Women in Folklore Month: Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie

Today I am sharing a post on Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie, Victoria writer and daughter of Willliam Makepeace Thackeray.

Here's an excerpt from my article about Anne Thackeray Ritchie which appeared in Faerie Magazine issue 19 and is also an introduction to my ebook The Fairy Tale Fiction of Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie.

Since significant portions of her childhood were spent in England and France with her family, Anne was exposed to the fairy tale legacies of both countries, especially the works of Charles Perrault and the women of the French salons, such as Madame D’Aulnoy and Madame Villeneuve. She was also alive during the great fairy tale renaissance of the Victorian era when the Brothers Grimm were busily compiling, editing and re-editing their magnum opus. Hans Christian Andersen grew in popularity during her lifetime. Folklore research and studies also increased in significant volume. Consequently, traditional fairy tales and folklore were popular in their collected forms and inspired countless reinterpretations by authors in the 1800s. Her own father had briefly explored the genre in his writings, especially with his short story, “Bluebeard’s Ghost,” and The Rose and the Ring.

Influenced by this trend, Ritchie was drawn to fairy tales and folklore throughout her career. Ritchie considered fairy tales and folklore to be an important part of women’s literature. She was always a proponent of women writers with such works as A Book of Sibyls (1883), a collection of essays about four famous women authors, including Jane Austen. She later wrote an introduction to a volume of English translations of Madame d’Aulnoy’s fairy tales, a volume that was translated and published by two other women from the original French into English in 1892.

Thus it is no surprise that Ritchie explored the tales by writing her own interpretations of the stories with nine short stories and novellas. Each of these stories first appeared in Cornhill Magazine in the UK and were published approximately a month later in an issue of Littel’s The Living Age magazine in the United States. Soon after, Ritchie re-edited the stories and collected them in two volumes, Five Old Friends and a Young Prince (1868) and Bluebeard’s Keys and Other Stories (1874). Both collections were popular enough to be republished a few times in her lifetime.

The first collection, Five Old Friends and a Young Prince, included five interpretations of traditional tales and one original fairy tale that wasn’t included in later releases with the shortened title of Five Old Friends. “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood,” “Cinderella,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” and “Jack the Giant-killer” appear in the collection. All of the tales, excepting the British “Jack the Giant-killer,” were French. The first four are shorter works while she expanded “Jack the Giant-killer” into novella length fiction. The second collection included four novellas, “Bluebeard’s Keys,” “Riquet à la Houppe,” “Jack and the Bean-stalk,” and “The White Cat.” Once again, all of these excepting the British Jack tale came from the French tradition.
The stories are told through the eyes of Ritchie’s fictional counterpart, the narrator Miss Williamson, and her dear companion H. Note Ritchie’s homage to her deceased father with this name, denoting herself as “Son of William [Makepiece Thackeray].”

Ritchie’s work is particularly interesting because she reinterpreted the magical elements of the tales into realistic elements. Her versions are firmly set in her contemporary Victorian time, using industrialists, misers and even bigamists as her purported villains, replacing the witches, ogres and other monsters in the original tales. Ritchie’s character development makes all of her characters, even the supposed villains, sympathetic on some level.

I have three of her stories available for reading on SurLaLune:

Beauty and the Beast (1867)
by Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie

Cinderella (1868)
by Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie

The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood (1868)
by Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie


Two biographies have been written about Ritchie, a fascinating woman very much of her time, but then again not. From her unorthodox marriage to her much younger cousin to her influence in literary circles, including her relationship to Virigina Woolf, she makes for interesting reading. The biographies are Anne Thackeray Ritchie : A Biography by Winifred Gerin and Anny: A Life of Anny Thackeray Ritchie by Henrietta Garnett.


To read more about women authors of fairy tales in the Victorian era, also look for Forbidden Journeys: Fairy Tales and Fantasies by Victorian Women Writers by Nina Auerbach and U. C. Knoepflmacher.

Women in Folklore Month: Eleanor Vere Gordon Boyle

Eleanor Vere Gordon Boyle is our illustrator for today's Women in Folklore Month post.


