!

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Jennifer has also been generous enough to offer a copy of the book she talks about Just Ella for one lucky reader. If you would like a chance to win Just Ella, fill out the form linked below!


Details:


Contest open Internationally, as long as The Book Depository ships to you.
Closes May 5th May 8th!
+1 for each way you follow Jennifer's blog-Carbohydrates and Conjugations (+2 for old followers)
(GFC, email subscriber, etc)
+1 for a MEANINGFUL comment on Jennifer's guest post.

The Uses of Enchantment
Bruno Bettelheim

Bruno Bettelheim was one of the great child psychologists of the twentieth century and perhaps none of his books has been more influential than this revelatory study of fairy tales and their universal importance in understanding childhood development.

Analyzing a wide range of traditional stories, from the tales of Sindbad to “The Three Little Pigs,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “The Sleeping Beauty,” Bettelheim shows how the fantastical, sometimes cruel, but always deeply significant narrative strands of the classic fairy tales can aid in our greatest human task, that of finding meaning for one’s life.

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Thanks to the lovely Edie @ Silence in the Library, we have a copy of The Uses of Enchantment to offer 1 lucky winner! (Thanks, Edie!) This book is a must for the truly fairy tale obsessed (yes, Misty has read it...) .
To enter, fill out the form below.
Please note, this giveaway is on The Book Rat and Books From Bleh to Basically Amazing — please only enter once; multiple entries will be deleted.
Ends May 5th May 8th!
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+1 for spreading the word

Today's first guest is Danya from A Tapestry of Words. She's got an awesome post prepared for us and I can't wait for the rest of you to read this amazing post! So, without taking anymore of your time, here's Danya.

When someone says the word “fairy tale” what’s the first thing that pops into your head? Cinderella’s glass slipper, perhaps. Beauty and the Beast twirling around a ballroom. Seven dwarves with seven distinct personalities. An ugly little man with a penchant for other people’s first-born children. But probably not…
A baby girl found inside a bamboo trunk.
A fox who can shapeshift into a beautiful woman.
A tea-kettle that’s really a raccoon-dog in disguise.
A boy who battles demons with the help of a monkey, pheasant and dog.
Right?
Yet these are all fairy tales…from Japan. Ever since I started studying Japanese (way back in elementary school) I have collected Japanese fairy tale and folk tale books. I thought I’d share my favourite story along with some of the illustrations from the version I own.

This one is the first Japanese fairy tale I learned about, and it's probably also the most famous. In Japanese it's called "Kaguya-hime," but it also often goes by the titles “The Bamboo-Cutter’s Daughter,” “The Bamboo Princess,” "Lady Kaguya's Secret," or “The Tale of the Bamboo-Cutter.” The story begins with an old bamboo-cutter chopping down a shining bamboo tree one day to find, to his surprise, a little baby girl inside.

He and his wife adopt her, christening her “Kaguya-hime” which means “Radiant Princess.” Though the couple was originally poor, now every time he chops down bamboo, inside the trunks are gold pieces. The girl grows into a stunningly beautiful woman who is soon surrounded by admirers hoping to wed her. She doesn’t wish to marry any of them, but agrees to set each of them a task to complete to demonstrate their courage. She asks one to bring her the Buddha’s stone bowl, another the golden bough from Mount Horai’s sacred tree, a third a jewel from a dragon’s forehead, and so on. None of them manage to satisfactorily complete these impossible tasks.

The Emperor soon hears of this and demands to see her, but she will not come to court. Angry, he goes to her home in person, but when he sees her he falls immediately in love and tells the bamboo-cutter that Kaguya-hime will marry him. It is then that Kaguya-hime admits that she is a princess from the moon, and must return to her home there soon. Distraught, the Emperor goes back to his palace, but sends Kaguya-hime exquisite presents, and they begin to exchange poems.

Then one evening the Moon King comes for Kaguya-hime, ignoring her pleas to stay on earth. The Emperor had set a guard around her, but at midnight all of the soldiers are rendered immobile as a cloud drifts down from the moon and floats over the bamboo-cutter's house. A voice commands Kaguya-hime to drink from a goblet, which contains the elixir of immortality. She does so, then is told to put on a shining robe that will cause her to forget all her memories of life on earth. Desperate, she writes one final letter to the Emperor and, along with the last of the elixir, gives it to him. Then she wraps the robe around herself and returns with the cloud to the moon.
The Emperor, heartbroken, does not wish to live forever without her. He finds the mountain that is closest to the heavens, and there he burns the letter, fueling the fire with the elixir of immortality. "Let the smoke reach her and help her to remember for just a moment!" the Emperor cries out in anguish.

