Deborah J. Brannon, Guest Reviewer: Roses and Rot by Kat Howard

Hello all, I have a guest review to share today from SurLaLune reader, Deborah J. Brannon. Thanks for sharing with us, Deborah!

Roses and Rot
Author: Kat Howard
Publisher: Saga Press; 1st edition (May 17, 2016)
Print length: 320 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1481451161

Roses and Rot is a knife in the dark, and a comforting embrace after that sudden welling of blood. That sounds melodramatic, but it can’t be - not with this book. Roses and Rot is Kat Howard’s debut novel and it is a paean to survival, to thriving, to fairy tales.

You think you know this story - and maybe you do, but only because you’ve lived it. Two sisters grow up under the cruel ministrations of a manipulative, self-centered mother. The older sister escapes and goes away to school, leaving the younger sister unprotected and alone. They lose each other for seven years, only to find their way back together in a magical, mysterious land: Melete. Melete is a prestigious retreat for artists of every kind. Melete is a Greek Muse and a word that means “contemplation.” Melete is the perfect place for two sisters to find each other again and then to find their own voices and their own successes.

Imogen, the elder sister, is a writer. Marin is a dancer. They both bear deep wounds from the psychological, physical, and emotional abuse inflicted upon them by their mother. Some are obvious; some lurk to be stumbled over later. Melete encompasses the same complexity: a prestigious and intense artists’ retreat on the surface, Melete actually serves as the feeding ground for the Faerie Host. The creative focus and passionate spark of artists sustain the Fae, and each year the most promising Melete Fellow is selected to pay that tithe. They are taken into Faerie for seven years, alone and plumbed for their deepest passions, before being cast back into our world. Their reward is guaranteed success in whatever creative endeavors they pursue.

This is a book about how we help and hurt each other. It’s about the font of creativity, and paying for our choices. It’s about parents failing children, and people finding ways in camaraderie to build each other up. It’s about people who want to be less human and creatures who want to be more. It’s about what happens when we fail, and what happens when we don’t.

It’s a thorned rose aching in your throat when you find yourself in its pages - as many of us childhood survivors will.

It’s a story about facing down the tithe, and this is no Tam Lin.

Kat Howard’s Roses and Rot is well worth your time, as she builds compelling characters and weaves an enticing setting in contemporary rural America. She intelligently explores mature themes and the artist’s working life, while still evoking the wonder of creation and salvation of loving friendships. You’ll find her story doesn’t easily let you go. You’ll be drawn back to Melete, back to Imogen and Marin, their friends and enemies, more than once. I’d say I’m sorry - but I’m not.

Deborah J. Brannon
@geekdame
www.geekdame.com

(Deborah received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley.)

Guest Post: Maia Chance, Author of Snow White Red-Handed

(Amazon US/UK Links)

As I promised yesterday, we have a guest post from author Maia Chance, author of Snow White Red-Handed (A Fairy Tale Fatal Mystery), officially released today. Welcome to SurLaLune, Maia!

I am excited and honored to be guest posting today here at SurLaLune. I’ve been a regular visitor of this beautiful site for years.

I’m also pinching myself about joining the ranks of fairy tale retellers. My new book, Snow White Red-Handed, is a fun historical mystery that intertwines fairy tale lore with a classic whodunit plot. I dreamed up the story while I was teaching a freshman comp course. In order to help my students think past problems of author intentionality when interpreting literature, I used Maria Tatar’s wonderful anthology, The Classic Fairy Tales. At the same time I was teaching that course, I was reading 19th-century American literature (Hawthorne, Alcott, Melville) in preparation for my PhD exams. Thus, my practical Yankee sleuth, Ophelia Flax, was concocted. . . and of course I had to plop her into the seriously impractical Black Forest.

I believe that fairy tales are a special kind of writing. Each variation may be unique, and many can be attributed to particular authors, but in the end they are a kind of jointly owned reservoir of ideas and emotions and characters that belong to everyone. My own favorite retellings are Robin McKinley’s—Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast just blew me away at age twelve, and I’ve reread it at least twice—and Angela Carter’s jaw-droppingly terrifying and gorgeous The Bloody Chamber. I also adore exploring all the children’s picture book versions out there. My most recent favorite is the exquisite, 1920’s-style version of Perrault’s Cinderella illustrated by Roberto Innocenti, and my kids’ favorites are the versions with James Marshall’s illustrations.

