Little Red Riding Hood by Lari Don (Author), Célia Chauffrey (Illustrator)

Little Red Riding Hood by Lari Don (Author), Célia Chauffrey (Illustrator) was released last month and is a fun interpretation of Little Red. It comes with a CD to listen to the story, too. I haven't seen this one in person yet, but the sassiness of LRRH comes across in the images. I bet this one bests the wolf all on her own. Or so I hope!

Book description:

Little Red Riding Hood loves to visit her Granny's cottage in the forest. Her mother warns her to go straight to Granny's, but when she meets a handsome grey wolf, she doesn't see the harm in stopping for a chat. Scottish storyteller Lari Don's retelling of this well-loved tale is lively and exciting with a wolf who is just scary enough for younger children to enjoy. Célia Chauffrey's finely detailed paintings create an enticing world of quirky characters in a dark and mysterious forest. Comes with storytime CD featuring narration of the text by beloved English actress Imelda Staunton.

Bargain New Book: Cinderella by Sarah L. Thomson (Author), Nicoletta Ceccoli (Illustrator)

Cinderella by Sarah L. Thomson (Author), Nicoletta Ceccoli (Illustrator) is a new book--I haven't even covered it on SurLaLune yet--that has been temporarily bargain priced in hardcover on Amazon to $7.99, 56% off cover price. It may even be a today only but I am not sure.

Of course, the reason to buy another Cinderella picture book is new illustrations and these are by Ceccoli, a personal favorite of mine, since I already own her The Princess and the White Bear King, among others. (I'll put up some more book covers at the bottom of this post.) I love these but wish Cinderella looked a little older. But then again, my almost three-year-old niece is Cinderella nuts right now and I know she will adore this book. Christmas present it is!

You can view several of the illustrations by looking inside the book on Amazon. I wasn't able to easily capture and share any here today.

Book description:

Once upon a time, a rich merchant lived with his daughter. He loved the girl for her beautiful face and her sweet heart. But after his wife died, he decided to marry a second time, and his new wife was selfish and cruel. She had two daughters of her own who were just like her. . . .

This story of Cinderella is based on the version collected and published by the seventeenth-century author Charles Perrault. Perrault’s Cinderella echoes the elegance and luxury of the French court of King Louis XIV, and it’s from his version that we get Cinderella’s famous glass slippers. Sarah L. Thomson’s beautiful retelling of the classic fairy tale is matched with the uniquely stunning artwork of Nicoletta Ceccoli rendered in acrylics on paper and digitally. This is a picture book to treasure.

 

Blood and Snow Volumes 1-4: Blood and Snow, Revenant in Training, The Vampire Christopher, Blood Soaked Promises by RaShelle Workman

Blood and Snow Volumes 1-4: Blood and Snow, Revenant in Training, The Vampire Christopher, Blood Soaked Promises by RaShelle Workman is bundled into a bargain price of 99 cents for a limited time. These appear to be self-published so be ye warned if that matters to you.

"Lips red as rubies, hair dark as night. Drink your true love's blood, become the Vampire, Snow White."

EVERY THOUSAND YEARS THE VAMPIRE QUEEN SELECTS A NEW BODY, ALWAYS THE FAIREST IN THE LAND, AND THIS TIME SHE'S CHOSEN SNOW WHITE.

Praise for the Blood and Snow series:

"The modern twist on the Snow White fairy tale was interesting and original, which isn't easy to find these days. Highly recommended." Sarra Cannon, bestselling author of the Peachville High Demons series

Summary:

BLOOD AND SNOW: Snow White isn't an ordinary girl. She doesn't know that yet.

REVENANT IN TRAINING: Snow has become something not quite human. She must discover how to live with the changes, hopefully without killing anyone.

THE VAMPIRE CHRISTOPHER: Snow White craves blood. Especially the blood of her Hunter. But will drinking from him save or enslave her?

BLOOD SOAKED PROMISES: Snow White must come to terms with her bloodlust. It's one thing to drink the blood of her Hunter, something else entirely to drink the blood of a human.

Free Ebook: The Grimm Curse (Once Upon A Time Is Now) by Stephen Carpenter

The Grimm Curse (Once Upon A Time Is Now) by Stephen Carpenter is temporarily free, marked down from $2.99 on Amazon. The other book in the series, The Grimm Curse (The Girl In The Red Hoodie), is still $2.99. So you can either get a free book or essentially two books for $2.99.