And to this day, we can sometimes still see a wisp of smoke floating up from the crater top of Mt. Fuji.

And now, just because I can... I've actually hiked up Mt. Fuji. It's a grueling climb, but getting to the top is very satisfactory. Here are some photos from my experience:

The view hiking up, as the sun set behind some other mountain peaks.

Made it to the top! And just in time for...

... the sunrise!

It's one lovely fairy tale day down and thirteen glorious days to go! To kick off our second day of Fairy Tale Fortnight, we've got a fantastic guest post from the ever-lovely Zoë Marriott!
Take it away, Zoë! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Why are some writers drawn back to fairytales again and again, even when they also write original fantasies and books in other genres, like Shannon Hale (The Goose Girl, The Book of a Thousand Days, Rapunzel's Revenge) ? Why do some writers love a particular fairytale so much that they retell it more than once from different perspectives, like Robin McKinley (Beauty, The Rose Daughter, Sunshine) ? Why are writers able to pull a fairytale to pieces, take the bits they like, discard the rest, put everything back in an entirely different order, and still call it a retelling, like Jackson Pearce (Sisters Red, Sweetly) ?

It's because fairytales are more than just the stereotypical trappings that first spring to mind when we think about them. More than the carriages and ball-gowns, the beautiful princesses, handsome woodcutters and wicked stepmothers. More than just spells, enchanted castles, fairy godmothers and happily ever after.

Fairytales have a magical quality that is entirely separate from the magic that goes on within them. They have been passed down from mother to daughter, father to son, for hundreds of years. Like a stone staircase burnished and worn by the passage of a thousand feet, fairytales offer us a familiar path which we instinctively follow — and yet, unlike a stone steps, they may take us to a different destination every time we travel them. Each successive generation has retold these stories in their own way, often pulling and warping them out of all recognition. A modern-day girl who reads the original story of Sleeping Beauty (which you can find in Italo Calvino and George Martin's Italian Folktales) would be shocked, disgusted and disbelieving to realise exactly what Prince Charming did to the sleeping princess (I know I was!).

But instead of wiping that sickening story from our oral traditions and our imagination as our societal mores and our moral standards have changed, we have brought it with us, retelling it again and again until it has become a story symbolising the strength of true love and patience and the triumph of good over evil. We can't leave fairytales behind us. Something within them is stronger than the outer trappings. Something — some universal truth — always goes on.

When I was a little girl my big sister and I fought like cats in a sack, and barely a day went by without our house being shaken by screams and complaints. One day when I was seven or eight, our mother sent us both out of the house with instructions to go to the library — TOGETHER! — and for heaven’s sake, STOP ARGUING. In tense silence, we walked the short distance to the shabby little building and went in. My sister abandoned me to browse the adult shelves. I poked around in the children’s section, and then, without much hope, looked in the Cancelled Box (where the librarians put books for sale). There I discovered a very special book. It was a large, hardback picture book, a bit peeling and worn on the outside, titled The Wild Swans. Within, children played in a fairytale castle. A wicked enchantress cast a spell. Horses tossed their manes, leopards and hawks hunted across the pages. A little girl became a beautiful woman, and wandered through a deep dark forest.

It was magic.

I would have done anything to have that book for my own – but I didn’t have any money with me or any pocket money saved up and I knew that by the time I came back, the book would be gone. It was too magical for the Cancelled Box. On the point of tears, I was about to put The Wild Swans back, when it was plucked away by a familiar hand. “I’ll buy you that,” my sister said coolly. I still don't know if she realises how, in that moment of casual kindness, she completely changed my life.

Seventeen years later, my version of the fairytale The Wild Swans was published under the title The Swan Kingdom . In my own mind, I acknowledge that very little from that beloved picture book actually made it into The Swan Kingdom unaltered. But I've read reviews which claim the story follows the original fairytale too closely and therefore lacks originality and suspense. I've also read reviews that say The Swan Kingdom is nothing like the original fairytale and that the changes I made destroy the story! The lesson I learned from these contradictory review is this: the universal truth within a fairytale is different for each person who reads it.

