10 Fairy Tales That Are Politically Incorrect

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One of my wonderful followers, Tania, sent me a link to an interesting article that she published on her website recently.  The article highlights how fairy tales have evolved and been sanitised over time, and looks at how politically incorrect some of these fairy tales are.  It’s an interesting and humorous read so you should definitely check it out.  Here’s just a couple of examples from the article:

  • Red Riding Hood – “Sam ‘The Sham’ and the Pharaohs” admonished Red, singing that she shouldn’t “. . .go walking in these spooky old woods alone”. Good advice for a small child who was sent, unattended by a parent, to visit an aging relative who was probably in need of 24-hour in-home care. Of course, there is also the wolf, a stalker and an abuser of the elderly.
  • The Pied Piper – The Piper of the tale was obviously a cult-leader who had lured not only the rats, but also the children of the beleaguered township of Hamelin. The Pied Piper obviously had anger-management issues, which might have been addressed with classes and counseling in a modern version of the story.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention Tania!

Liesl and Po by Lauren Oliver

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Imagine living in a world where the sun hasn’t shone for many months.  Because there is no sun, the colour has gone out of the world so everything is grey and gloomy, plants and trees have withered and everyone is miserable.  There is still magic in the world though and this magic has the power to change everything.

Liesl hasn’t left her house in several months.  After her father died, her cruel stepmother locked her in the tiny bedroom in the attic and she’s never allowed out.  Her only friends are the shadows and the mice, until one night a ghost appears.  His name is Po and he comes from a place called the Other Side. Will is an alchemist’s apprentice, helping his mean master gather the ingredients for his strange magical experiments.  One night Will makes a dangerous mistake when he accidentally switches a box containing the most powerful magic in the world with one containing Liesl’s father’s ashes. Will’s mistake has tremendous consequences for Liesl and Po, and it draws them together on an extraordinary journey.

Liesl and Po is one of the most unique and magical books I’ve read. Lauren Oliver’s writing is amazing and she transports you to this weird and wonderful world where the sun hasn’t shone for years and the colour has gone out of the world.  She writes in such a way that it makes you think she must have gone through the whole story picking out the perfect words to describe her characters and the world they live in.  Here’s her description of Will,

“He was wearing a large lumpy coat that came that came well past his knees and had, in fact, most recently belonged to someone twice his age and size.  He carried a wooden box – about the size of a loaf of bread – under one arm, and his hair was sticking up from his head at various odd angles and had in it the remains of hay and dried leaves…”

Lauren Oliver says in the authors note that she wrote Liesl and Po after the death of her best friend, so it is a bit dark in places.  She wrote it in two months and didn’t think it would be published, but I’m certainly glad it was.  If you like Kate DiCamillo’s books, like The Magician’s Elephant and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, you’ll love Liesl and Po.

Picture Book Nook: Moon Cow by Kyle Mewburn

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Kyle Mewburn deserves an award for being New Zealand’s hardest working children’s author this year.  He’s had so many books published in 2011, from picture books to junior fiction novels.  His Dinosaur Rescue series (with which he collaborates with the brilliant Donovan Bixley) is probably the best series for junior readers to come out of New Zealand in recent years.  Kyle’s latest book is a picture book about a cow that tries to make friends with the moon, called Moon Cow.

Milly the cow thinks that the moon must be lonely up there in the sky with no-one to talk to so she decides to try and make friends with it.  She stays up all night talking to the moon but “the moon didn’t say a word.”  All the other cows laugh at her, saying “Silly Milly Cow! Talking to the moon!”  Each night the moon gets brighter and closer as Milly talks, dances and juggles for the moon, but the moon stays silent. Will the moon ever talk to Milly and share its secrets with her?

Moon Cow is an absolutely stunning picture book.  It’s one of those picture books where the text and illustrations are perfectly matched.  Kyle’s story is gentle and touching, with just the right amount of humour.  As I was reading I thought that it had a similar feel to his award-winning Hill and Hole.  Deidre Copeland’s illustrations are what really make Moon Cow stand out for me.  The front cover really draws the reader in and makes you want to make friends with Milly.  I can just see children gushing over how cute Milly is, especially because of the way Deidre has drawn her eyes.  I love the way that Deidre’s illustrations glow on the page, especially the very last page with Milly and the moon by the lake.  The book’s designers should get some credit for the amazing job they have done on this book too.  My only negative is that a book of this quality should have been published in hardback.  Moon Cow will be a favourite with children and is sure to be a finalist in the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards in 2012.