Book description:

Fifteen year-old Jake Grimm is the last living descendent of the Brothers Grimm, who wrote the famous fairy tales in the 1800's. But Jake grew up with foster parents in Los Angeles, never knowing his true destiny until he ran away from his unhappy foster home, to the place of his birth--Woodland--a small town nestled deep in a Northwestern forest.

In Woodland, Jake discovers that the famous fairy tales are all real, and they are happening today. And Jake, as the last living Grimm, is the only one who can stop the witches, big bad wolves, and evil stepmothers who are all alive and well, and about to wreak havoc in the small town of Woodland.

But these fairy tales creatures are not like those in the old stories. Woodland is a modern place, and the creatures Jake battles seem like completely normal, modern people--to everyone but Jake. Only Jake can see them for what they really are, and, together with his friend and apprentice, Madeleine, he must fight to prevent the evil that is all around the unsuspecting teens at Woodland High.

With the GRIMM CURSE, author Stephen Carpenter has done for the Grimm Fairy Tales what the TWILIGHT series has done for vampires--brought them into the real world of today, with real teens who find themselves in the middle of a centuries-old struggle between good and evil.

Because once upon a time is now.

Cinderella and the Magic and Fairy-tale Dice (Story Telling Game)

Magic and Fairy-tale Dice (Story Telling Game) dropped in price overnight to 27% off on Amazon--if it hasn't already gone up--and I decided to finally acquire them. I imagine there are things I will prefer about these over the Once Upon A Time Storytelling Card Game. The dice are backordered but that is better since I can fudge them into a Christmas present for myself.

The fun game, one I can only play right now, is to pick a die and pull a Cinderella out of my head that incorporates that image. I mean a written Cinderella, not one of my own creation. There's just so many of them...and my head is a temporary database of them. Seriously, every single one of the images below on the dice can conjure up a Cinderella tale for me. Well, the bow and arrow might be pushing it. But if it were a sword...I could do that. Trees and pumpkins? Too easy. Even if you don't use Grimms or Perrault. It's more fun if you don't! Quick, name a tale in which Cinderella disguises herself as a gourd! But ghosts, frogs, cats? I can do those, too. When Cinderella Tales From Around the World is finally released, you will be able to play, too, with a simple word search of the ebook. It could be a really boring parlor game.

Product description:

Revive the art of storytelling using these nine beautifully illustrated wooden dice to create the most imaginative, funny, and bizarre stories. This is the perfect family game that will stimulate the imaginations of children and adults alike. Ideal for playing by a log fire.

New Book: The Teller's Tale: Lives of the Classic Fairy Tale Writers edited by Sophie Raynard

The Teller's Tale: Lives of the Classic Fairy Tale Writers edited by Sophie Raynard is a new nonfiction fairy tale release. This one looks fascinating, but doesn't accommodate the SurLaLune budget to acquire right now, so no in depth review, just the usual basic info. There is mostly the usual suspects discussed with some extra less known tellers. Looks like an excellent volume overall!

Book description:

This book offers new, often unexpected, but always intriguing portraits of the writers of classic fairy tales. For years these authors, who wrote from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, have been either little known or known through skewed, frequently sentimentalized biographical information. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were cast as exemplars of national virtues; Hans Christian Andersen's life became—with his participation—a fairy tale in itself. Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, the prim governess who wrote moral tales for girls, had a more colorful past than her readers would have imagined, and few people knew that nineteen-year-old Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy conspired to kill her much-older husband. Important figures about whom little is known, such as Giovan Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile, are rendered more completely than ever before. Uncovering what was obscured for years and with newly discovered evidence, contributors to this fascinating and much-needed volume provide a historical context for Europe's fairy tales.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Sophie Raynard

Part I. Emergence

Straparola: Sixteenth-Century Italy
Basile: Seventeenth-Century Italy

Europe’s First Fairy Tales
Ruth B. Bottigheimer

Giovan Francesco Straparola: 1485?–1556?
Ruth B. Bottigheimer

Giambattista Basile: 1575?–1632
Nancy Canepa

Part II. Elaboration

Perrault and the Conteuses Précieuses: Seventeenth-Century France

Sophistication and Modernization of the Fairy Tale: 1690–1709
Nadine Jasmin (translated and adapted by Sophie Raynard)

