The Book Rat's Third Annual Fairy Tale Fortnight

Yesterday marked the beginning of The Book Rat's Third Annual Fairy Tale Fortnight. You can see the schedule at 3rd Annual Fairy Tale Fortnight Main Page & Schedule. It's a fun way to read an intense fairy tale discussion by some bloggers who don't do it year round--although fairy tale posts do show up during the year on their blogs, of course.

From the site:

Basically Fairy Tale Fortnight (or FTF) is a 2 week-long celebration of all things fairy tale and fairy tale-esque. Every day you can expect to find numerous fairy tale goodies, ranging from reviews and discussions to giveaways, interviews, guest posts and vlogs! And probably some other things, too!

A Bargain and A Little TV Discussion: Grimm Season 1 on DVD for $19.99

I rarely look at Target ads anymore, but did this week and saw that Grimm: Season One is $19.99 on sale this week at Target. And sure enough, Amazon price matched it this morning, so it is also $19.99 there.

I haven't been writing regular coverage of Grimm or Once Upon a Time or Beauty and the Beast this season due to time constraints--and I don't manage to keep up with watching them very well either--although I try to stay informed with them through TV review sites and such. That said, I have found myself watching all the episodes of Grimm since it returned from hiatus and the show has definitely grown on me more for entertainment purposes although the folklore elements seem to have atrophied. Poor NBC, Grimm is the only show I watch on that network. And they have upped the presence of women on the show which also makes it more enjoyable for me. I am hoping it gets renewed.

 

Once Upon a Time doesn't need my coverage. It has a large, loyal fan base and is, of course, the show I am asked about the most when SurLaLune comes up during my conversations with people in my "real" world. The Season 2 DVDs are already up for preorder, too. This one should be renewed for a third season very easily. I admit I am not a fan of the "evil queen should be lovable to all of us" storytelling. There are consequences for bad behavior--many fairy tales remind us of that!--and whatever the antihero sympathetic motivations offered, she has done some despicable stuff and should not be trusted but kept on a tight leash. Guess I've known too many real people like that to make a hero out of one of them. Has everyone forgotten she put a knife in her own father?

Beauty and the Beast barely resembles its inspiration show and is on the bubble for renewal. Hence the upping of the sexual levels the last few weeks. It looks like a CW show--it's like there is the same set designer for the entire network--which I now know since John and I are regular viewers of Arrow, having forgiven its flaws a while back ourselves. Which I admit is often my criteria for TV watching these days--what shows will give me a few minutes of something to watch with the hubby and chill for a few minutes with him? Arrow and Grimm and Elementary fit that need better than the others.

So which shows are you watching? Or not watching? What's your favorite?

Bargain Ebook: The Wide-Awake Princess by E. D. Baker

TODAY ONLY: The Wide-Awake Princess by E. D. Baker is $1.99 in ebook format at Amazon, a repeat discount from late last year before the holidays. If you didn't get it then, this is a great chance for a popular series. There are two books in it for now but at least one more is in the works. My 10 year old niece also likes this book.

Book description:

In this stand-alone fairy tale, Princess Annie is the younger sister to Gwen, the princess destined to be Sleeping Beauty. When Gwennie pricks her finger and the whole castle falls asleep, only Annie is awake, and only Annie-blessed (or cursed?) with being impervious to magic-can venture out beyond the rose-covered hedge for help. She must find Gwen’s true love to kiss her awake.

But who is her true love? The irritating Digby? The happy-go-lucky Prince Andreas, who is holding a contest to find his bride? The conniving Clarence, whose sinister motives couldn’t possibly spell true love? Joined by one of her father’s guards, Liam, who happened to be out of the castle when the sleeping spell struck, Annie travels through a fairy tale land populated with characters both familiar and new as she tries to fix her sister and her family . . . and perhaps even find a true love of her own.

Bargain Ebook: My Fair Godmother by Janette Rallison

My Fair Godmother by Janette Rallison is one of the Kindle Ebooks Deals of the Day on Amazon today. It is $1.99. It has been discounted before, but here it is for those of you with new Kindles or other devices.

And if you prefer paper, the paperback is also bargain priced right now for $3.60. The reviews are strong for this and there is a sequel.

Book description:

Finding your one true love can be a Grimm experience!

After her boyfriend dumps her for her older sister, sophomore Savannah Delano wishes she could find a true prince to take her to the prom. Enter Chrissy (Chrysanthemum) Everstar: Savannah’s gum-chewing, cell phone–carrying, high heel-wearing Fair Godmother. Showing why she’s only Fair—because she’s not a very good fairy student—Chrissy mistakenly sends Savannah back in time to the Middle Ages, first as Cinderella, then as Snow White. Finally she sends Tristan, a boy in Savannah’s class, back instead to turn him into her prom-worthy prince. When Savannah returns to the Middle Ages to save Tristan, they must team up to defeat a troll, a dragon, and the mysterious and undeniably sexy Black Knight. Laughs abound in this clever fairy tale twist from a master of romantic comedy.

