What did you think? Once upon a Time . . .

TPIB: Once Upon a Time
upon a time, there were tales . . . and today, those tales are being re-told. With a twist.

One of my very favorite fairy tales retold is Enchanted by Orson Scott Card. It is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty; but what I really love about it is the way he portrays the magic of womanhood. What we call women's intuition he calls magic and as he weaves his world you know that you are a part of something special.

Some of my other favorites include Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine (great book, horrible horrible movie) and Beastly by Alex Flinn (ditto). It is fun to read these twisted takes on old stories and see how they can be re-imagined.

And how can you overlook the always fantastic The Princess Bride by William Goldman. And the movie, a perennial classic that still should work with the teen audience . . .

The Grandson: A book?
Grandpa: That's right. When I was your age, television was called books. And this is a special book. It was the book my father used to read to me when I was sick, and I used to read it to your father. And today I'm gonna read it to you.
The Grandson: Has it got any sports in it?
Grandpa: Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles...
The Grandson: Doesn't sound too bad. I'll try to stay awake.
Grandpa: Oh, well, thank you very much, very nice of you. Your vote of confidence is overwhelming.

Just, brilliant. (More The Princess Bride quotes at IMDB)

Soon there will be 2 shows debuting on TV that focus on retelling classic fairy tales: Once Upon a Time and Grimm.

The zeitgeist is right to start pushing those teen fiction tales, old and new, by making displays and doing programming tie ins.


There is a pretty good list of fairy tales old and new at GoodReads.

http://teenlibrarianstoolbox.blogspot.com