Fairy Tales

As well as urban fantasy I really enjoy retellings of fairy tales. Here are all the ones I can remember.

Beauty and the Beast
Beauty bt Robin McKinley
Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley. McKinley loves this story so much she has retold it twice. Both different but delightful.

Cinderella
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

Maid Maleen
The Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale. This was not a fairy story I particularly recognised but on going away and reading the original I coul see what a brilliant retelling Sahnnon Hale had managed. A girl is locked up in a tower for seven years for refusing the man of her father's choice. But what happens when the food begins to run out? Told by the maid servant and with references to a Mongolian set culture this was wonderful.

Princess and the Frog
The Frog Princess by E D Baker. The start of a whole series following the adventures of Emma and Edric. Enjoyable twist right at the beginning when the magic kiss turns the princess into a frog.

Sleeping Beauty
Briar Rose by Jane Yolen Uses the holocaust experience to explain the sleeping part. Beautiful and sad.

The Swan Princes
The Swan Kingdom by Zoe Marriott. When her mother is killed only our heroine recognises that her new stepmother may not be all that she seems.

Twelve Dancing Princesses
Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier. Five sisters go dancing in the realm of the fairies. Also has elements of the Princess and the Frog.

More than one tale
The Secret History of Tom Trueheart by Ian Beck. The first in a trilogy about Tom and his seven brothers who create the fairy tales by living them until the wicked scribe Ormestone decides that everything should have an unhappy ending.