Top Ten Rewritten Fairy Tales
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Today I’m linking up with The Broke and the Bookish’s Top Ten
Tuesday again. This week is a free topic; pick your own subject for a top ten
list. After not much thought at all, I decided to make this week’s post a top
ten list of my favourite rewritten fairy tales. There are so many good rewrites
out there, so I didn’t have any trouble finding books to go on this week’s
list.
1. Princess Ben
Catherine Gilbert Murdock
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Princess Ben is not your typical
princess. She’s not slim, well mannered, and certainly not interested in
learning anything about politics or being a proper princess. This is an
imaginative rewrite of Sleeping Beauty
with the princess taking control of her own fate. Sleeping Beauty has always seemed to me to be the hardest fairy
tale to rewrite, as the princess spends most of the story sleeping, but Princess Ben gets round that in a very
interesting way that really works.
2. Wildwood Dancing
Juliet Marillier
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This book made it onto my list last week as well, but it definitely
earns another mention. This book is based on the story of The Twelve Dancing Princesses.
Twelve sisters can sometimes be hard to keep track of, so this book has only
five. It’s got everything in it, from true love and evil relatives, to an
enchanted frog. This book is beautiful.
3. Cress
Marissa Meyer
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This is probably one of the most famous fairy tale rewrites around at
the moment. It’s an amazing sci-fi retelling of Rapunzel, and is the third book in the Lunar Chronicles series,
which have all been based on different fairy tales. Why haven’t I picked either
Cinder or Scarlet, the first two books? I’m sad to say I haven’t yet got my
hands on the books yet. Hopefully I’ll find them soon.
4. Ella Enchanted
Gail Carson Levine
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What would happen if you were cursed from birth with unfailing obedience? That would make the Cinderella story that much more interesting. This is
another really famous fairy tale rewrite, and for a good reason. It’s funny,
creative, and full of the fantasy elements I love, such as centaurs and elves. Plus the prince, the fairy godmother, and Cinderella herself are so awesome that I wish there was another book so I could spend more time with them.
5. The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom
Christopher Healy
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So many of the old fairy tales just call the hero ‘Prince Charming’. But
in fact, they’re all different people. So what happens when you get the Prince
Charming from Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty together on
a quest to save the kingdom? Certainly not what you expect. This book is a
bundle of laughs, and the princes are not what the original fairy tales make
them out to be. I don’t see many rewrites that focus on the princes, so this
one is also pretty unique.
6. The Goose Girl
Shannon Hale
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I don’t know much about the original tale behind this story, Goose Girl, but this book captured my
imagination the first time I read it. The writing is beautiful, the story is a
true fairy tale and the characters are loveable. It is special to me in another
way, in that the magic in this book helped inspire elements of my own magic
system. The other books in the series are just as good as this one, and should
definitely be read as well.
7. Princess of the Silver Woods
Jessica Day George
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This is a Little Red Riding Hood retelling
with a difference. What if the wolf wasn’t the one you had to be afraid of?
What if the grandmother wasn’t what you expected? This book has a large cast of
sisters, a devoted family that would drop everything to help a relation in
trouble, and a group of bandits who are not quite what they seem. This is
another third book in a series, and I’m just itching to get my hands on the
other two.
8. Book of a Thousand Days
Shannon Hale
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This book is based off a fairy tale called Maid Maleen, and to tell the truth, I’d never heard of this fairy
tale before I read this book. When a princess and her maid get bricked up
inside a tower for one thousand days, there is bound to be a handsome prince
trying to rescue them. But the princess isn’t the main character, and the maid
might just turn out to be the true hero of this story.
9. Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow
Jessica Day George
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East of the Sun, West of the Moon – This is a retelling of a fairy tale
called East of the Sun, West of the Moon,
and again, I’ve never actually read the original tale. But I have seen a couple
of retellings of this tale, and I’ve loved them all. This book is set in the
north, with plenty of ice and snow. It has an enchanted polar bear (why aren’t
there more polar bears in fairy tales?) and a quest to save one’s true love. A
true fairy tale.
10. The Frog Princess
E.D. Baker
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In this humorous retelling of The
Frog Prince, the prince is enchanted into frog form, and somehow convinces
a princess to kiss him. But, instead of turning back into a human, everything goes
wrong and both the prince and the princess are stuck as frogs Thus begins a
long and dangerous quest to work out what went wrong and how to turn back into a human. This book
and the other two in the trilogy are so much fun.
So that’s my top ten
list of fairy tale rewrites. Have you read any of these books? What are your
favourites? Any recommendations of other rewrites I should read?