New Book: The Magic Mirror and the Seventh Dwarf (Accidental Enchantments) by Tia Nevitt

The Magic Mirror and the Seventh Dwarf (Accidental Enchantments) by Tia Nevitt from Carina Press is a romance novel inspired by Snow White which was released last month. It is the second in a series and qualifies as a bargain ebook at $2.51. It was also reviewed today at SBTN with an overall favorable review and these final lines may encourage non-romance readers to look into this one: "If you are looking for an explicit book, look elsewhere, because in this one the sex scenes are very much of the "fade to black" variety. The relationships are, however, very tender and touching."

Book description:

Book two in Accidental Enchantments.

Prince Richard is cursed. Enslaved to a magic mirror, he must truthfully answer the evil queen when she uses it to call on him. To keep from betraying innocents, Richard wanders the countryside and avoids people.

All her life, Gretchen has been teased for being small. When she hears of a hidden farm populated by little people like her, she sets out to find it—and is welcomed by the mostly male inhabitants. Lars in particular woos her with his gentle kindness and quiet strength.

Danger looms when Gretchen meets a runaway princess and offers her shelter at the Little Farm. Wandering nearby, Richard instantly falls in love with the beautiful princess, and is later compelled to tell the queen that she is not the fairest of them all. Enraged, the queen vows to find them and destroy them.

If either Gretchen or Richard are to have their happy endings, they must team up to break the mirror's spell before the queen kills them all…

For another fairy tale retelling from Tia Nevitt, check out The Sevenfold Spell, available now!

The Sevenfold Spell (Accidental Enchantments) was released in 2010 and is also $2.51 from Carina Press. It draws inspiration from Sleeping Beauty.

Book description:

Have you ever wondered what happens to the other people in the fairy tale?

Things look grim for Talia and her mother. By royal proclamation, the constables and those annoying "good" fairies have taken away their livelihood by confiscating their spinning wheel. Something to do with a curse on the princess, they said.

Not every young lady has a fairy godmother rushing to her rescue.

Without the promise of an income from spinning, Talia's prospects for marriage disappear, and she and her mother face destitution. Past caring about breaking an arbitrary and cruel law, rebellious Talia determines to build a new spinning wheel, the only one in the nation--which plays right into the evil fairy's diabolical plan. Talia discovers that finding a happy ending requires sacrifice. But is it a sacrifice she's willing to make?

Bargain Ebook: Too Many Fairies: A Celtic Tale

Too Many Fairies: A Celtic Tale by Margaret Read MacDonald (Author), Susan Mitchell (Illustrator) was a bargain book back in June and it is one of Amazon's Deals of the Day today only for $1.99. This ebook only works on Kindle Fires, iPads, etc. but more people have those since Christmas so I thought I would share again. The hardcover edition is $11.69, so the digital is an economical way to own the book.

Besides, I love this fairy tale and most kids do, too, when they hear it.

Book description:

There was once an old woman who hated chores. "Work! Work! Work! How I hate it! Hate it! Hate it!" One day some fairies show up. They . . . clankety-clankety-clankety — clean all the dishes. Swishety-swishety-swishety —sweep the house. Flumpety-flumpety-flumpety — shake out the bedclothes. Clickety-clickety-clickety — work on all the knitting. But then there is nothing left to do. So, they tear everything apart and start again! Clankety-clankety-clankety, swishety-swishety-swishety . . . . The fairies are driving the old woman crazy! How will she get them to leave? Lively watercolor illustrations add to this Celtic retelling by master storyteller Margaret Read MacDonald. An author’s note is also included.

New Book: Queen Victoria's Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy

Queen Victoria's Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling is released today. Looks like a few stories might have a fairy tale spin to them, too, but won't know until I read it myself!

Book description:

“Gaslamp Fantasy,” or historical fantasy set in a magical version of the nineteenth century, has long been popular with readers and writers alike. A number of wonderful fantasy novels, including Stardust by Neil Gaiman, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, and The Prestige by Christopher Priest, owe their inspiration to works by nineteenth-century writers ranging from Jane Austen, the Brontës, and George Meredith to Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, and William Morris. And, of course, the entire steampunk genre and subculture owes more than a little to literature inspired by this period.

Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells is an anthology for everyone who loves these works of neo-Victorian fiction, and wishes to explore the wide variety of ways that modern fantasists are using nineteenth-century settings, characters, and themes. These approaches stretch from steampunk fiction to the Austen-and-Trollope inspired works that some critics call Fantasy of Manners, all of which fit under the larger umbrella of Gaslamp Fantasy. The result is eighteen stories by experts from the fantasy, horror, mainstream, and young adult fields, including both bestselling writers and exciting new talents such as Elizabeth Bear, James Blaylock, Jeffrey Ford, Ellen Kushner, Tanith Lee, Gregory Maguire, Delia Sherman, and Catherynne M. Valente, who present a bewitching vision of a nineteenth century invested (or cursed!) with magic.

And Table of Contents:

Preface Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
Introduction Terri Windling
The Fairy Enterprise by Jeffrey Ford
From the Catalogue of the Pavilion of the Uncanny and Marvelous, Scheduled for Premiere at the Great Exhibition (Before the Fire) by Genevieve Valentine
The Memory Book by Maureen McHugh
Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells by Delia Sherman
La Reine D’Enfer by Kathe Koja
For the Briar Rose by Elizabeth Wein
The Governess by Elizabeth Bear
Smithfield by James P. Blaylock
The Unwanted Women of Surrey by Kaaron Warren
Charged by Leanna Renee Hieber
Mr. Splitfoot by Dale Bailey
Phosphorus by Veronica Schanoes
We Without Us Were Shadows by Catherynne M. Valente
The Vital Importance of the Superficial by Ellen Kushner and Caroline Stevermer
The Jewel in the Toad Queen’s Crown by Jane Yolen
A Few Twigs He Left Behind by Gregory Maguire
Their Monstrous Minds by Tanith Lee
Estella Saves the Village by Theodora Goss

New Book: Nobody Asked the Pea by John Warren Stewig

Nobody Asked the Pea by John Warren Stewig (Author), Cornelius Van Wright (Illustrator) was released in January although its official release is given as March 15th. I usually wait a little while on picture book releases, hoping for some book imagery to appear somewhere on the web, but this book remains opaque beyond its cover.

Both Stewig and Wright are well-established in their fields and I am especially fond of Stewig's Mother Holly, which is out of print, but gave me fond memories of reading it over and over and over again with my niece Leighton when she was four.

Book description:

Readers might think they know the story of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Princess and the Pea," but some characters in the story wold take issue with them. In this retelling one gets to have a say, even the pea, the crucial member of the cast.

This clever version of a favorite fairy tale is perfect for learning all about character and point-of-view. It is in line with the Common Core State Standards for Language Arts.

It also has a strong review from Kirkus Reviews, which provides a better description:

An extraordinarily arch and campy version of “The Princess and the Pea” is told from multiple points of view.

It opens with a cast of characters, each with a distinctive voice and typeface in the narrative, starting with Patrick the Pea, growing “rounder and firmer each day” and extremely pleased with himself. Queen Mildred hectors her son Harold about getting married, pronto, and she is the perfect stereotype of a controlling, nagging and obnoxious mother. Harold, meanwhile, just wants to hang around and hunt. A few princesses are met and sent away, until Princess Lucy appears in the castle hall, soaking wet and disheveled, and cannot sleep a wink on the pile of mattresses with Patrick the Pea hidden under them. Harold is kind of delighted to find an outdoorsy girl who loves to hunt, Queen Mildred is pleased to outshine the other queens in wedding planning (especially Queen Estelle, “who couldn’t plan a trip to the privy by herself”). The watercolor-and-pencil pastel-hued illustrations reveal deeply caricatured and exaggerated figures (including the mice and the horses, as well as Patrick the Pea).

A Farewell to Porridge

Want a Sunday funny? This may work if you've enjoyed/suffered Hemingway often enough in your life.

Originally published by Dan Greenberg, as "Three Bears in Search of an Author," in Esquire, Feb. 1958, pp. 46-47. "A Farewell to Porridge" is Goldilocks and the Three Bears presented in pseudo-Ernest Hemingway's voice. And it is funny.

To get you started:

In the late autumn of that year we lived in a house in the forest that looked across the river to the mountains, but we always thought we lived on the plain because we couldn't see the forest for the trees.

Sometimes people would come to the door and ask if we would like to subscribe to the Saturday Evening Post or buy Fuller brushes, but when we would answer the bell, they would see we were only bears and go away.

Sometimes we would go for long walks along the river and you could almost forget for a little while that you were a bear and not people.

Once when we were out strolling for a very long time, we came home and you could see that someone had broken in and the door was open.

"La port est ouverte," said Mama Bear. "The door should not be open." Mama Bear had French blood on her father's side.

