September SFFFkit: Myths, Legends, and Fairy Tales

September: Myths, Legends, and Fairy Tales

I’m betting that every one us has our own favorite myth, legend, and fairy tale, whether we’ve given it a whole lot of thought or not. And maybe there’s some overlapping, too. This month is for us to celebrate all of our favorites by remembering them, maybe read some new ones, and/or somehow incorporate these wonderful stories into our month’s reading. I’m going to share some of my favorites with you, and hope you’ll share some also…

My favorite fairy tale, without question… the frog prince.



I’m forever a little bit in love with The Frog Prince (1988), which I’d watch over and over again when I was a kid. It would even entrance me as a teen!

When it came to legends, nothing compared to Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe, in either story or cartoon.



And then, the myths… Somehow, I learned about Pandora’s box when I was far too young to actually understand any of the beauty or horror entailed.



And then we have the books… all of the collections of legends, myths, and fairy tales, and the stand-alones and the re-envisionings. The old classics, like Peter Pan and Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood, on to the new classics, like The Princess Bride and books by Patricia McKillip and Robin McKinley, who I adore. Not to mention the collections that send these genres into political or risqué territory. I adored Politically Correct: The Ultimate Storybook, and now I’m reading Submissive Fairy Tales by Kitty Thomas (insert blush here).

So, what are your favorites from forever ago that you want to tell us about? And what are you reading this month to honor your new favorites or find some new ones?

I'm so excited for this theme! I grew up with many of the classic Disney fairy tales, like Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast (my favorite!). Robin McKinley has written some of my all-time favorite retellings, including Beauty (Beauty and the Beast), Spindle's End (Sleeping Beauty), and The Outlaws of Sherwood (Robin Hood). For this challenge, I'll probably read Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik, which is based on Rumpelstiltskin. I loved Uprooted, so I have high hopes!

>1 whitewavedarling: Have you read Juliet Marillier's Wildwood Dancing? It borrows from several myths and fairy tales, but The Frog Prince is definitely one of them!

>2 christina_reads:, I love Robin McKinley also--in fact, she was who I meant to mention above instead of Patricia McKillip lol, as I was thinking specifically of Beauty! I adore that book. I'll go back and change it in a minute lol.

I have read Juliet Marillier, but not that one, so I'll have to make sure to pick it up!

I am a big fan of fairytale retellings! Two of my favorite fairytales are Beauty and the Beast and East of the Sun, West of the Moon and apparently my choice for September, Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow is based on both of those.

I'll be reading Poul Anderson's retelling of the Norse/Danish saga, Hrolf Kraki's Saga.

I highly recommend Indexing and Indexing: Reflections by Seanan McGuire. Fairy tales are real. I rarely re-read books. I've read each of these multiple times. They were first published in serial form, and I anxiously awaited each chapter to arrive on my iPad. I usually re-read the entire thing, then added on the new chapter. Really recommended!

When I was a kid we had an edition of Grimm's fairy tales with illustrations by Ruth Koser-Michaels which remain my absolute favourites. I was thrilled to find a selection of tales from 1001 nights with her illustrations at a fleamarket yesterday, and I'm looking forward to reading that, lingering over the pictures...

>4 DeltaQueen50: Judy, the girls and I loved that one.

I love this theme, andI am thinking about East by Edith Pattou, which has been on my shelves for a very long time.

I'll read the next installment of Fables for this one.

>2 christina_reads: I've read The Outlaws of Sherwood, and it was quite good.

I'm planning to read Silver on the Tree, the final book in Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence, which is based on Arthurian legends.

>10 fuzzi: I read that book at an impressionable age, and I'm pretty sure I imprinted on it like a baby duckling.

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman
Gaiman takes on Sleeping Beauty and throws in for good measure the very best version of Snow White you'll ever, ever read. Gorgeous storytelling, as usual with this fellow. My love for his myth-tinkering knows no limits. And Chris Riddell's illustrations are amazing, also as usual. Just perfect all round.

I read Through the Woods by Emily Carroll. This is a graphic novel of five fairy tales, but not for the faint of heart! The stories were reminiscent of tales like Bluebeard and Little Red Riding Hood, but with a very dark sensibility. The last story in particular I found quite disturbing. Definitely short and compelling enough to read in one sitting, with gorgeous gothic artwork.

I found this book because it was listed as one of NPR's 100 Best Horror Novels and Stories this summer.

I read The Lightning Thief, the first Percy Jackson book. For those unfamiliar with the series, it is a YA book about 11-year-old Percy, who turns out to be the son of Poseidon, fighting monsters of legend and going on a quest. Lots of stuff from the Greek myths so I am counting it here.

I've read the 2nd & 3rd books in the Tales of Alderley trilogy by Alan Garner. The Moon of Gomrath features the Wild Hunt and Boneland creation mythology.

I discover that I have an audiobook of Beast by Donna Jo Napoli, a YA retelling of Beauty and the Beast. So I guess I will listen to that this month...

I've posted the October thread here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/296250.

Spinning Silver, the new book out by Naomi Novik, is loosely based on the Rumpelstiltskin family of folk tales and it is really, really good!

>17 leslie.98:, I am reading Beast. too. Remembered I also had that one in my audiobook shelf. I would like to get to >19 ronincats: Spinning Silver but this month is flying by.