18 comments
This is a great topic! I love The Lunar Chronicles series, and I need to read Ella Enchanted at some point because I loved the film. I also need to read Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow because East of the Sun, West of the Moon is a great fairytale. :)
ReplyDeleteElen @ A World of Reviews
I'll have to see the film of Ella Enchanted sometime. I read the book several times, but I've not seen the movie yet. Have you read 'North Child' by Edith Pattou? If you like 'East of the Sun, West of the Moon' then you might enjoy her retelling of it too. That was the first version of it I ever read and I absolutely loved it.
DeleteI love the list. So much that I have to read now! Out of the whole list the only one I have read before if A Book of a Thousand Days and that was a while ago! I have been meaning to read Goose Girl, but our library doesn't have it at the moment. I will have to go look up some of those other books!
ReplyDeleteDon't you hate it when the library doesn't have the books that you want to read? I've been waiting for so many books to be in the library, like Cinder, but they never have them. I hope you enjoy these books when you can get your hands on them. They're all so worth the read.
DeleteI love fairy tale rewrites! Lunar Chronicles is definitely one of my favorites but I also love Entwined by Heather Dixon which is twelve dancing princess. And while Tiger Lily isn't really a retelling of a fairy tale it is a retelling of Peter Pan and one of my absolute favorite books ever. =)
ReplyDeleteOoh, I shall have to look them up. I love retellings of the Twelve Dancing Princesses so I'll have to see if I can get my hands on a copy of Entwined. I've heard of TIger Lily vaguely before. That's another book I should add to my list of books I should read. Thanks for stopping by!
DeleteHi!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great topic! I always love a good retelling of fairy tales, and Princess Ben sounds intriguing, thanks.
You might like to check out my Top Ten for this week, as I did "Books about Dragons": http://ofdragonsandhearts.com/2014/05/top-ten-tuesday-books-dragons/
Have a great day!
Kaja
I'm a big fan of fairy tales, so I jumped at the chance to make this list. I'm glad I could recommend a book to you. Ooh, I shall definitely have to check out your list. I was tossing up whether to do a list of books about dragons for this week instead, but fairy tales won out. I'll pop over at once and have a look.
DeleteI loved Wildwood Dancing and The Goose Girl! Some of these others are on my list to read, too. I've never heard of Princess Ben but it immediately intrigued me. I do think Sleeping Beauty would be a rather hard one to write, now I'm curious how this one works!
ReplyDeleteSleeping Beauty is such a hard one to get right when retelling it, but Princess Ben nails it. If you can find it, I'd definitely recommend you read it. Thanks for commenting!
DeleteThe Hero's Guide looks like fun, I'm kinda curious to see how these different princes would work together, and Princess of the Silver Woods sounds great too. Nice cover on that one. My daughter has read some Jessica Day George but not this one...
ReplyDeletePrincess of the Silver Woods has such a beautiful cover. The other two books' covers are just as good. I'd have them just to look at the pictures of the covers. Jessica Day George is one of my favourite writers, and it was her name on this book that originally got me to read it. Thanks for stopping by Greg!
DeleteHi! I just stumbled upon this blog of yours through the Notebook Sisters blog...it's so lovely! I absolutely adore fairy-tale retellings. A bunch of the ones you mentioned are favorites of mine. Another favorite is Beauty by Robin McKinley. It's great!
ReplyDeleteI'm now following this blog, and I'm looking forward to checking out more of your posts!
Hi Hannah. Thanks for the recommendation. I'll have to track down a copy pronto! I've heard of Robin McKinley in passing before, but I don't think I've read any of her books yet. I'll have to fix that at once. Thanks so much for the follow. You just made my day.
DeleteHi Imogen - nice blog :-) I've read most of these and will have to look for the rest. A couple of my favorites are by Robin McKinley - Beauty and Spindle's End.
ReplyDeleteHi Beate. Thanks for visiting my blog. Ooh, those sound like interesting books. You're the second person to recommend Robin McKinley to me so I think I'm definitely going to have to read some of her books now.
DeleteThis list is so great!! I LOVE fairy tales! Perhaps too much?! Some of these look wonderful and I haven't read them, which is exciting! I'm always picking up Jessica Day George's books, I really should get around to reading them - they look really fun. I also LOVE Shannon Hale! Thanks for the list! xx
ReplyDeleteShannon Hale and Jessica Day George are two of my favourite authors. I'll read pretty much anything that they've written, especially their fairytales. It's always nice to get book recommendations, isn't it? I love participating in these blog hops because I get to share my favourite books and find some new ones to read too. Thanks for stopping by!
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