Fairy tales, myths and legends are rewritten: some seen through a different character's eyes, others with modern-day settings--all will give a new perspective on these old stories.
This booklist was contributed by Appleton Public Library Reference and Information Services Staff, 12/06
Happily ever after? Modern versions of fairy tales | Legends retold | Myths with a twist |
Red Rider's hood
(2005)After learning that there are werewolves in his city, a sixteen-year-old is even more surprised to discover the identities of the hunters who drove them out decades earlier, but he soon infiltrates the Wolves gang to help destroy them for good.
Beauty sleep
(2002)Aurore, a young tomboy of a princess, embarks on a dangerous journey alongside a prince, only to find a curse activated upon her the moment she attempts to rescue him in a battle. Their mutual love proves the key to her own salvation.
Birdwing
(2005)Prince Ardwin, known as Birdwing, the youngest of six brothers turned into swans by their stepmother, is unable to complete the transformation back into human form, so he undertakes a journey to discover whether his feathered arm will be a curse or a blessing to him.
Bound
(2004)In a novel based on Chinese Cinderella tales, fourteen-year-old stepchild Xing-Xing endures a life of neglect and servitude, as her stepmother cruelly mutilates her own child's feet so that she alone might marry well. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
Breath
(2005, c2003)Elaborates on the tale of "The Pied Piper," told from the point of view of a boy who is too ill to keep up when a piper spirits away the healthy children of a plague-ridden town after being cheated out of full payment for ridding Hameln of rats. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
Cinderella 2000: looking back--
(2001)Fourteen-year-old Ashley has her heart set on spending New Year's Eve 1999 at an exclusive country club party with an Almost Boyfriend, but her plan is endangered by her stepmother and two bratty stepsisters. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
Duckling ugly
(2006)When sixteen-year-old Cara, a girl ugly enough to break mirrors, is drawn to a place where everyone can be beautiful, her deepest desire is to return home to say goodbye--and get revenge.
East
(2005)A young woman journeys to a distant castle on the back of a great white bear who is the victim of a cruel enchantment. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
Ella enchanted
(1997)In this novel based on the story of Cinderella, Ella struggles against the childhood curse that forces her to obey any order given to her. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
Fairest
(2006)In a land where beauty and singing are valued above all else, Aza eventually comes to reconcile her unconventional appearance and her magical voice, and learns to accept herself for who she truly is. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
Goose chase: a novel
(2001)Rather than marry a cruel king or a seemingly dim-witted prince, an enchanted goose girl endures imprisonment, capture by several ogresses, and other dangers, before learning exactly who she is.
The Goose Girl
(2003)On her way to marry a prince she's never met, Princess Anidori is betrayed by her guards and her lady-in-waiting and must become a goose girl to survive until she can reveal her true identity and reclaim the crown that is rightfully hers. Sequel to Enna Burning. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
Just Ella
(1999)In this continuation of the Cinderella story, fifteen-year-old Ella finds that accepting Prince Charming's proposal ensnares her in a suffocating tangle of palace rules and royal etiquette, so she plots to escape. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
A knot in the grain and other stories (1994)Lily. A woman with power to heal, but no powers of speech. Then she meets a mage---a man who can hear the words she forms only in her mind. Will he help her find her voice? Ruen. A princess whose uncle leaves her deep in a cave to die at the hands of a stagman. But when she meets the stagman at last, Ruendiscovers fatehas a few surprises in store for her. Erana, As a baby, she is taken be a witch in return for the healing herbs her father stole from the witch's garden. Raised alongsidethe witch's troll son, Erana learns that love comes in many forms. Coral. A beautiful young newcomerwho catches the eye of an older widowed farmer. He can't believe his good fortune when Coral consents to be his wife. But then the doubts set in---what is it that draws Coral to Butter Hill? (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
Little Red Riding Hood in the big bad city
(2004)Seventeen classic fairy tales are made enchantingly modern by some of today's hottest science fiction and fantasy authors, who set these tales in urban surroundings. Authors include Tanya Huff, Jean Rabe, Jody Lynn Nye, and Michelle West.