Oh what a tangled web of marvelous tales to read! DH is reading aloud from my old copy of Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales but that could take many months to make its way to my finished list. Instead, I think it's time to re-read Patricia Wrede's re-telling of Snow White and Rose Red entitled, appropriately enough, Snow White and Rose Red. It was one of the first volumes in the fairy tale re-telling series from the late 80's and I've meant to re-read it for years. Thanks for the excuse opportunity!

>21 threadnsong:, I loved that one!

>7 MissWatson: And I have finished Erzählungen aus 1001 Nacht, a very enjoyable selection told in very nice, flowery style.

Finished Beast by Donna Jo Napoli, I did not think it was very good and would not really recommend it.

>24 Kristelh: Oh dear! I was planning to start it tomorrow.

>25 leslie.98: I am reading Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay and liking that so much more. It’s a bit of romance as YA often is but the story is a good one for racism/prejudice and has a mystery to it.

Read Angela Carter's short story collection, The Bloody Chamber. Lots of retellings here, including Beauty and the Beast, Puss and Boots, Red Riding Hood, etc. Dark, gothic, horror; not your grandchild's stories.

>27 Kristelh: - Dark, gothic horror is the perfect description for those stories!

I have completed Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George. This was a re-telling of the Norse fairy tale, East of the Sun, West of the Moon and was very well done.

I have finished Beast and agree with >26 Kristelh: that Of Beast and Beauty, which I read last month, was much more enjoyable.

I don't know exactly what rubbed me the wrong way in Napoli's book. Perhaps it was the fact that Prince Orasmyn was so devout; the repeated prayers and thoughts about whether it was acceptable for the man/lion to do certain things...

Starting Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology by Cory O'Brien.

>30 leslie.98: I didn’t like the “voice” of the novel. Beast It was grating and I also felt that rather than telling a story it was trying to inform my opinions.

I did read Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik for this CAT, and I absolutely loved it! It's a bit slow to start, but once it gets going, it's stunning. I will say that the Rumpelstiltskin connection is very, very slight, so it's not truly a fairy tale retelling. But I still highly recommend the book, especially if you loved Novik's earlier novel Uprooted!

I am reading Spinning Silver and hope to get it done before the end of the month. I am liking it. I just finished Everland by Spinale. Retelling, steampunk, too much YA romance but entertaining.

I finished reading Caroline Lee's Little Red: An Everland Ever After Tale, a quaint historical western romance fairy tale retelling of Little Red Riding Hood with the 1875 Wyoming Territory setting replacing the "the woods", a Mexican gunslinger as "big bad wolf", a seasoned bounty hunter as "woodsman" and, of course, sweet orphanage-raised Rojita as our damsel in distress, "Red". I enjoyed this one enough to be interested in reading other books in the series.

Just under the wire, I finished The Changeling by Victor LaValle:

There are many things to like about this modern fairy tale: the blending of old stories and very, very new aspects of modern life; the incorporation of issues regarding race and feminism; and the always-appealing quest plot line. The idea of a troll living in a cave in a forest at the heart of Queens charmed me (if "charmed" is the right word), because it's the idea that the old monsters--and magic--can still live with us, that modern technology and living haven't vanquished them after all. The book is probably 50-75 pages too long, but most novels are too long these days, and LaValle has a tendency to sometimes elide important elements despite the length. For instance, I wanted to know more about Emma the witch: was she always a witch, or did she become one as a reaction to her child being in jeopardy? At heart, though, this is absolutely a fairy tale (with a fair dollop of mythology--the main character is named Apollo, after all), which is why unbelievable things must happen, and I really appreciated how LaValle drew on the traditions of the old stories to craft this 21st-century version.

I ended up readking a non-fiction selection for this month, King Arthur: History and Legend by Dorsey Armstrong. This was part of The Great Courses. It was an excellent series of lectures about the history of the King Arthur legend from its earliest beginning with a look at the possibility of an actual man behind the legend, up to modern day depictions of him in literature, movies and the arts. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I had originally planned to read a novel based in the Arthurian world, The Seven Songs of Merlin by T. A. Barron, book 2 in the Young Merlin series, but I didn't like the audio narrator, so couldn't finish it.

>37 staci426: I'll have to make a note of this book, as I am working on my Arthurian category for the category challenge. Because of this, I finished two young-adult Arthurian books myself: Silver on the Tree, the final book in Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence, and The Seeing Stone by Kevin Crossley-Holland.

In case you missed it, October's thread is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/296250#

Thanks for participating everyone!

For my part, I wish I'd been more present, but it's been a crazy few weeks. I did manage to finish Submissive Fairy Tales before the month ended--a collection of three very naughty fairy tales written by Kitty Thomas. Her writing is incredible.

Getting in after the end of September, and my apologies, but like >40 whitewavedarling: I've been overwhelmed with other fun things.

Finished Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia Wrede last night and loved it! She does a great job bringing together the world of Elizabethan England with the world of the Fae in this adult re-telling. From the book intro-intro, it is the first Tor fairy tale re-telling and the fourth in Terri Windling's series of the entire series. I very much enjoyed the authenticity of dialogue being in Elizabethan English since that was the setting of the story, and a bit of maliciousness in the Fae instead of just their amoral look at the world of mortals.

>41 threadnsong: I'll have to keep this one in mind. Others have recommended Patricia Wrede to me but I've not yet had the chance to try her books.