In writing Snow White Red-Handed, I enjoyed exploring themes from the fairy tale in depth, through the mystery and through my own characters. I treated the tale’s central mother-daughter theme partly through Prue Bright. Prue is a girl, as lovely as a princess, whose mother Henrietta is an actress and courtesan. Henrietta taught Prue to rely solely upon her looks in life. Then—related to this—there is the tale’s theme of beauty: what women do to get it and keep it (and isn’t a wicked queen eating a young girl’s liver or heart an “extreme beauty” treatment?). The woodland setting was a pleasure to write, since I’m a forest-lover myself; ancient trees, toxic mushrooms, a miniature cottage in the brambles, an abandoned hunting lodge, and rumors of fairies and elves all found their place in Snow White Red-Handed. And because of the presence of the glitzy Baden-Baden casino that was really a Big Deal in the 1860’s, I found a way to do a new take on “dwarf’s gold.” But I won’t give anything else away!

I hope SurLaLune’s readers enjoy Snow White Red-Handed, as well as the second book in my Fairy Tale Fatal series, Cinderella Six Feet Under, which will be released in September 2015. Please visit me on the web:

WEBSITE: maiachance.com
FACEBOOK: facebook.com/MaiaChance
TWITTER: twitter.com/maiachance
GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8127322.Maia_Chance


READ AN EXCERPT FROM SNOW WHITE RED-HANDED:

            “I simply must have you at my side this afternoon, Flax,” Mrs. Coop said.  “I’ve come down with a sick headache, but I wouldn’t miss Professor Winkler’s gold test for the world.  Tighter!”

            “I’m doing my utmost, ma’am,” Ophelia said, straining to cinch Mrs. Coop’s corset laces.

After luncheon, Mrs. Coop had returned to her cream-and-gold jewel box of a boudoir, high in a turret of the castle, to change into her afternoon gown.  She’d been breathless and disheveled, and determined to shrink her waist to a smaller compass.

Mrs. Coop’s disarray, and her sudden wish to appear pixie-like, resulted, Ophelia suspected, from the presence in the castle of either Princess Verushka or Mr. Royall Hunt.  Mrs. Coop and Miss Amaryllis had made the acquaintance of these two fashionable personages at some point in the last two weeks’ frenzy of excursions into Baden-Baden.

            “You must,” Mrs. Coop said, “stay by my side with my smelling salts, should I need them, and fetch me glasses of water and whatever else I may need.  I am not well, Flax—even Mr. Hunt noted that I’m white as a lily—yet this is perhaps the most thrilling day of my life.”

            “Yes, ma’am,” Ophelia said.

            “Just think!  Snow White’s cottage on my own estate.  And a dwarf’s bones!”

            “Mm.”

            “Do I hear doubt in your tone, Flax?”

            “Truth be told, ma’am, it is difficult for me to believe that that house belonged to creatures from a storybook.”

            “Difficult to believe?”

            “Well, ma’am, near impossible.”

            Ophelia had performed with P. Q. Putnam’s Traveling Circus for two years, and she’d known a so-called dwarf.  He’d been a shrimp, true, but there hadn’t been a thing magical about him.  Unless you counted swearing like a sailor and smoking like a house on fire as magic.

            “Of course.”  Mrs. Coop sniffed.  “I nearly forgot you’re a Yankee.”

            Ophelia held her tongue; she was stepping out of character.  It had to be the result of exhaustion.  Mrs. Coop and her stepsister Amaryllis—they had, Ophelia had learned, different mothers—kept her on her feet from dawn to dusk, arranging their hair, pressing their clothing, mixing beauty concoctions, and running up and down the spiraling castle stairs fetching things.

            But how could anyone past the age of pigtails think Snow White and the seven dwarves had really existed?

BIO:

Maia Chance writes historical mystery novels that are rife with absurd predicaments and romantic adventure. She is the author of the Fairy Tale Fatal and The Discreet Retrieval Agency series, and her first mystery, Snow White Red-Handed, will be released in November 2014 by Berkley Prime Crime.

Maia is a candidate for the Ph.D. in English at the University of Washington. This means that the exploits of Fairy Tale Fatal’s heroine, variety hall actress Ophelia Flax, were dreamt up while Maia was purportedly researching 19th-century American literature and fairy tale criticism. The Discreet Retrieval Agency series was born of Maia’s fascination with vintage shoes, automobiles, and cocktails combined with an adoration of P. G. Wodehouse and chocolate.

Upcoming titles include Come Hell or Highball (St. Martin’s Press, 2015) and Cinderella Six Feet Under (Berkley Prime Crime, 2015). Maia lives in Seattle, where she shakes a killer martini, grows a mean radish, and bakes mocha bundts to die for.