The magic circle
(1993)After learning sorcery to become a healer, a good-hearted woman is turned into a witch by evil spirits and she fights their power until her encounter with Hansel and Gretel years later.
Mira, mirror
(2004)Long after the disappearance of Snow White's stepmother, the witch trapped in her mirror manipulates a desperate peasant and a merchant's daughter to seek the magic she needs to gain her freedom, but the girls show her a power far greater.
Pay the piper
(2005)When Callie interviews the band, Brass Rat, for her school newspaper, her feelings are ambivalent, but when all the children of Northampton begin to disappear on Halloween, she knows where the dangerous search must begin.
The Phoenix dance
(2005)Phoenix Dance battles an illness of her mind and emotions, realizes her dream of becoming shoemaker to the Royal Household, and attempts to discover what magic compels the twelve princesses of Windward to wear out their shoes each night. Based on the the fairy tale "The twelve dancing princesses." (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
The princess bride : S. Morgenstern's classic tale of true love and high adventure
(1998)Now a cult classic, this story of pirates, evil princes, sorcerers, and, most importantly, true love is handsomely repackaged in a commemorative 25th anniversary hardcover. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
The rose and the beast : fairy tales retold
(2000)Nine classic fairy tales set in modern, magical landscapes and retold with a twist. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
The runaway princess
(2006)Fifteen-year-old Princess Meg uses magic and her wits to rescue a baby dragon and escape the unwanted attentions of princes hoping to gain her hand in marriage through a contest arranged by her father, the king.
The sea of trolls
(2004)After Jack becomes apprenticed to a Druid bard, he and his little sister Lucy are captured by Viking Berserkers and taken to the home of King Ivar the Boneless and his half-troll queen, leading Jack to undertake a vital quest to Jotunheim, home of the trolls. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
Snow
(2003)Based upon the classic fairy tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, this retelling presents teen readers with a heroine who is not the stuff of fairy tales and legends. Born in a Welsh fiefdom, a young Snow flees her stepmother and arrives in London, where she is immediately rescued by a band of outcasts.
Spindle's end
(2000)The infant princess Briar Rose is cursed on her name day by Pernicia, an evil fairy, and then whisked away by a young fairy to be raised in a remote part of a magical country, unaware of her real identity and hidden from Pernicia's vengeful powers.
The tale of paradise lost
(2004)Now another poet, Newbery Award winner Nancy Willard, retells Milton's astonishing poem in a prose adaptation that faithfully captures his vivid imagery and cinematic flourish. Thrilling, gorgeous, suspenseful, and yes, even funny -- here is the tale of Lucifer's rebellion, the war between Heaven and Hell, the creation of the world, and the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve.
Troll Bridge : a rock 'n' roll fairy tale
(2006)Sixteen-year-old harpist prodigy Moira is transported to a strange and mystical wilderness, where she finds herself in the middle of a deadly struggle between a magical fox and a monstrous troll. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
Truly grim tales
(1995)A guilt-ridden prince with a foot fetish seeking his glass-slippered dance partner and a beauty contest winner as Snow White's murderous stepmother are featured in two of the original "grim" plots in this young adult collection loosely based on eight traditional fairy tales.
Twelve impossible things before breakfast : stories
(1997)Features the Nebula Award-winning novella "Lost Girls." In these modern myths and tales for the young and the young at hear, Jane Yolen transforms the impossible into the familiar and real. Among the outlandish wonders are an Alice grown tough in Wonderland, a dear--but dead--mother's homecoming, a bridge that longs for a goat-eating troll, and a mutiny among Peter Pan's troops.
Water song : a retelling of "The frog prince"
(2006)
The witch's boy
(2005)A grotesque foundling turns against the witch who sacrificed almost everything to raise him when he becomes consumed by the desire for money and revenge against those who have hurt him, but he eventually finds his true heart's desire.