From Wikipedia:

Eleanor Vere Gordon Boyle (1 May 1825 – 29 July 1916) was an English artist and author of the Victorian era. She has been considered the most important female illustrator of the 1860s.

She was born in Scotland, the youngest daughter of Alexander Gordon of Ellon Castle, Aberdeenshire. In 1845 she married Richard Cavendish Boyle (1812–86), a younger son of the 8th Earl of Cork; R. C. Boyle served as the rector of Marston Bigot in Somerset (1836–75) and later as Queen Victoria's chaplain. Because of her social position, she rarely exhibited or sold her artwork — actions that would have been déclassé in the standards of her time and place. She did allow a rare exhibition of her art at Leighton House c. 1902. Consistently, in both her visual art and her books, she employed her initials, E. V. B., to mask her identity.

Boyle applied her skill as a watercolorist to illustrate children's books. In 1852, a small volume titled Child's Play matched Boyle pictures with traditional nursery rhymes like "Little Boy Blue." She illustrated a wide range of similar books, including Tennyson's The May Queen (1860) — she was a friend of the poet — and the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast (1875) — she depicted the Beast as a sabre-toothed panther. In 1868 she illustrated Sarah Austen's translation of Friedrich Wilhelm Carové's The Story Without an End; and in 1872 she became one of the first British artists to illustrate the stories of Hans Christian Andersen, and set a new standard of quality for Andersen illustration.

I've always appreciated Boyle's rather unique take on the Beast in her Beauty and the Beast illustrations. He is rather ugly and much less of a teddy bear or lion in disguise as later illustrators have portrayed him.


Her Thumbelina paintings are some of my favorites of her work although I am quite attached to the Beauty and the Beast images, too.


Her work is just so very Victorian, really. Rather fun to peruse and see how much has changed in 150 years of illustration.

Taking a Children’s Tale to Dark New Depths

A review for a new ballet of The Little Mermaid has some interesting thoughts on fairy tale adaptations in general. The article is Taking a Children’s Tale to Dark New Depths by Chloe Veltman for The New York Times. Here's an excerpt:

Infused with stark blue and white light, angular movements, expressionistic visual imagery and an unsettling and often dissonant musical score by the Russian composer Lera Auerbach, Mr. Neumeier’s mature take on Andersen’s cautionary tale about a young woman who risks everything for love has about as much in common with the Disney version as Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” has with Lewis Carroll’s original text.

Perhaps to retaliate against the prettification of many classic children’s stories, prominent artists are drawn to recasting such works in more somber hues. Projects like those of Mr. Neumeier and Mr. Burton help to reconnect audiences with the darkness that lies at the heart of the originals.

But sometimes the adapters go too far in focusing on mature themes, and risk estranging not only children but adults too. This can undermine the well-intentioned efforts to bring a fresh perspective to parts of our collective folklore that have been bowdlerized in the pursuit of audience-pleasing palatability.

As always I recommend clicking through and reading the entire article for the entire take, sooner rather than later since NYT articles do not remain free for very long, I think two weeks.

The Dark Forest of Childhood by Laurel Snyder

From The dark forest of childhood: Modern fairy tales return to their roots by Laurel Snyder for The Boston Globe:

My own sense of what a fairy tale is is linked to my own sense of what a child is, and that has been part of an experiment we call the 20th-century middle-class democracy. The golden age that followed the advent of child labor laws and the creation of mass public education. The post-war years of financial growth and the miracle of penicillin. The mythological years of prosperity and an inevitable cure for every ailment. Years full of happy fairies, bright colors, princesses of a merry sort. The decades of Disney.

Maybe, I thought, I’m the one whose childhood was defined by a fad, a trend — the trend of the midcentury American fairy tale. Maybe mature fairy tales are the norm, and these new books, with their retold teen mermaids and Goose Girls, are closer to the intent of our original fairy tellers. Different in style, but not in substance. Just as little girls today are pushed into womanhood by shameless advertising, skimpy clothes, unemployed parents, and a rising tide of homelessness, so were our great-great-grandmothers pushed into their womanhoods at a tender age.