Charles Perrault: 1628–1703
Yvette Saupé and Jean-Pierre Collinet (translated and adapted by Sophie Raynard)

Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness d’Aulnoy: 1650/51?–1705
Nadine Jasmin (translated and adapted by Sophie Raynard)

Catherine Bernard: 1663?–1712
Lewis C. Seifert

Marie-Jeanne Lhéritier de Villandon: 1664–1734
Lewis C. Seifert

Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, Countess de Murat: 1668–1716
Geneviève Patard (translated and adapted by Sophie Raynard)

Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force: 1650?–1724
Lewis C. Seifert

Part III. Exoticism

Galland: Eighteenth-Century France

Antoine Galland: 1646–1715
Manuel Couvreur (translated and adapted by Sophie Raynard)

Part IV. Didacticism

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont: Eighteenth-Century France

Jeanne-Marie Leprince (or Le Prince) de Beaumont: 1711–1780?
Elisa Biancardi (translated and adapted by Sophie Raynard)

Part V. Traditionalization

Naubert: Late Eighteenth-Century and Early Nineteenth-Century Germany
The Grimms: Nineteenth-Century Germany
Bechstein: Nineteenth-Century Germany

The Legacy of Eighteenth-Century and Nineteenth-Century German Female Storytellers
Shawn C. Jarvis

Benedikte Naubert
Shawn C. Jarvis

Jacob Grimm: 1785–1863, Wilhelm Grimm: 1786-1859
Donald R. Hettinga

Ludwig Bechstein
Ruth B. Bottigheimer

Part VI. Sentimentalization

Andersen: Nineteenth Century Denmark

Hans Christian Andersen
Peer E. Soerensen

Lister of Contributors
Index

Bargain Ebook: Puss in Boots

Puss in Boots (Rabbit Ears Set 4) by Eric Metaxas (Author), Pierre Le-Tan (Illustrator) is the Amazon Kids Ebook of Deal of the Day for $.99.

Book description:

Claude, the youngest son of a miller, feels short-changed when his dearly departed father leaves him nothing more than a retired tomcat. However, when Claude decides to do away with his feline inheritance, the cat devises a clever plan to save his own skin by promising to transform his dim-witted owner into a noble prince. This is a splendid comic adaptation of the classic French fairy tale. Ages 5 and up

Bargain Ebooks: Mercedes Lackey

Beauty and the Werewolf (A Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms) by Mercedes Lackey is temporarily $1.71 in ebook format, down from about $5.50.

Book description:

The eldest daughter is often doomed in fairy tales. But Bella—Isabella Beauchamps, daughter of a wealthy merchant—vows to escape the usual pitfalls.

Anxious to avoid the Traditional path, Bella dons a red cloak and ventures into the forbidden forest to consult with "Granny," the local wisewoman.

But on the way home she's attacked by a wolf—who turns out to be a cursed nobleman! Secluded in his castle, Bella is torn between her family and this strange man who creates marvelous inventions and makes her laugh—when he isn't howling at the moon.

Breaking spells is never easy. But a determined beauty, a wizard (after all, he's only an occasional werewolf) and a little godmotherly interference might just be able to bring about a happy ending.…

A Tangled Web (A Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms), a novella in the same series has just been released singly (it appeared in a multi-author anthology previously. It is currently $2.51.

Book description:

Kidnapping Persephone should have been an easy task. But in the Five Hundred Kingdoms, nothing's ever simple—and the wrong blonde goddess is stolen by mistake, leaving Prince Leopold without his new bride. At least until he braves the realm of the dead to get her back...

A Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms novella. Previously published in the Harvest Moon anthology.

New Book: Fairy Tale Queens: Representations of Early Modern Queenship by Jo Eldridge Carney

Fairy Tale Queens: Representations of Early Modern Queenship by Jo Eldridge Carney is a new release. I haven't seen it to review it--the SurLaLune budget won't stretch for this one, alas. But it is intriguing and is on my list. For now, the usual info is shared here. Fascinating...

