I’ve always been a sucker for a good story. I grew up in a house where Disney was everywhere, and I am a book and movie addict- my favorite of either is usually the last good one I’ve read/seen. That Guy and I love musicals and plays, and since we’ve gotten Willow the Wonderdog, we have made a serious investment in Yankee Candles because her breed has massive separation anxiety- which means any time we go to the movies or a play, we come back to … um, presents in the solarium.
One of my favorite type of sub-genres in YA fiction are reimagined fairy tales, where the author has taken a fairy or folk tale and given it new life with a new spin or a new way of looking at things. Gregory Maguire is known for this; he’s the author of Wicked (yes, the book behind the musical). Alex Flinn is known for this as well, with Beastly making the big screen. And with Once Upon a Time starting its fifth season this fall, reimagined fairy tales are going strong with teens and young adults alike.
Today I’ve pulled together a booklist of some of the more modern reimagined fairy tales. Know more? Share in the comments!
Some of the newer books to hit the shelves have been based on Alice in Wonderland- whether it’s because of the newer Tim Burton movies or because it is just time, who knows. However, here are two series with vastly different takes on Alice.
Danielle Paige took Oz and turned loose a tornado of her own with her Dorothy Must Die series. Everything is reversed as Dorothy and her friends are the evil ones and the witches must band together to take them down. Coming in 2016, Danielle is launching a new series based on the Snow Queen series.
Adding science fiction into the fairy tale fantasy is the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. Starting with Cinder, Marissa starts with a cyborg Cinderella, adds in a genetically engineered Wolf with a Red Riding hood in Scarlet, brings everyone together with a hacker Rapunzel and a flighty pilot hero in Cress, and has legions of fans anxiously awaiting the release of the conclusion of the series, Winter, with the lost princess and the poisoned princess finally confronting the Evil Queen and hopefully rescuing the Prince.
Stitching Snow by RC Lewis is a brilliant sci-fi retelling of Snow White, where the Princess has to decide whether to return to the galaxy and bring peace to two warring worlds, or keep her own peace and existence.
And these are but a few. Epic Reads created an epic chart of retellings that included a fairy tale section in 2014. More and more are being published every day.