The article itself is two pages and quite interesting with the author's perspectives changing with her experiences, so read it all. I don't have the time at this moment to share my thoughts, but I had to share the article while its fresh.

And thanks Anne for sharing the link!

Quick Update

Hey y'all, I've pushed live the posts from the past several days that sat in draft mode because I was unable to do a final polish. So please page back and see my entries on P. L. Travers and Kate Bernheimer if you haven't seen them yet as well as today's about Jennie Harbour. Then I sort of snuck one in on Carol Ann Duffy with the post about her David Beckham ode.

And, yes, I'm feeling twangy today. I am Southern, after all.

Women and Folklore Month is over half done now. My list has been growing which only means that I will have plenty for next year, I hope. Although I probably won't save them until then...

And my salute to Ireland for St. Paddy's fell through halfway through the week. Sorry about that! There's just not enough time in my days right now since I have to earn money to eat...I wish SurLaLune supported me, but it only supports my research and reading trends and nothing else...

Finally, thank you for supporting SurLaLune by using affiliate links!

Carol Ann Duffy, David Beckham, Etc.

Okay, so "fairy tale" is overused by sports journalists in English speaking countries. This month is especially bad with the extra "Cinderella" references in allusion to March Madness here in the states. Ugh! Sifting through all of it in my news searches can be tedious.

Recently, however, Carol Ann Duffy, British Poet Laureate and fairy tale apologist, has written a poem about David Beckham's woes in football/soccer (depending on your country). The response has also been interesting.

Here are some links:

British poet laureate's poem for Beckham from the AP

Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy writes for injured David Beckham (the poem is here, too).

Carol Ann Duffy the classicist (on David Beckham and Achilles)
Charlotte Higgins: The poet laureate's new David Beckham poem is a perfect demonstration of why classics should be taught in schools (This is the best article if you are wanted to read more about myths and such.)

Carol Ann Duffy's poem for David Beckham is an ode to enjoy

RIP: the footballing life of David Beckham

I'm entertained...how about you?


Duffy isn't nearly as well known stateside although many of her books are available on Amazon. She does get her own store on Amazon.co.uk where more titles are available, of course.


Of particular interest to SurLaLune readers would be The Lost Happy Endings and Collected Grimm Tales and Rumpelstiltskin and Other Grimm Tales. The latter two are collections of retold tales in which Duffy "seeks to remove the sugariness of contemporary versions and return to the orginal, darker mould."


The Lost Happy Endings: "A wicked witch has devised a most devious caper: she has stolen all the happy endings to bedtime stories. Now all of the children’s favorite stories are bringing them to tears at bedtime. In this fantastic and magical tale, it is up to Jub—the keeper of the happy endings—to save the day and ensure sweet dreams everywhere."

Anne Frank and Fairy Tales

From Anne Frank told fairy tales to children in concentration camp, says survivor in new memoir by Rosemary Black at the Daily News:

During her final weeks of life in a German concentration camp, Anne Frank told fairy tales to the youngest inmates to lift their morale, says a Holocaust survivor who met her.

Anne, whose diary penned during her two years of hiding with her family in Amsterdam is the most widely read book about the Holocaust, was frail and sickly at that point. Few knew of her talent for fairytale-telling until Holocaust survivor Berthe Meijer, now 71, mentioned it in a memoir that will be published this month in Dutch, according to AOL News.

Meijer, who was a 6-year-old inmate at Bergen-Belsen when she met Anne, recalls the Jewish teenager’s stories as "fairy tales in which nasty things happened, and that was of course very much related to the war."

*******

But the stories she spun for the younger children at Bergen Belsen were "about princes and elves and those kind of figures," Meijer said. And while the stories had unhappy twists, they were "quite a bit less terrible than what we saw around us. So you thought, ‘They didn’t have it so bad.’ As a child, you think very primitively about that kind of thing," she said.

Some are debating whether the memory is true or if the teller was actually Anne Frank, but most believe the author's accounts. Her memoir is only in Dutch so far, but might perhaps appear in English someday...

And for now, it adds an interesting dimension to fairy tales and the Holocaust either way.