Author Guest Post: The Charming Tales by Jack Heckel

I posted recently about Once Upon a Rhyme: Volume I of the Charming Tales and the upcoming Happily Never After: Volume II of the Charming Tales by Jack Heckel. Now I have a guest post about the books to share with you.

The Charming Tales: A Few Thoughts On the Long and Winding Road to Publication by Jack Heckel:

Recently, SurLaLune was nice enough to mention the release of my debut novel Once Upon a Rhyme, the first volume of The Charming Tales, in a blog entry. In that post a mention was made of the fact that a number of recent releases have been told from Prince Charming’s perspective, and it got me thinking about the original inspiration for the novels, and how quixotic is the journey from concept to page.

The Charming Tales originally came from my obsession with Gregory Maguire’s novels, and particularly from a vacation spent reading Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. Although nothing about Maguire’s prose is simple, I was enthralled with the way simply switching perspective could change the way you experienced a story. That in turn led me to reread, cover to cover, my very ragged copy of The Annotated Brothers Grimm by Maria Tatar. I love this volume, because I learn something new every time I read her commentary.

Anyway, there I was reading these stories I knew so well and imagining how they might be different if told from the perspective of one or other of the characters, when I came to my favorite Grimm story, The Seven Ravens. If you’re unfamiliar with the tale of The Seven Ravens, and I know it isn’t among the pantheon of Cinderella or Snow White or Beauty and the Beast, it is the story of a girl who takes up a quest to rescue her brothers, who have been cursed to live as ravens. It is an unusual story because the girl goes on her quest entirely alone and unaided. It is also unusual in that it lacks the presence in even a peripheral way of a romantic interest for our heroine.

In the annotated volume, the story is preceded almost immediately by Cinderella, with its unnamed, but earnest, shoe-bearing prince hero, and is followed immediately by Little Red Riding Hood with its woodcutter deus ex machina. The absence of a rescuing hero figure in The Seven Ravens struck me, and I thought what would happen to the stories of Cinderella or Snow White or Sleeping Beauty if their “Prince Charmings” never showed up?

From this kernel of a thought the Charming Tales grew, but as they do between conception and execution the vision changed.

As you probably don’t know, I am the combined persona of two co-authors, John Peck and Harry Heckel, or as I call them, Thing 1 and Thing 2. Thing 1’s original thought was how sad and tragic would it be for Prince Charming, a man destined to be a great hero, if he failed. To what depths of despair would he be driven? How tormented would he be as the fairytale spun on without him? However, when Thing 1 told Thing 2 about the idea of the story, Thing 2 didn’t see the story as a tragedy, but as a comedy. And the more Thing 1 and Thing 2 talked the more the comic potential of a book based around Prince Charming became apparent.

New questions replaced the earlier ones. How insufferable would a man be if he knew he was destined to be a great hero? How quick would he be to fulfill his quest when to undertake it would also be to risk his reputation and his celebrity should he fail? To what lengths would such a man go to regain his reputation once the “rescue” of the maiden, his sole raison d’etre, had been taken from him? And what about the princess, wouldn’t she be a little miffed to miss out on her “prince charming” moment?

Another wonderful thing about exploring Charming’s altered character arc from a place of humor rather than tragedy is that it allows us to play fast and loose with the ridiculousness of the literal fairytale world. So, even though the main plot of Once Upon a Rhyme may resemble a twisted version of Sleeping Beauty, with a slumbering maiden being rescued from the clutches of a dragon, it was also possible to engage in a game of fairytale mixology a la Into the Woods and weave in other elements as well, including Cinderella’s famous glass slippers, the dwarfs from Snow White, an aged beast from Beauty and the Beast, a family of gruff billy goats, trolls, talking frogs, and so on. At times, and in the best traditions of fairytale, the story and characters seemed to take on a life of their own, telling themselves rather than being told.

It brings to mind one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett, “People think stories are shaped by people. In fact, it is the other way around.” At least for me The Charming Tales certainly prove Pratchett’s point, shaping itself to fit a mold that even I could not have foreseen.

Want to read more about fairy tale from Jack Heckel? Try these posts at Tor:

Fairytale’s Most Wanted: The Five Most Well-Known Character Types

Been There, Done That: Why We Keep Retelling Fairy Tales

Power Corrupts? Absolutely!

Slarom, the Backward Morals of Fairytales

Are All Princesses Really Waiting for Princes to Come?

Fairy Tales and Breyer Horses: Part 1

Breyer's Great Horse in Armor (St. George and the Dragon theme)

Okay, remember the Fairy Tale Blogger posts from a few months ago: You Know You're a Fairy Tale Blogger When....? A common theme was of the "too much to cover, not enough time" variety. Here is where I show my knickers and admit that the following post(s)--since part 2 will be tomorrow--have been sitting in my inbox mocking me for TWO years now.

