It's a Hardback Life

(Original Top Ten Tuesday concept from The Broke and the Bookish)

This week's Top Ten Tuesday is Best Fairytale Retellings I Have Read and/or Want to Read.

Reimaginings of fairy tales and classic stories is one of my favorite genres. I've read quite a few, but there are a lot out there still to tackle, so I've split the list between "read" and "want to read." Some of these are compilations rather than single stories (The Bloody Tower, The Rose and the Beast). I probably could have easily made a whole list out of the Donna Jo Napoli books I've read and loved (she seems to specialize in YA fairytale retellings), but I limited it to my absolute favorites to give room to others I have enjoyed.

Read:

Briar Rose by Jane Yolen. The Sleeping Beauty story told in the context of the Holocaust.

Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. A very bookish campus novel that reimagines the Scottish folktale of Tam Lin and the Fairy Queen.

Zel by Donna Jo Napoli. Rapunzel in 1500s Switzerland. I recall it as a very beautiful YA love story, though I read it years ago.

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. A classic feminist reimagining of multiple famous fairy tales, though the title comes from a version of Bluebeard.

Spinners by Donna Jo Napoli. Napoli reimagines the story of Rumpelstiltskin, giving new motivations and greater depth the the characters.

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire. It's been a while since I've read this, but I remember being fascinated by the nuance Maguire gives his characters.

The Rose and the Beast by Francesca Lia Block. A charming, if very short, collection of multiple retellings.

Want to read:

Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede. Wrede sets her version of the famous tale in Elizabethan England.

Fitcher’s Brides by Gregory Frost. This one recasts Bluebeard as a charismatic preacher in mid-19th century New York. This is probably the one I want to read the most.

The Nightingale by Kara Dalkey. Dalkey recasts the Andersen tale in the court of ancient Japan.

(These three to-read titles are all part of the same Fairy Tales series, as are Briar Rose and Tam Lin, edited and compiled by Terri WIndling, who often worked with Ellen Datlow on their famous anthologies).

BONUS to read: All the Ellen Datlow-edited short story anthologies (Snow White, Rose Red; Black Heart, Ivory Bones; etc). I have several of them, and have dipped in and out, but I really want to read them all eventually.