Women in Folklore Month: Jennie Harbour

I'm thinking of making Saturdays into "pretty picture" days on this blog since I am finding so many wonderful illustrations generously shared around the internet these days. Today I'm sharing work by Jennie Harbour, an illustrator I know virtually nothing about despite many years of searching. I know her work resonates with many of SurLaLune's visitors for I receive many emails requesting more information. I keep hoping that my copies of guides to illustrators will suddenly produce entries on her, but they never do when I check them again. Alas, my bookshelves are magical, but not quite that magical.


(I'll let you in on a secret: If it's not on the website, I don't have it. I try to add as much as I know--no secrets being kept by me--although some stuff slips through the cracks of my to do lists, the big stuff is there.)


While her color work receives the most attention on the web, I prefer her black and white work overall. She used light and shadow very well, using a scratchboard effect although I don't think the originals were scratchboard.


This is one of my favorites and comes from Snow White and Rose Red. It's so very domestic and cozy without being twee.


Anyway, Harbour's work has grown in popularity--she has popped up in many places on the web since I first added her to my website years and years ago. At that time, I couldn't find other images of her work anywhere else. These days posters of her work are available at Art.com and I have a CafePress shop devoted to her, too. I, of course, have a gallery of her work on SurLaLune as well. I have many of her illustrations there, so do explore.


And if you have a favorite of Harbour work that's not available on Art.com, do contact me and we can see about producing something. I understand because I adore her work, too.

Women in Folklore Month: Kate Bernheimer

Kate Bernheimer first came to my attention during the heydey of SurLaLune's Discussion Boards, another boon of the early days of SurLaLune. Her career has taken off in the intervening years, including several books and the launching of Fairy Tale Review.


Here's a short bio from the Fairy Tale Review website:

Kate Bernheimer is the author of two novels, The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold (FC2) and The Complete Tales of Merry Gold (FC2), Her first story collection is forthcoming from Coffee House in 2010, and called Horse, Flower, Bird. It will be illustrated by Rikki Ducornet. She has just edited a collection of contemporary fairy tales for Penguin (forthcoming Fall 2010) and is also editor of two essay collections, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales (Anchor/Vintage) and Brothers and Beasts: An Anthology of Men on Fairy Tales (Wayne State University Press). Bernheimer’s first children’s book, The Girl in The Castle inside The Museum (Schwartz & Wade Books/Random House), was illustrated by Nicoletta Ceccoli, and was named a Best Book of 2008 by Publisher’s Weekly. Her second children’s book, The Lonely Book, is being illustrated by Chris Sheban (forthcoming Schwartz & Wade Books/Random House). She is currently Writer in Residence and Associate Professor at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette, living in the Ernest Gaines House and teaching a workshop each spring semester. She spends the rest of the year elsewhere. Kate Bernheimer also serves on the Board of FC2, one of the country’s oldest independent publishers of innovative fiction. She welcomes your invitations to give fiction readings or lectures on contemporary fairy tales.

Here's a description of Fairy Tale Review from Amazon:

Each issue of "Fairy Tale Review" contains poetry, fiction, and nonfiction that either address the abiding influence of fairy tales on contemporary literature and culture, or are themselves contemporary fairy tales in prose or verse. It is, according to editor Kate Bernheimer, 'a venue for all writers working with the aesthetics and motifs of fairy tales'. "Fairy Tale Review's" first four issues ("The Blue Issue, 2005"; "The Green Issue, 2006"; "The Violet Issue, 2007"; and "The White Issue, 2008") contain contributions from nationally recognized authors such as Donna Tartt, Francine Prose, Lydia Millet, Marina Warner, Jack Zipes, Aimee Bender, and Rikki Ducornet. Stories from the first three issues have been noted or chosen for republication in Best New American Writers and Best American Short Stories. Seven stories and seven poems in all have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. This fifth volume, "The Aquamarine Issue", contains work by Kim Addonizio, Naoko Awa, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Angela Fountas, Annie Guthrie, Sam Martone, Joyelle McSweeney, Edgar Allan Poe, Terese Svoboda, and Steve Tomasula, among many others.