SurLaLune readers--as you know since you are here reading here--are a very generous bunch. One of the cream of the crop is Christine Ethier who shared a Fairy Tale Gifts post a few years ago in which she mentioned fairy tale themed Breyer Horses. I wanted to know more. She shared. I've let her work sit for years in my inbox. You'd think I was a traditional book publisher instead of a blogger with instantaneous publication abilities, wouldn't you?

But in this case, better late than never. So today I will share part 1 in which Christine shares information about Breyer Horses in general and fairy tales specifically. Tomorrow I will share a bit more with images about the Breyerfest 2011 which had a fairy tale theme.

From Christine Ethier:

Breyer Animal Creations was born in 1950. The first model produced was the Western Horse. The model appeared as part of a clock for Mastercrafter Clock Company. The model was then produced for Woolworth’s where it sold well. In 1984, the company was brought by Reeves International, Inc. Production and headquarters were moved to New Jersey, with some production being moved to China in 2001. Before the model is produced, an artist sculpts a clay statue. Then resin prototype models are produced, followed by metal molds. The model as sold in stories is made using ABS or Cellulose Acetate (a process that leaves some models with air holes). Most of the paint is airbrushed on, though depending on the type of model or horse produced, there may be hand painting done.

Collectors of Breyer models use various terms. Two of the most important for this article are Mold and Model. The term mold refers to the style of a model, not the paint job, but how the horse stands. The mold number is usually the first horse done in that style. Model refers to actual number assigned to the piece by the company. Mold numbers are also used before the abbreviation SR, Special Run. Therefore, 496SR, means mold 496 in a Special Run, a model that was produced only for a certain time, event, or company.

In 2004, Breyer  released Romance (#1224).  The model shows two scenes that seem to be inspired by “Cinderella”.  Romance was produced on the Huckleberry Bey (a famous Arabian stallion) mold (#472) and was sculputed by Kathleen Moody.  This was produced until 2006.

Side A

Side B.

In starting in 2003, Breyer released some Stablemate sets that have fairy tale themes.  The first is Fantasy Breyer set. (Model #5911, produced only in 2003).  The horse is the G2 Rearing Arabian by Kathleen Moody.

The second is the Medieval Play Set, which was produced in 2003-2004 and numbered 5910.  The horse  is the G2 Clydesdale by Kathleen Moody.  Note the knight is a woman.

The third is #5989 Princess and Carriage Play set, which ran from 2004-2005.  The adult horse is G2 Andalusian; the foal is G1 Thoroughbred Lying Foal sculpted by Maureen Love Calvert.

A quick word about pricing.

The price of a particular model is determined by a variety of factors. The most obvious is the condition of the model. A model that is extremely old is not going to fetch as much money if the condition is extremely bad. Collector’s usually grade models on a scale of 4 to 1, with 4 being near prefect. Additionally the term LSQ is used. LSQ stands for Live Show Quality, which means the model is relatively free of imperfections (a mistake in the paint job for example) and damage (which is anything from a rub or broken piece). Current production models tend to run anywhere from just over three dollars (for Stablemates) to over 100 dollars for Special Runs models sold though Breyer’s website. The average price for a traditional model is 25-35 dollars.

In regards to retired (no-longer produced) models (which are most of the models in this overview), the cost will vary. Outside of condition, the mold, rarity, artist, and paint job affect the mold. Popular molds include Silver, Spirit, and the American Saddlebred Stallion. Models produced for sale at Breyerfest (the yearly convention) tend to be more expensive right after the event, and then level off in about a year. The most expensive models on the resale market tend to be either Raffle models (usually 25 or under of a model), Connoisseur Models , Presentation Models (older models on a wooden or plastic base) , or older decorator models (models with a gold or blue paint job). These models can run in the 100s of dollars. Always compare prices before buying.

Breyer’s earliest forays into fairy tale horses, were simply fantasy horses. Over the years, Breyer has produced several unicorns and Pegasus models in various lines. In most cases, the unicorn or the Pegasus was made at of basic mold and then given a horn or wings. The only original sculpture was the Little Bit Unicorn 9020 (below). The mold made its debut in 1984. The sculpture is by Chris Hess. The mold has been used for seven models, including two special runs.

All images in this post are courtesy of Christine Ethier.