Read the rest of it here.

Why ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ Is A Major Step Back For Witches and Women by Elisabeth Rappe

I'm very grateful to Kate W. at Enchanted Conversation for linking to Why ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ Is A Major Step Back For Witches and Women by Elisabeth Rappe last week. Just another example of why I prefer many TV shows over major Hollywood productions these days--overall, women have a stronger part in them! Give me Bones or Veronica Mars any day.

(And YAY! on the Veronica Mars movie. John the Hubby sat and watched it hit the 2 million mark live. Crowdfunding controversies are for discussing elsewhere--and overall I'm for crowdfunding if you must know--I thrilled since I want to see that movie very much! And if you have never seen Veronica, it's wonderful. Even Joss Whedon was/is a fan. And the DVDs are super cheap on Amazon right now thanks to the hype this week. Just be warned that you'll lose sleep for wanting to watch the next episode. And then you'll want a dog just so you can name it Backup.)

It's no secret that I'm not a huge Oz fan, primarily thanks to seeing the movies at the wrong ages, I think. Return to Oz was almost traumatic to me and accepted as being more faithful which kept me from picking up the books long ago. I also didn't learn about the extensive series until I was older, so I missed most of those books anyway.

But I have long admired Frank L. Baum and his oeuvre and accomplishments. And then there's the whole it's not really a "fairy tale" gambit that I deal with almost daily and need to prepare for even more as NINE Oz inspired films are currently in the works.

And, yes, I did enjoy Wicked: The Musical--probably because I expected to hate it--and hope for the movie version of that one. So I allow myself to be completely unpredictable when it comes to Oz.

From the article, to entice you to read it all:

Why is this sad and troubling? Well, as you go through the Oz series, one fact can’t help but jump out at you: The feisty, heroic characters of Oz are all young women. Dorothy returns, again and again, to have adventures in Oz. “Tik-Tok of Oz” features a Dorothy surrogate in Betsy Bobbin (no Toto for Betsy! Her animal companion is a mule named Hank.) Glinda often reappears to do battle. General Jinjur leads an all-female coup against the Scarecrow, and despite its failure, Baum lovingly stops in to see how she’s faring in the common Munchkin life.

But most intriguing and revolutionary of them all is Princess Ozma, who actually makes her first appearance in “The Marvelous Land of Oz” as a young boy named Tip. Tip is the “hero” of the book until it’s revealed an evil witch named Mombi did a magical gender reassignment, and Tip becomes Ozma, restored not only to her rightful throne, but to her own feminine self. It’s a strange and fascinating twist for both Tip and the audience alike, and one with very modern implications.

There are male characters in Oz, of course, but they’re rarely also lead characters. Occasionally one breaks out as a hero, like Ojo the Munchkin boy in “The Patchwork Girl of Oz” or Cap’n Bill and Trot, but they’re one-offs, never to return. The recurring male characters are always faithful and familiar sidekicks like the Wizard, Tin-Man, Tik-Tok, and Jack Pumpkinhead. Alternately, they’re enemies, like the Nome King.

The reason for this is simple: Baum was a feminist. He was an avid supporter of women’s suffrage, and was happily married to the outspoken, intelligent, and energetic Maud Gage Baum, who had gone to Cornell, and sacrificed dreams of degrees to marry him. Their marriage was an unusual one for the time, as Frank happily let her wear the pants, assert her authority, and rule the house.

Bargain Price: Once Upon a Time: The Complete First Season

Once Upon a Time: The Complete First Season just dropped to $21.86, 52% off list price, on Amazon. This could go up in a few minutes, hours or days, but this is the lowest I've seen it go in a while if you still "need" this.

Bargain Ebook: The Sweetest Spell by Suzanne Selfors

The Sweetest Spell by Suzanne Selfors is temporarily priced at $2.99, down from its last reported price of $8.53. The reviews, both professional and reader, are strong and I've snapped it up today myself. A few compare it to Rumpelstiltskin.

Book description:

Emmeline Thistle, a dirt-scratcher's daughter, has escaped death twice-first, on the night she was born, and second, on the day her entire village was swept away by flood. Left with nothing and no one, Emmeline discovers her rare and mysterious ability-she can churn milk into chocolate, a delicacy more precious than gold.Suddenly, the most unwanted girl in Anglund finds herself desired by all. But Emmeline only wants one-Owen Oak, a dairyman's son, whose slow smiles and lingering glances once tempted her to believe she might someday be loved for herself. But others will stop at nothing to use her gift for their own gains-no matter what the cost to Emmeline. Magic and romance entwine in this fantastical world where true love and chocolate conquer all.