Gangsta Granny by David Walliams

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Does your granny smell like cabbage?  Does she like to play boring games like Scrabble? Do you think she’s boring?  If you’ve answered yes to all of these questions you probably don’t know her that well.  For all you know she could be a spy, a superhero or even an international jewel thief like Ben’s granny.

Every Friday night Ben gets sent to stay with his granny, while his parents go out to the movies or to watch Strictly Stars Dancing Live.  Ben thinks she’s boring and would rather be anywhere else than spending time with her.  Ben gets sick of eating his granny’s cabbage soup and decides to look in her cupboard for some real food.  He never thought he would discover the stash of priceless jewels in her biscuit tin.  When he confronts her to find out the truth, he discovers that his granny isn’t boring, she’s an international jewel thief.  Ben decides to help his granny pull off the crime of the century – break into the Tower of London and steal the crown jewels.

Gangsta Granny is a book that’s both really funny and a bit sad.  I’m sure your granny’s just a bit like Ben’s granny, even if she’s not a jewel thief.  If you ask her I’m sure some of her stories are just as interesting.  Ben’s parents seem like they don’t really care about him because they’re more interested in their dancing show than they are in him, but deep down they love him.  I love the way David Walliams writes because his stories are so different and his characters are really easy to relate too.  If you liked his other stories, like The Boy in the Dress, Mr Stink and Billionaire Boy, or you like Roald Dahl’s books, you’ll love Gangsta Granny.

(My review from the Christchurch Kids Blog)

The never-ending dilema of the book blogger

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One of the most exciting things about being a book blogger is that some very kind publishers send you review copies of their latest books.  You can pick and choose which ones you would like to review and sometimes they send you extras that you haven’t requested.  HarperCollins New Zealand are one of my favourite publishers to deal with, especially Bonnie, one of their brilliant publicists.  I never seem to run out of books to review and often have several piles that I keep thinking I have to get to.  There are times when I feel guilty because I haven’t got to X publisher’s new titles yet, so I find myself trying to read 2 of 3 books from different publishers at the same time.  Don’t get me wrong, I love all the amazing free books, but sometimes the ‘to be read’ piles can seem a bit daunting.

My biggest problem is that I still continue to buy books from local bookstores and through Amazon, Book Depository and, one of my favourite bookshops, Goldsboro Books (they have the most amazing selection of signed books, especially children’s).  While tidying my bookshelves yesterday I noticed the frightening large amount of books I’ve bought this year but still haven’t read.  Here’s just a small selection:

  • Daughter of Smoke and Bone – Laini Taylor
  • Ashfall – Mike Mullan
  • Sweetly – Jackson Pearce
  • This Dark Endeavor – Kenneth Oppel
  • Game Runner – B.R. Collins
  • Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – Ransom Riggs
  • The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean – David Almond
  • All These Things I’ve Done – Gabrielle Zevin
  • Ashes – Ilsa Black

I keep saying to myself that once December comes around I’ll have 2 months to catch up before the publishing world kick starts for the new year, but I’m not sure how this will work out for me.

Can anybody suggest what I should start on first?  What books have you bought this year but haven’t read yet?

Return to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books

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My favourite all-time book is Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s Shadow of the Wind so I was really excited to read today that I’ll get to return to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books next year.  Here’s the info from Carlos’ newsletter:

“The Prisoner of Heaven returns to the world of The Cemetery of Forgotten Books and the Sempere & Sons bookshop. It begins one year after the close of The Shadow of the Wind when a mysterious stranger enters the shop, looking for a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo .

The Prisoner of Heaven is published in Spain today and the English language version will be out in the UK on 21/06/2012″

I haven’t got word of when it will be released in New Zealand but am assuming it will be published in Australia and NZ by Text Publishing, who have brought us Carlos’ other English language translations.  June 21, 2012 certainly can’t come around fast enough!

Kiwi Corkers – traditional tales with a Kiwi twist

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Scholastic New Zealand Publishing Manager Diana Murray shares the story behind the stories.

The Kiwi Corkers series hatched from the idea of taking well-known tales and retelling them with a New Zealand flavour. The concept of reworking fairy tales is not revolutionary; however the idea of bringing them into our familiar, uniquely Kiwi environment has made them popular stories that our children can relate to.

Every aspect of the series has been carefully considered. We decided to publish them with bright, fun and durable hardcovers, but sell them at lower than paperback prices to make collecting the full series affordable. We identified the traditional tales children are still growing up with. Initially we asked New Zealand authors to write stories for us, but after a time the series took on a life of its own and we have received a high volume of manuscripts for it.

Sounds straightforward? Well – not always!