Guest Post: Kari Castor, Contributing Author to Fae edited by Rhonda Parrish

I posted previously about Fae, a short story anthology edited by Rhonda Parrish. Today, I have a special guest post by one an author from the collection--Kari Castor, author of "The Price". I think you'll be delighted with her inspiration for her story.

Without any further ado, I'll turn today's space over to her:

It was late in the day, and I’d been procrastinating in the form of research for who knows how long.  I’d recently finished a retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk, which (despite changing the titular character’s gender and ethnicity) cleaved pretty closely to the original, and there I was, deep down a rabbit hole of fairytales and folklore, looking for new source material.  I knew I work with another fairy tale, but I wanted something less familiar this time, and I intended to take more liberties with it.

I was nearly ready to give up and turn my attention to something more fruitful when I found “The Rose.”  It was short.  Really short.  More like an outline than a fully-fledged story.  And I loved it.  There was a wonderful, sad, intriguing little story packed into the eight sentences the Brothers Grimm had recorded.

I don’t know if the same is true for other writers, but I have two different types of stories:  there’s the story that exists in my head as a more or less complete concept but getting it down on paper, and in a form I can be content with, is often a long and difficult process; then there’s the story that is really just a seed of an idea in my mind, but it leaps onto the paper with ease. “The Price” was very much the latter kind -- “The Rose” gave me a very basic framework, and I knew I wanted to keep a fairly traditional fairy tale feel with the story, but beyond that, I just let the story tell itself.

(I don’t mean to sound as though writing is some wonderful mystical process in which stories just flow through the Muse and into the writer.  It’s a lovely image, and I wish it were true -- it’d certainly make things much easier! -- but the vast majority of the time, it isn’t.  Those moments where the story tells itself are relatively rare, and they are a gift.)

While I took the seeds of my plot from “The Rose,” my fairy comes from the folkloric traditions of the British Isles.  I’ve always been drawn to the particular variety of the fae that appears frequently in Medieval literature (like early versions of Morgan le Fay in Arthurian tales, the Middle English poem “Sir Orfeo,” or the ballad of “Thomas the Rhymer”): these fairies are almost but not quite human; they’re not necessarily good or evil, but they always seem to have their own agendas; and they have a strong penchant for abducting humans and carrying them off to the realm of Faerie.  Notably, their reasons for wanting humans are rarely clear, nor is the fate of those humans who are unable to escape -- in some tales, death seems inevitable, but others hint at gentler outcomes.

I’ve always wondered about that.  What do the fairies want with us?

Honestly, though, I’m more interested in the question than the answer.

Thanks for sharing, Kari!

Your Input Wanted: Author Questionnaire for Blog Tours

I need your help. I am trying to come up with five fun/quirky/informational questions to give to authors who want to appear on the SurLaLune Blog. Blog tours are popular now and I want to make SurLaLune a welcoming spot for authors who use fairy tales for their inspiration. I often don't have time to read the book or think up snazzy questions to ask but authors like some direction from me since they are often overwhelmed, too.

Of course, I dream of a powerful, deceptively simple questionnaire like the one at the end of The Actor's Studio show that I used to watch and now only remember the end when these questions were asked. (I used to watch TV. Those were the days!)

What is your favorite word?
What is your least favorite word?
What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
What turns you off?
What is your favorite curse word?
What sound or noise do you love?
What sound or noise do you hate?
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
What profession would you not like to do?
If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

So my brain is tired and I find I am not very clever. And, anyway, you readers should have some input. So help me come up with five questions you'd love to see answered by the authors featured here on SurLaLune. I also fear asking questions that are too demanding of authors with a lot on their plates--believe me I get quite a few of those myself and simply cannot answer them due to my own limited bandwidth. So questions that can have both short or long answers are also desirable.

Here are some starting off points:

What is your favorite fairy tale?
What is your least favorite fairy tale?
What is your favorite fairy tale hero/heroine to love or hate?
What is your favorite fairy tale villain to love or hate?
Besides your own, what is one of your favorite fairy tale retellings?
Now share with us a little bit about your book:

So in the comments offer some questions, limit five, vote for others or offer your own.

Favorite Adaptations: Jim Hines' Princess Series

Here is Rachel's entry in the Favorite Adaptations giveaway. This is one of the more recently published recommendations sent by readers. And while we are here, if you have somehow missed Jim's Striking a Pose (Women and Fantasy Covers) and recent Posing Like a Man blog entries, you have missed out on some humorous social commentary--which Hines is known for anyway.

   

One of my absolute favorite recent adaptations is the set of Jim Hines' Princess books. Starting with the Stepsister Scheme, he takes a Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty who are post-their-own-stories and casts them into a Charlie's Angel-esque adventure that calls for all their strength and smarts.