Book description:

Most of our fairy tale capital today comes from the popular tales of Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Andersen, but this study encourages readers to explore the marvelous tales of authors from the early modern period—Giovanni Straparola, Giambattista Basile, Madame Marie-Catherine D'Aulnoy, and others—whose works enrich and expand our notion of the canon. The queen is omnipresent in these tales, as much a hallmark of the genre as its other familiar characteristics: the number three, magical objects, quests, happy endings. That queens occupy such space in these early modern tales is not surprising given the profound influence of so many powerful queens in the political landscapes of early modern England and Europe. This book argues for the historical relevance of fairy tales and explores the dynamic intersection between fictional and actual queens.

About the Author

Jo Eldridge Carney is an associate professor of English at The College of New Jersey. She is the author of essays on sixteenth-century literature, Shakespeare, and fairy tales and has edited essay collections o the early modern period.

Table of Contents:

List of Illustrations xi

Acknowledgments xiii

1 Early Modern Queens and the Intersection of Fairy Tales and Fact 1

2 The Queen's (In)Fertile Body and the Body Politic 11

3 Maternal Monstrosities: Queens and the Reproduction of Heirs and Errors 39

4 Men, Women, and Beasts: Elizabeth I and Beastly Bridegrooms 65

5 The Fairest of Them All: Queenship and Beauty 87

6 The Queen's Wardrobe: Dressing the Part 117

7 The Queen's Body: Promiscuity at Court 147

Notes 177

Works Cited 211

Index 229

Today's Bargain Ebooks with Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is bargain priced in ebook for $1.99 today only on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. This was the only novel besides Jane Austen that I was assigned to read in high school not written by a white male. Yes, I was just on the leading edge of the curriculum revolution that has occurred over the last 25 years. (Don't worry, I read PLENTY of other stuff on my own.) Hurston is actually more important to me personally as a folklorist--see Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States--but this is an important book in American literature now.

Book description:

At the height of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston was the preeminent black woman writer in the United States. She was a sometime-collaborator with Langston Hughes and a fierce rival of Richard Wright. Her stories appeared in major magazines, she consulted on Hollywood screenplays, and she penned four novels, an autobiography, countless essays, and two books on black mythology. Yet by the late 1950s, Hurston was living in obscurity, working as a maid in a Florida hotel. She died in 1960 in a Welfare home, was buried in an unmarked grave, and quickly faded from literary consciousness until 1975 when Alice Walker almost single-handedly revived interest in her work.

Of Hurston's fiction, Their Eyes Were Watching God is arguably the best-known and perhaps the most controversial. The novel follows the fortunes of Janie Crawford, a woman living in the black town of Eaton, Florida. Hurston sets up her characters and her locale in the first chapter, which, along with the last, acts as a framing device for the story of Janie's life. Unlike Wright and Ralph Ellison, Hurston does not write explicitly about black people in the context of a white world--a fact that earned her scathing criticism from the social realists--but she doesn't ignore the impact of black-white relations either:

It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgment.

One person the citizens of Eaton are inclined to judge is Janie Crawford, who has married three men and been tried for the murder of one of them. Janie feels no compulsion to justify herself to the town, but she does explain herself to her friend, Phoeby, with the implicit understanding that Phoeby can "tell 'em what Ah say if you wants to. Dat's just de same as me 'cause mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf."

Hurston's use of dialect enraged other African American writers such as Wright, who accused her of pandering to white readers by giving them the black stereotypes they expected. Decades later, however, outrage has been replaced by admiration for her depictions of black life, and especially the lives of black women. In Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston breathes humanity into both her men and women, and allows them to speak in their own voices. --Alix Wilber

And while we are here, Chocolat by Joanne Harris is also bargain priced at $2.99 for ebook today only. I've met fans of it over the years among the SurLaLune audience, so thought I'd share it, too.

Vivianne Rocher moves to the tiny French town of Lansquenet to open a chocolate boutique, and, suddenly, strange things start to happen. The townspeople begin to eschew the self-righteous gossip of small-town life, and they find the courage to break the rigid codes of provincial behavior. In short, they start enjoying life--all because of the sensual power of chocolate. But the hidebound local priest does not approve of Vivianne, and soon, a power struggle shapes up between the two of them.