Take The Elves and the Cloakmaker, written by Chris Gurney and illustrated by John Bennett (October 2011). There were twists and turns in bringing this book to publication, as we had to consider things such as whether men can weave cloaks (yes, our research tells us, they can) and what patupaiarehe might look like (bright red hair, pale skin). At one stage, the title was going to be The Patupaiarehe and the Cloakmaker , but we were concerned that such a complicated looking word in the title might be off-putting to non-Maori speakers and changed it to The Elves and the Cloakmaker – which begged the question whether patupaiarehe are elves? After research and consultation, we decided yes, that would be fine.

And it took a long time to come up with the Kiwi wolf for Little Red and the Cunning Kuri, also written by Chris Gurney, with illustrations by Sarah N Anderson (October 2010). What nasty New Zealand creatures do we have that could fit this character? We thought of a katipo – but it wouldn’t have been the right size in relation to Little Red, and not the right shape either. A kahu (harrier hawk)? No, still not right. It was a light-bulb moment when the author came up with the kuri, a Maori dog.

Scholastic New Zealand has now published 12 books in the series, and have another two in the pipeline for 2012 – both of which promise to uphold the ‘high standards’ of ‘this series of poetic parodies’ (Trevor Agnew The Source, 6 July 2011).

Bananas In My Ears – Poems by Michael Rosen

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Michael Rosen is a cool poet and author who has been writing poems for years.  His poetry collections always have really funny titles like Lunch Boxes Don’t Fly and Mustard, Custard, Grumble Belly and Gravy.  His latest collection, Bananas In My Ears, is full of weird and wonderful poems.

In Bananas In My Ears there are poems about everyday life, like things that happen at breakfast time or when you go to the doctors, but there are also poems about silly things that could happen.  My favourite poems in the book are called ‘What if…’ and they’re about things like ‘What if a piece of toast turned into a ghost just as you were eating it?’ or ‘What if they made children-sized diggers?’  They’re really funny and things get completely out of control in them.  Each of the poems are illustrated by Quentin Blake, who you might recognize as the illustrator that did the covers and illustrations for all of Roald Dahl’s books.

Poems are great to read if you don’t have alot of time to read or just want something short and Bananas In My Ears is a collection of poems you’ll want to read again and again.

Sticky Ends – Poems by Jeanne Willis

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There are all sorts of poetry books you can find in the library.  There are nice, sweet poems about friends, poems about animals, or poems about monsters.  Some of them rhyme and some of them twist and turn all over the page.  Sticky Ends is a new collection of twenty-six very funny cautionary verses where the characters come to a sticky end.  Some of them are stupendously silly, some are horribly gross, but they’re all funny.

In Sticky Ends you’ll meet Bubblegum Pete who ate all the bubblegum he could eat, but then comes to a sticky end when he blows the biggest bubble and gets blown away.  There’s a very naughty Father Christmas who gets blackmailed by a naughty boy, Lardy Marge who eats too much butter, and Filthy Frankie who gets cocooned in snot.

If you ever need a really funny poem to read aloud at school or to make your parents squirm, Sticky Ends has a great selection to choose from.  If you’re looking for it in the library, just look for the picture of an elephant sitting on a person on the front cover.

D.E.S.I.G.N. by Ewa Solarz, illustrated by Aleksandra and Daniel Mizielinski

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Design of buildings and household objects are one of the last things that I would normally be interested in finding out about.  Thanks to H.O.U.S.E. and D.E.S.I.G.N. written by Ewa Solarz and illustrated by Aleksandra and Daniel Mizielinski I know more about these two subjects than I thought I ever would.  One of the best publishers around, Gecko Press, have translated them into English and published them in New Zealand so we get to pore over these fantastic books and learn about some of the bizarre and fascinating objects and buildings that people have designed and brought to life.

One of the things  I really love about D.E.S.I.G.N. is that the illustrations are appealing to children, but the author hasn’t dumbed down the information.  There are 69 of the most innovative household items from the past 150 years in D.E.S.I.G.N. and I had no idea that most of them even existed. The illustrations are quirky, every page is full of bold colours, and there are diagrams showing you how each object works or is supposed to be used.  There is a handy key at the beginning of the book showing you what each of the symbols mean throughout the book.  These symbols on each page tell you what the object is made of, what it can be used for and which country the designer/inventor is from.  There’s also an index in the back to help you find your favourite objects.

D.E.S.I.G.N. is a book that you can come back to again and again, and discover something new each time.  It’s the perfect book for those inquisitive children, especially boys, who want to know how things work, and adults will love it just as much as children.  One of my top nonfiction books for children of 2011.