Although the books take place after the fairy tales that Hines draws from (he also covers The Little Mermaid, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Snow Queen in the later books, with references and characters from other stories), he gives the stories and characters such depth and diversity that I grew to love them over the course of the books. Hines offers readers a choice of role-models, and none of them are passive, waiting to be rescued, or simply wimpy. Danielle (Cinderella) is now married to a prince and starts the series pregnant. She's clever and warm and somewhat motherly throughout the series, offering the most "traditional" female role in the books. She's also heroic and brave and active. Talia is a martial princess, more drawn to weapons than romance, and takes to training the other two princesses with the conviction that she is really the only thing keeping them alive when they're in danger. And Snow is magical, flirtatious, and sassy, and usually the one with a ready quip for any situation.

Hines' characters are all from older versions of the stories--so poor Talia/Sleeping Beauty wasn't awakened by a kiss, but by giving birth to twins. And although Hines sticks with the original stories, the characters become their own twists on their stories, giving a reader a lot to think about when following a well-worn story.

There are four books in the series, and in my opinion each book is stronger than the last. They are well worth reading, both for the originality imbued in classic fairy tales, and for their wonderful, tenacious princesses.

Rachel Ayers
http://fairylayers.blogspot.com/

Guest Post: Rapunzel by Kate Forsyth (Blog Tour for Bitter Greens)

As I mentioned in my previous new book announcement today for Kate Forsyth's Bitter Greens, I have a guest post by author Kate Forsyth to share with you today. The topic is Rapunzel and without any further ado, I will let Kate speak for herself. Thanks for sharing, Kate!

Rapunzel must be one of the most misunderstood of the fairytales, with most people thinking of the long-haired heroine as meek and passive, spending her days hanging round waiting to be rescued.

In recent years, many writers have retold the tale, seeking to return power to Rapunzel by making her stronger and less submissive. I am one of those writers. I’ve spent the past seven years working on retelling the Rapunzel fairytale as a historical novel for adults. I am also halfway through a doctorate on Rapunzel retellings at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia.

Most critical examinations of the tale have added to the understanding of Rapunzel as a passive victim, with the power all held by the witch as an oedipal figure of dark motherhood. For example, Maria Tatar says ‘Mother Gothel figures as the consummate overprotective parent’ (The Annotated Brothers Grimm, 2004, p55).

Joan Gould says, in ‘Spinning Straw Into Gold: What Fairy Tales reveal about the Transformations in a Woman’s Life’ (2005, p217), that ‘Rapunzel and her foster mother are White Bride and Black Mother. Rapunzel is first confined and then abandoned. The mother-witch’s fury is what pushes the girl from one condition to the other.’

Bruno Bettelheim describes Rapunzel as one of a set of fairy tales which aim to help a girl deal with oedipal conflicts, and says: ‘A little girl wishes to see herself as a young and beautiful maiden … who is kept captive by the selfish, evil female figure and hence unavailable to the male lover.’ (The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, 1975, p11)

Marina Warner wonders whether Rapunzel ‘stands for the dark time that can follow the first encounter between the older woman and her new daughter-in-law, the period when the young woman can do nothing, take charge of nothing, but suffer the sorcery and the authority – and perhaps the hostility – of the woman whose house she has entered, whose daughter she has become.’ (From the Beast to the Blonde: One Fairy Tales and Their Tellers, 1994, p220).

Margaret Atwood has even coined the term ‘Rapunzel Syndrome’ for women who wait passively, longed to be rescued. ‘These heroines,’ she says, ‘have internalized the values of their culture to such an extent that they have become their own prisons’ (Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, 1972, p209).

Women writers in the 21st century have grappled with the story in different ways, most seeking to return power to Rapunzel by giving her a more active role. Cameron Dokey (Golden: A Retelling of Rapunzel), Sara Lewis Holmes (Letters from Rapunzel), Adèle Geras (The Tower Room), Donna Jo Napoli (Zel) and Patricia Storace (Sugar Cane: A Caribbean Rapunzel) are just some of the writers who have been inspired to retell this particular tale. Most have chosen to do so as a simple picture book for young readers, as a romantic fantasy novel for teenagers, or using the key motifs of the tale to add resonance to a modern day setting, again for a teenage audience.

Anne Sexton in her poem ‘Rapunzel’ and Emma Donoghue in her short story ‘Tale of the Hair’ have both cast the tale as a lesbian love affair, which is certainly a valid explanation of the witch’s motivations, in some ways more valid than the usual ‘Dark Mother’ interpretation.