Currently, there are five issues of Fairy Tale Review, all available through Amazon (use individual links below or cover links in this post) or the FTR website:

Fairy Tale Review, The Blue Issue
Fairy Tale Review, The Green Issue
Fairy Tale Review, The Violet Issue
Fairy Tale Review, The White Issue
Fairy Tale Review, The Aquamarine Issue


I have to admit that my favorite work of Bernheimer's--for completely personal and emotional reasons--are Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales and Brothers and Beasts: An Anthology of Men on Fairy Tales. Both are collections of essays by various individuals ruminating on fairy tales.


Here's a description for Mirror, Mirror:

Fairy tales are one of the most enduring forms of literature, their plots retold and characters reimagined for centuries. In this elegant and thought-provoking collection of original essays, Kate Bernheimer brings together twenty-eight leading women writers to discuss how these stories helped shape their imaginations, their craft, and our culture. In poetic narratives, personal histories, and penetrating commentary, the assembled authors bare their soul and challenge received wisdom. Eclectic and wide-ranging, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall is essential reading for anyone who has ever been bewitched by the strange and fanciful realm of fairy tales.

Contributors include: Alice Adams, Julia Alvarez, Margaret Atwood, Ann Beattie, Rosellen Brown, A. S. Byatt, Kathryn Davis, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Deborah Eisenberg, Maria Flook, Patricia Foster, Vivian Gornick, Lucy Grealy, bell hooks, Fanny Howe, Fern Kupfer, Ursula K. Le Guin, Carole Maso, Jane Miller, Lydia Millet, Joyce Carol Oates, Connie Porter, Francine Prose, Linda Gray Sexton, Midori Snyder, Fay Weldon, Joy Williams, Terri Windling.

Brothers and Beasts does the same except with men writing their experiences.

This September we will also see My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me by Kate Bernheimer and Gregory Maguire. I don't know much about it yet--I haven't asked Kate!--but I will be sure to highlight it here closer to publication date.

Needless to say, Bernheimer's work has already made a great contribution to the field of reading and studying fairy tales and she will remain a person to watch in the years to come.

Women in Folklore Month: P. L. Travers

Most likely if you are at all familiar with P. L. Travers, you know her as the author of Mary Poppins.

I'll admit that for once I much prefer the Disney version of Mary Poppins to Travers' original. Perhaps it was order of exposure, but I was disappointed in the books when I finally got to them. My experience wasn't improved by seeing the more recent stage musical that tried to keep more in line with Travers' original vision per her instructions. The giant menacing toys left a bad taste in my mouth, for one. And I really wish the Sherman Brothers had been allowed to write the newer songs although I admit the new "Practically Perfect" does make a good earworm. But come on, the Sherman Brothers also gave us The Slipper and the Rose, another soundtrack I love as much as I love Mary Poppins. I really think they are undervalued all too often. And don't get me wrong, I understand Travers' sense of betrayal over the changes made to her characters and stories. I just think Disney actually made some good decisions on that one. He was thinking a few generations ahead of her in parenting styles and disciplines and such.

However, trying to steer myself back on track, I share Travers' fascination with fairy tales--so many fantasy authors get their start there!--and appreciate her work in that area. She actually wrote two books directly about fairy tales and myths. The first is About the Sleeping Beauty (1975) in which she wrote an essay about the tale and then shared five versions from around the world. Not groundbreaking stuff for scholars, but considering its aim at the armchair reader, the audience that the publisher hoped would buy the book because her name was on the cover, well, that was rather innovative. It's rare to see books collecting variants of tales for armchair readers with the possible exception of Cinderella tales.


About the Sleeping Beauty (1975)

Five versions of the Sleeping Beauty tale are accompanied by the author's own version and an essay on the meaning of fairy tales, "The Sleeping Beauty" in particular.

The book is usually very expensive, but never fear, except for the essays, versions of the tales are also found on the web:

Briar Rose
La Belle au Bois Dormant
Sola, Luna, e Talia
The Queen of Tubber Tintye or The King of Erin and the Queen of the Lonesome Island
The Petrified Mansion

Travers took a more scholarly bent with her other title What the Bee Knows: Reflections on Myth, Symbol and Story (1989).