When I wrote The Swan Kingdom I kept all the elements which I felt were truly important to the
original story. I kept the quiet, valiant strength of the little sister, the idea of the brothers turned into swans, the painful task required to free them. I kept the idea that the heroine would be persecuted for actions which some people felt were 'witchcraft'. I kept the wicked stepmother, and I kept the handsome prince from a different kingdom with whom the heroine falls in love. Those formed the skeleton of the fairytale within my mind. But for others, my important points are not important at all. They’ve found different points of reference within the story, different ways of navigating through the landscape of fairytales. The fairytale is different for them. In their heads, it was already retold before I ever came along.

In July my second fairytale retelling will be published, and this time I've made life even more difficult for myself by picking a very well known story — that of Cinderella. The book is set in my magical version of Japan, and it's this which has most people excited about it. But the real heart of the story is the universal truth which I saw behind the trappings of the Disney Cinderella we've all grown up with. The truth that no girl, no real, human girl with a beating heart, could possibly be as spineless, as obedient, as perfect, as Cinderella pretends to be. Her perfection must be hiding something. Passion. Hatred. Intelligence. Fear. And a desperate desire for revenge.

I know that many people will be recoil from reading about a Cinderella who isn't beautiful, who isn't the slightest bit sweet or perfect, and who couldn't care less about putting on a pretty dress and dancing with the prince. Maybe people will be shocked to read about a Cinderella who lies, steals, cheats and fights her way to revenge for the wrongs done to her. A Cinderella who is broken and scarred — by her own hand. But I hope that others will see their own reality and their own universal truth reflected in my Cinderella's choices, and that in telling the story as I see it, I will allow her story to become part of the greater, timeless fairytale which mothers have been telling their daughters since before my grandmother’s grandmother was born.

That’s why writers can’t leave fairytales alone. Because fairytales ARE magic. Their magic is that of timelessness, of immortality. And by retelling them, we mere humans get a taste of immortality too.

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Thanks for stopping by, Zoë!

Zoë is the author of The Swan Kingdom, Daughter of the Flames and the upcoming Shadows on the Moon, which is a retelling of Cinderella, set in Feudal Japan. You can find her online here:
Blog | Goodreads | Twitter | Youtube
Make sure you stop by later today when Ashley and I spread the love with a special Prize Pack from Zoë Marriott!

Our first Fairy Tale Fortnight Guest Blogger is April also known as CSI: Librarian. She is here to talk about Winter's Child, a retelling of "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Anderson. April-

How did I get it: The library.

Why did I get it: I've been meaning to look at the "Once Upon a Time" is Timeless series for awhile, and "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Anderson is pretty much my favorite fairy tale.

How I would rate it: 4 out of 5 stars.

Summary: Free-spirited Grace and serious Kai are the best of friends. They grew up together listening to magical tales spun by Kai's grandmother and sharing in each other's secrets. But when they turn sixteen and Kai declares his love for Grace, everything changes. Grace yearns for freedom and slowly begins to push Kai — and their friendship — away.

Dejected Kai dreams of a dazzling Snow Queen, who entices him to leave home and wander to faraway lands. When Grace discovers Kai is gone, she learns how much she has lost and sets out on a mystical journey to find Kai... and discover herself.

Review: The writing here was superb and the story overall was very touching. I think the origin of the Winter Child aka the Snow Queen was really one of the best parts of the book, but there were also many other wonderful moments or notions throughout the book.

I have to admit I wish the story had been a bit darker and in that respect, I still like the original fairy tale better. I missed the Snow Queen being prickly and lethal as well as the idea of the mirror shards that ended up in people's eyes distorting their views of the world. I also missed the reindeer and just the familiar sequencing of events. Grace also seemed to get off comparatively light in terms of her ordeals, and while I liked the notion of Kai and Grace separating and having their own lives rather than focusing on their love or fear of being alone, it did seem sort of odd that Grace's love interest showed up maybe five pages from the end.

Yet these issues were nothing compared to what was right with Winter's Child. Cameron Dokey made a lot of cool changes and took the story on a very neat, new direction. Ultimately, I cannot fault an author for trying to humanize a more villainous character or for deciding to change her from an unfeeling monster to a teenage girl searching for a connection to her own heart. In general, I really have to applaud Dokey's originality and her turning this story into something a bit more positive for any reader in regards to how love works and the importance of finding and understanding one's self first. And the value of the love that comes from friendships. And recognizing when a love is more of a trap than a way to freely express one's self. I also thought the use of three narrators and adding subtitles to the chapter headings was a nice touch.

In conclusion, if you're looking for an enthralling way to spend an hour and you love fairy tale re-tellings, pick up this book.