The Rough-Face Girl by Rafe Martin,
illustrated by David Shannon
This tale takes place long ago in a small village on the shore of Lake Ontario. In the largest wigwam set away from the others some lives an Invisible Being, a rich, powerful handsome warrior. All the young women of the village want to marry him, but it is said that he will only marry the one who can see him.
In the same village lives a poor man with three daughters. The two older daughters were cruel to the youngest, forcing her to sit by the fire and feed the flames. The sparks burned her skin, face and hair, leaving her arms, hands and face scarred and rough. Her hair hung in charred tatters. You can tell this is another version of the Cinderella story. Once again, I'm surprised by how the same stories show up in entirely different cultures.
The two evil sisters try to convince the Invisible Being's sister that...
Nobody Has Time for Me by Vladimír Škutina, illustrated by Marie-José Sacré, translated by Dagmar Herrmann
(Suggested reading level: Kindergarten- Grade 2)
Skutina called his story a modern fairy tale, a comment on our hurried lives. Karin is a sad little girl. No one in her family has time to play with her or talk to her. So she heads out into the snowy late afternoon to find Time on her own, sure he must live in the clock tower. She bravely enters the tower through the heavy wooden doors and climbs the old winding stairway. At the top she meets Father Time, actually the clockmaker, who explains that while time never stops, people can make time. When she hurries home right at curfew, her parents ask where she's been and she responds, "In a fairy tale."
When Karin was almost ready for bed, her parents asked to hear the fairy tale.
"It's about Time," Karin said, "and I'll tell you ... if you...
"The Three Army Surgeons" by the Brothers Grimm
Over the last year or so, I've learned that fairy tales are not all sweet and light, some are downright gruesome and nasty. Today's choice, a new one to me, certainly falls in the second category.
Three surgeons "who thought they knew their art perfectly" were traveling and stopped at an inn to stay the night. The innkeeper asks them to prove what they can do. They each state that they will cut off a body part, a hand, heart, and eye respectively, and reattach them in the morning. The innkeeper believes that that will indeed prove that they know everything, but the surgeons actually carry a salve with them that joins body part together.
Each of the surgeons cuts off the body part. The pieces are put on a platter and given to the servant, who placed it in the cupboard. During the night, though, the servant girl's lover, a soldier, comes and she...
The Princess and the Frog
I'm a slight Fairy Tale Friday failure this week. I haven't watched any fairy tale flicks lately, so I'm going back to one we saw in December last year in the theater, but it is out on DVD now and it's one I would definitely recommend.
It's a twist on the traditional Grimm tale, "The Frog Prince." Hardworking New Orleans waitress Tiana hopes to one day fulfill the dream of her father and own her own restaurant. But the plan isn’t going so well until she meets Prince Naveen—who doesn’t exactly sweep her off her feet in the traditional sense. He’s been turned into a frog thanks to a curse from the nefarious voodoo doctor. When frog Naveen sees Tania dressed in a ball gown he thinks she’s a princess, and her kiss might break his curse. Instead the kiss turns Tiana into a frog as well, and the...
Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland retold by Jane Carruth
I've come to a conclusion. I don't like Alice in Wonderland. I enjoy it in theory. The curious young girl follows a rabbit down a hole, landing in a magical land full of strange, wonderful creatures and people. But then I sit down and actually read it. Last time I read it in Spring of '08, I read Carroll's version aloud with Amber and I remember expecting to enjoy it more than I did. This time I read the book I have had since I was about 7, thinking that maybe a retold version, complete with beautiful full color illustrations would bring back the childhood wonderment. It didn't.
I don't even think I can summarize the story. Alice falls down the rabbit, there's a hall full of doors, she gets smaller and bigger and smaller, there's a flood and Alice insults some of the other animals that become stranded on the shore. They...