A collection of essays, stories and reminiscences, many of which were first published in the US magazine "Parabola". The essays are often reflections on the themes of myth and folklore: The Heroic Quest, The Black Sheep, The Foolish Young Son, drawing on a lifelong immersion in world mythology. Ranging from Hindu creation stories through Celtic legend and the "Dreamtime" of the Australian Aborigines to Central European tales of wicked fairies and miller's daughters, the author sets out her faith in the poetic truth of these fables. Interspersed are memories of her Australian childhood, of the friendships she formed as a young woman in Ireland with AE and Yeats and of her stay on an American Indian reservation where she was driven about by a surly cowboy.

If you would like to read more about Travers, there is a fairly recent biography by Valerie Lawson.


Mary Poppins, She Wrote: The Life of P. L. Travers by Valerie Lawson

Review from Publishers Weekly:

The original Mary Poppins was not as "saccharine" as the movie character, says Lawson, and her bittersweet biography of the supernanny's elusive creator, Travers (1899–1996), convincingly portrays a writer who created her character out of the childhood sorrows that haunted her. Drawing on archival sources and private papers, Lawson, a writer for the Sydney Morning Herald, sensitively traces Travers's emotionally deprived girlhood in Australia, where she was raised largely by an elderly aunt; her early career as an actress and columnist; and her 1924 emigration to London, where she worked as a journalist and theater reviewer. Emphasizing how Travers's desire for the father who had died when she was seven affected both her life and work, Lawson explores mythological and literary influences on the six Mary Poppins stories, written over 54 years (the first was published in 1934). Never married, Travers adopted an Irish baby boy; Lawson movingly reveals the emotional fallout of their failed relationship. After detailing Travers's fussy movie negotiations with Walt Disney and the downplaying of her authorship in the 1964 hit film, Lawson captures the melancholy of Travers's retreat into isolation and old age.

Review from Booklist:

This ambitious biography of P. L. Travers was first published in Australia in 1999. The occasion for this American edition is the imminent opening of the Broadway musical version of Travers' timeless, "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" tales of Mary Poppins, the imperious nanny who arrived one morning on the East Wind. It turns out there was a lot of the difficult Travers in Poppins. The early death of Pamela's father (she was born Helen Lyndon Goff in Australia) left the family dependent on wealthy Great-Aunt Ellie, another early inspiration for Poppins. The untimely bereavement also inspired Travers' lifelong search for a father substitute, first in the Irish poet AE (George Russell) and later in such dubious gurus as Gurdjieff and Krishnamurti. The translation of the Poppins stories into the celebrated Disney film brought Travers a decade of international fame, which had declined considerably by the time of her death at age 96 in 1996. This meticulously researched but overlong biography may help restore a diminished literary reputation, but its unsparing portrait of an exceedingly unsympathetic human being will win Travers no new posthumous friends.

In other words, Travers was a prickly personality and not as charming or even warm and fuzzy as her alter ego, but she is fascinating all the same.

Women in Folklore Month: Donna Jo Napoli

I still remember the first time I read Donna Jo Napoli's The Magic Circle. I was dazzled by the impact of such a short novel and bemused by its publication as a children's book. The book is a retelling of Hansel and Gretel from the witch's point of view and is in my top ten of the all time best fairy tale retellings, be they film, book, poem or otherwise. It is not a light read. I thought about it for days and the book is vivid in my memory even during the years between rereadings. I can't recommend it highly enough. But it is definitely a mature YA book due to themes. No, it's not as graphic as many other books, but it is about evil. Not in a evil is good for entertainment kind of way, but in a this is it and it makes you miserable and is hard to overcome if you allow it in your life. Really, it can be a metaphor for addiction.