I have chosen to retell the story as a historical novel for adults, partly because the Rapunzel tale has always seemed to me to be a novel about desire, obsession, and madness, and so much better suited to an adult audience. I also wanted to tell the story as if it had really happened, as if it was true.

In this way, I hoped to restore to the story some of its mystery and power, lost over the years as it was turned from a literary tale for adults into a rather strange bedtime story for young children.

Fairy Tales in the Classroom Week: Q&A with Veronika Martenova Charles

Earlier today I posted about Fairy Tales in the Classroom: Teaching Students to Write Stories with Meaning Through Traditional Tales by Veronika Martenova Charles. The following is a short Q&A with Charles for SurLaLune about her new book discussing her inspiration and personal philosophy of using fairy tales in the classoom.

Q: How did the book come about?

A: I often go to schools as a visiting author and invariably the first question that the children ask is, “Where do you get your ideas from?”

So I tell them the truth: “I read tons of fairy tales when I was a kid. And I daydream a lot.” “What’s daydreaming?” is the students’ next question.

That made me curious: Would children today have the time and the patience to read and reflect on those old tales? So many of them are text-heavy and filled with dated imagery. Was there a way to connect them with those stories?

So I set on a journey to find out. And that became the starting point of the research for a graduate thesis. My newest book is about the many surprising discoveries made along the way. I was amazed how easily and fast children could create stories if they got involved in the stories personally and how much writing they would do afterwards.

Q: What is your philosophy about using fairy tales in schools?

A: Look, anytime fairy tales are used in a classroom it is a good thing. And there are many lesson plans available if one searches the Internet. I think using fairy tales as an entry point to teaching a history lesson would be great: to talk about social mores of the particular time, professions people had, to research the period clothing, housing, agriculture, etc. But, there is so much more that can be accomplished with those stories!

They can provide children with emotional guidance; they introduce them to the essence of the story; they help them to think outside the box and become independent and creative thinkers.

Children of the 21st century are visual learners. They are wired differently. So to reach them, I used in my research an interactive approach with elements of play that I describe in the book. The point is to involve the children with the stories, to draw them in, to let them play inside of those tales.

I chose to work mainly with grades 2 and 3 because that is the age when children are interested in fairy tales the most and when they can easily and subconsciously absorb the narrative bases.

What is different and radical in my method is that the class activity is student-driven. This means that during the creation of the story, the teacher hands over the authority to the students and she/he becomes the listener and the guide, asking children for their ideas and steering them in the direction they want to go. Children have the freedom to alter the text, to invent the characters and setting of the story. They are in charge of the story and the images supplied for the new tale come from them.

That is very empowering for the kids and the classroom can become quite noisy, as many students want to participate. For the teacher, it provides a glimpse of how the children see the world and what is important to them. The story-inventing activity becomes an adventure both for the kids and the teacher because the story can develop in many different ways.

I was surprised at how much technology and pop culture found their way into the stories. Even though the children knew they were creating a fairy tale, their hero for example, instead of looking for a diamond or a ring, was searching for his stolen iPod and communicating with a police using his cell phone.

Another surprise was the fact that the children at that age were not interested in a generic “happily ever after” ending in the stories. They would bypass the girl/boy union altogether and were interested in justice being done instead.

I worked with hundreds of students in different schools and various demographics. In each class, the students would create their own amazing stories, reflecting places and communities they lived in, and what mattered to them. Even the difficult-to-reach students, such as those with autism, were drawn in and participated.

Q: Then what, after the children create their story?

A: Well, now the teacher regains her/his authority. She/he can show the students what they had accomplished in their story - that they created characters, setting and so on. That can move them into language arts and they can start to work on descriptions, metaphors, search the Internet for images, and use Smart Board technologies for example. The point here is that it becomes much easier when the children write from images they created in their heads. Oh, I could go on forever about this …

Now, research had shown that knowledge tied to a story is remembered better. Some teachers and librarians successfully use a traditional fairy tale as a base story from which they branch out into knowledge acquisition in teaching social science, geography, etc.

In my research, I discovered children remembered twice as many details from the stories they participated in and worked with hands on, than from the story I merely read to them. They were also more enthusiastic to talk about their stories and remembered them longer.

My overall philosophy is that if knowledge is attached to those stories that children make and own, they can remember it better for a longer time.

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Thanks for sharing, Veronika!

Diamonds and Toads Week: Toads and Diamonds by Heather Tomlinson

The following is a post by guest blogger, Heather Tomlinson, author of Toads and Diamonds, which was released a week ago today. I was very excited to learn about this new title since Diamonds and Toads is an all too neglected fairy tale. Tomlinson has previously written The Swan Maiden and Aurelie: A Faerie Tale.