Zel
(1996)Based on the fairy tale Rapunzel, the story is told in alternating chapters from the point of view of Zel, her mother, and the nobleman who pursues her, and delves into the psychological motivations of each of the characters. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
Black horses for the king
(1996)Galwyn, son of a Roman Celt, escapes from his tyrannical uncle and joins Lord Artos, later know as King Arthur, using his talent with languages and way with horses to help secure and care for the Libyan horses that Artos hopes to use in battle against the Saxons. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
In a dark wood
(1998)On orders from the King, the Sheriff of Nottingham seeks to capture the outlaw Robin Hood, but he finds him to be a tricky and elusive foe.
Lionclaw, a tale of Rowan Hood
(2002)Young Lionel, minstrel in the outlaw band of Rowan Hood, daughter of Robin, tries to find his courage when she is abducted from Sherwood Forest.
Sequel to: Rowan Hood, outlaw girl of Sherwood Forest.
Merlin
(1999)Merlin. His name alone conjures up images of ancient kingdoms and enchanted forests. And now King Arthur's beloved mentor is the subject of this collection of all-original stories from some of today's finest fantasy writers.
Rowan Hood, outlaw girl of Sherwood Forest
(2001)In her quest to connect with Robin Hood, the father she has never met, thirteen-year-old Rosemary disguises herself as a boy, befriends a half-wolf, half-dog, a runaway princess, and an overgrown boy whose singing is hypnotic, and makes peace with her elfin heritage.
Sirena
(1998)The gods grant immortality to the mermaid Sirena when she rescues a human man from the sea and they fall in love, but his mortality creates great conflict between love and honor when he is called to defend Greece in the Trojan War.
Sword of the rightful king : a novel of King Arthur
(2003)Merlinnus the magician devises a way for King Arthur to prove himself the rightful king of England--pulling a sword from a stone--but trouble arises when someone else removes the sword first. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
The book of Mordred
(2005)As the peaceful King Arthur reigns, the five-year-old daughter of Lady Alayna, newly widowed of the village-wizard Toland, is abducted by knights who leave their barn burning and their only servant dead. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
The dragon's son
(2001)Based on the Mabinogion, a collection of medieval Welsh tales, as well as later legends, tells of family members and servants important in the life of King Arthur, featuring Nimue, Morgan le Fay, Luned, and Mordred.
The troll king
(2002)Offers a look at the "true" history of trolls, from their early days as great warriors in the land of Bonespittle through their enslavement that soon led to their reputation as mean and evil creatures who live as servants to ogres and ghouls.
Aphrodite's blessings : love stories from the Greek myths
(2002)Atalanta, Andromeda, and Psyche, three female characters in Greek mythology, tell the stories of their marriages. Includes information on love and marriage in ancient Greece. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
Dread locks
(2005)Accustomed to a carefree existence, fifteen-year-old Parker Baer meets the girl next door and finds his life taking a menacing turn as he begins to absorb some of her terrible powers.
The lightning thief
(2005)Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson learns he is a demigod, the son of a mortal woman and Poseidon, god of the sea. His mother sends him to a summer camp for demigods where he and his new friends set out on a quest to prevent a war between the gods.
Snake dreamer
(1998)Haunted by terrifying dreams of snakes, Dusa goes to a clinic in Greece where two mysterious doctors, the Gordon sisters, promise to cure her of her nightmares. (View First Chapter/Excerpt)
Troy
Told from the point of view of the women of Troy, portrays the last weeks of the Trojan War, when women are sick of tending the wounded, men are tired of fighting, and bored gods and goddesses find ways to stir things up.
Water : tales of elemental spirits
(2002)Each of these six stories illuminates a captivating world filled with adventure, romance, intrigue, and enchantment. Robin McKinley fans will recognize one of the worlds included--Damar, the setting of Newbery Medal-winner "The Hero and the Crown" and Newbery Honor Book "The Blue Sword."
We goddesses : Athena, Aphrodite, Hera
(1999)Three Greek goddesses, Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera, tell their own stories. Includes information about Greek society and religion.