Needless to say, if that is the only fairy tale retelling Napoli had ever written, she'd be an important addition to the list of women and fairy tales. But she hasn't stopped there. Her fairy tale and mytho novelizations are numbered in the double digits now. She is prolific and while some are stronger than others, all make you think and see the fairy tales in new ways. It's hard to choose favorites and I also have some of the Napoli's other novels as keepers on my shelf. Zel, a retelling of Rapunzel, is a top pick, too,


Then I am excited for her upcoming release, The Wager, due out at the end of April. From what I have read, this one is a retelling of an Italian Bearskin variant, Don Giovanni de la Fortuna. There aren't many retellings of Bearskin and I know Napoli has the chops to write a stunning version of it.


All this and Napoli is also a linguist as well as a writer of children's fiction. Here's some of her education and career information from Wikipedia:

She has taught linguistics at Smith College, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Georgetown University, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and is currently a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College.

Born the youngest of four children in Miami, February 28, 1948, Napoli received both her B.A. (mathematics, 1970) and Ph.D. (Romance Languages -- the Linguistics Plan A, 1973) from Harvard, before a postdoctoral fellowship in linguistics at M.I.T. Napoli has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Italy.

If you want to be even more impressed/intimidated, read her full CV.


While Napoli is briliant at exploring the darker sides of characters, she has also written lighter fare suitable for middle readers, such as her Prince of the Pond books (Frog Prince retellings) and Ugly (Ugly Duckling).


I had the opportunity to hear Napoli speak at a children's literature conference in 2002. Like many writers with works in progress, she was reluctant to share any information about other possible fairy tale retellings although she has obviously written many more since. She was generous and kind to her audience, many of whom seemed to be unfamiliar with her work. I admit she was one of the primary reasons I even attended. (Didn't hurt that Robert Sabuda was there, too!)


So if you haven't read any Napoli, do pick up at least a few and make The Magic Circle one of them. If you have, please feel free to share a favorite in the comments. I'm always curious to know which of her books are favorites among readers.


While I have a listing of Napoli's fairy tale and myth novels on SurLaLune, her bibliography is much more extensive and should be explored on Amazon.


Napoli also has a website of her own at Donna Jo Napoli.

And finally, an excerpt from an interview conducted last year at Donna Jo Napoli tackles war and other tough issues in her novels:

Could you name five books you find yourself recommending over and over and why?

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Things They Carried, The Blind Assassin, Celestial Navigation, Beloved. Why? They get inside you and make you rethink positions you thought you'd already well-understood. They disturb. If a book doesn't disturb me, it doesn't matter to me.

If that doesn't sum up her approach to many fairy tales, not much can.

Reading Fairy Tales to Children in India

From Our fantastic readers: how 200 of you volunteered by Lucy Tobin at The Guardian:

Last year in Education Guardian Professor Sugata Mitra appealed for volunteers in the UK to read stories over the internet to children in Hyderabad. "When I last visited India, I asked the children what they would most like to use Skype [the internet telephone service] for. Surprisingly, they said they wanted British grandmothers to read them fairytales – they'd even worked out that between them they could afford to pay £1 a week out of their own money," Mitra said.

He had already recruited one woman to spend a few hours a week reading fairy tales to the children, with her life-size webcam image projected on to a wall in India. He appealed to Education Guardian readers to volunteer. And some 200 people stepped forward.

"Many are retired teachers, who are now regularly on Skype teaching children in the slums," says Mitra. "The children are forming relationships with them, and the teachers, many of whom were upset at the thought of having finished their careers, have realised they're more important than ever."

For even more warm fuzzies, you can read 'They are like whirlwinds, brimming with confidence'Retired teacher Val Almond volunteered to read to children in India in response to a request in Education Guardian. One year and many stories on, she shares her experience:

Last March I read an article in Education Guardian that called for volunteers to read stories to Indian children for one hour a week using Skype. I am a retired teacher and I still love working with children, so I applied and have been working with children in Hyderabad since last summer.

The first problem was to find suitable stories to read as I was told the children liked books with pictures. I decided to read fairy stories and have read many of the traditional fairy stories like Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella and Goldilocks and The Three Bears. These went down well, especially when I managed to show them how to make a beanstalk and a 'Jacob's ladder' out of paper.

I love how the internet helps make the world smaller and smaller and shares good stories, too.