Thanks, Heidi, for inviting me to contribute to the SurLaLune blog. My YA novel Toads and Diamonds is coming out in late March, and I’m so excited about this stage of the publication process, when I (finally) get to share it with readers.

It feels like a long time coming. The novel started out in 2004 as a short story in a series of shoe-themed retellings, along with Puss in Boots, Cinderella, and The Iron Shoes. Which is funny, because Tana and Diribani, my two main characters, spend most of their time barefoot… Anyway, after several rejections, I shelved the anthology and went back to writing novels. In early 2008, when my second book, Aurelie: A Faerie Tale, was in production, my editor wasn’t too enthused about the next project I had sent her. She wondered what else I might be working on. I hauled out the binder of stories to see whether one might have novel potential and Toads jumped out, so to speak.

My version of Charles Perrault’s tale about the kind and unkind girls had been sparked by a long-brewing dissatisfaction. I hated the fairy tale convention that older sisters, especially stepsisters, mostly exist as an evil foil to their younger sisters. That didn’t fit at all with my life experience. Yes, sisters could be competitive, but we supported each other, too. And not every conflict was the oldest one’s fault! (Ahem—at least that’s my perspective. My younger sister Bethany might have a different view. She’s perfectly free to write her own book.)

After all, my favorite fairy tale fiction offers the delicious promise of discovering an old friend in new dress. That can take the form of a different character perspective, a fresh source of motivation, or an unusual location for a familiar plot. Among contemporary YA writers I admire, Donna Jo Napoli’s work stands out in this respect. She’s set Beauty and the Beast in ancient Persia (Beast), Cinderella in China (Bound), and a Bearskin variant in Italy (The Wager). The choices aren’t random, of course; there’s always a thread that connects the heart of the story to the chosen settings.

I tried to harness the same spirit of creative restaging when contemplating this retelling. For one thing, I didn’t want the big sister to die at the end. But how could Tana’s ability to speak toads and snakes bring as much positive change as Diribani’s uttering flowers and jewels? For my fictional older sister to survive her encounter with the gift-giving fairy, the setting needed to change as dramatically as the moral I was rewriting.

Dada Harir well upper galleries

Initially, I thought about setting the action at Versailles. But much as I love France, especially the 17th century world that Perrault himself inhabited, it didn’t suit my purposes. The Western cultural bias against snakes is just too entrenched. Another alternative was to bring it forward to the present, but I was hoping to retain a “once upon a time” feel. So ix-nay to a contemporary eco-heroine reminding us how crucial predators are to a healthy ecosystem.

Casting about for a new location to inspire my fantasy world, I was fortunate to hit upon India. My reading showed surprising resonances between the lifestyle of the Mughal emperors and the French Sun King. Their courts shared a lack of personal privacy for the absolute monarch, as well as plenty of intrigue, complete with poisonings and backstabbing both literal and figurative. More critical to my story: both aristocracies valued the arts, especially painting, architecture, music, textiles, and jewelry. I even found bits of trivia linking them. It’s believed, for example, that the giant blue gemstone we know as the Hope Diamond was smuggled out of the subcontinent’s Golconda mines by a French trader, destined for his homeland’s Crown Jewel collection. Looted during the French Revolution, it was subsequently re-cut to disguise its dodgy provenance. Fortunately for this writer, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, the trader in question, published memoirs about his travels which helped flesh out my setting.

Besides the similarities in the royal lifestyles, also crucial to this retelling were the differences between Western and Eastern philosophy, especially regarding snakes. Many varieties, both poisonous and non-, inhabit the Indian subcontinent. Regional attitudes vary, of course, but in some areas they’re revered as well as feared. The additional liberties I took with geography and religion gave the story room to breathe. While the supernatural gifts stayed the same, the two sisters—like the snakes—were liberated from a strict “good/bad” paradigm. This gave both a chance to explore a wider spectrum of experience than Perrault’s demoiselles, and changed the story’s outcome as well.

Happily, I’ve heard that this same fairy tale has inspired at least one other forthcoming retelling for kids. I can’t wait to see where and when the toad-granting fairy will strike next!

Mata Bhavani stepwell

Photo info: images are from the British Library collection online.

Thanks, Heather, for the great post. My copy of the book just arrived a few days ago and I can't wait to read it! And to add to everyone's reading list, another great novel setting a fairy tale in a fictional Asian country is Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale, using Maid Maleen as inspiration.