A Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689821387 ISBN 13: 9780689821387

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 2000

Synopsis

A fantastical compilation of short stories revisits and reinvents classic fairy tales, from a Cinderella who isn't dainty to what life was like for the Seven Dwarfs after Snow White left them, and includes such contributors as Jane Yolen, Neil Gaiman, Nancy Farmer, and Katherine Vaz.

About this title

About the Author:

Ellen Datlow has edited and coedited many anthologies, including Snow White, Blood Red (with Terri Windling) and The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror annual volumes (also with Terri Windling). She has won five World Fantasy Awards for her editing. Ellen lives in Manhattan's Greenwich Village with two demanding but terrific calico cats. Her favorite fairy tale is "The Goose Girl," but she always felt sorry that Falada lost her head (and she is so glad that in Nancy Farmer's version she doesn't).

From Booklist:

Gr. 6-10. Irreverent, poetic, and thrillingly evil, these new versions of classic fairy tales are less comic and playful than the fractured fairy-tale picture books for younger readers. In fact, as the editors point out in their introduction, fairy tales were originally told to older audiences before the stories were sweetened and simplified for children. Many of these retellings are contemporary, set in the city and the schoolyard as well as the dark woods, with lots of evil stepmoms and rivalrous siblings. Garth Nix's "Hansel's Eyes" may be too lurid, even for teens, spelling out the fairy tale's elemental terror in graphic detail, with a Hagmom who gets Dad to dump the kids in a city wasteland. But many of the other stories are dark and strange and beautiful. In Gregory Maguire's "The Seven Stage Comeback," the dwarves speak in poetic monologues as they try to get back their beloved Snow White after she's left them for the prince ("We took her in when she was lost / But then we lost her in our turn"). Jane Yolen's "Cinder Elephant" is about "a lovely big girl," whose dancing slippers are size nine-and-a-half wide, very wide; she hooks the prince with her love of sports and books and her fast, funny talk. Both immediate and traditional, this dramatic collection will grab middle-graders and teens for storytelling and readers' theater. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0689821387
• ISBN 13: 9780689821387
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 166
• Editor: Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling
• Illustrator: Tristan Ellwell