Once Upon a Time

Dozens of novels based on traditional fairy tales have been published in the past five years. The best of these titles offer an enticing blend of familiar and surprising elements. While they follow the general plots of the tales that inspired them, they often contain new characters, or familiar ones with new motivations; they feature more magic than the original stories, or sometimes less; and they take place in settings different from those suggested in their traditional sources. The novelists use a variety of creative ways to stretch their underlying stories far beyond their original limits, before snapping them back into mostly recognizable shapes. The books are page-turners as well, with appealing teenage characters and lots of action. Here are some outstanding examples of this popular subgenre.

Donna Jo Napoli's Crazy Jack (Delacorte, 1999), based on "Jack and the Beanstalk," makes a good introduction for readers new to novel-length fairy tales. Jack's whole village thinks he's crazy, and he and his mother have become so poor that they must sell their only cow so they can buy food. Instead, he trades the cow for magic beans, plants them, and climbs the resulting beanstalk to a giant's castle in the sky. With the help of the giant's wife, he steals several treasures, escapes uneaten, and vanquishes the monster by cutting down the beanstalk as the giant descends. How could a crazy man do it? Jack himself provides the surprising answer to this question and others. His first-person narration gives the book the sound of a modern young adult novel, while his short, unadorned sentences recall the story's roots in traditional literature. This spare, accessible style perfectly complements Crazy Jack's story of madness and redemption, as he buries the giant and lays the past to rest.

In contrast to the austerity of Crazy Jack, Robin McKinley's Spindle's End (Putnam, 2000) is a long, lush fantasy that's perfect for fans of Tamora Pierce or Diana Wynne Jones. After she's cursed by an evil fairy, the infant Princess Rosie is whisked away from her parents and grows up in a rural village, unaware of her royal heritage until years later. Then, as the time approaches for the curse to take effect, Rosie and her new family must find a way to stop the fatal spell. Even if readers miss the familiar elements in Spindle's End, they'll still find plenty to enjoy: hidden identities, magical powers, and an unconventional heroine with a dangerous mission. An extra treat awaits those who recognize the clues: a poisoned spindle, an enchanted sleep, a prince determined to rescue a princess, and other details from "The Sleeping Beauty." Readers are bound to wonder how the novel will end, because Princess Rosie has no desire to rule her country or to marry the prince who is honor-bound to her. What's a young woman to do when she doesn't want the life society expects from her? The way Rosie resolves this enchanted-kingdom-sized problem brings a delightful element of surprise to Spindle's End, providing the country with a willing royal couple and, in fine fairy-tale tradition, assuring that everyone lives happily ever after.

Teens who like long, detailed fantasies will also be happy to accompany the heroine of Shannon Hale's The Goose Girl (Bloomsbury, 2003) on her quest to recover her identity and her place in the world. Based on the fairy tale of the same name, the novel includes a well-conceived system of magical talents not found in the original. In Hale's book, meek Princess Ani has the gift of "animal-speaking" and has always understood the language of birds, as well as the mind-speech of her beloved horse, Falada. Selia, Ani's lady-in-waiting, has the gift of "people-speaking," or persuasion on an almost hypnotic level. In keeping with the plot of the fairy tale, Ani and Selia journey to a neighboring country to join Ani's betrothed, the prince of that land, whom neither young woman has ever met. Part way there, Selia commandeers their guard detail, steals Falada, abandons Ani, and presents herself to Ani's fiance as his true bride. Ani follows the company in secret, hoping only to rescue her horse and to learn the fates of the few loyal soldiers who defended her during the coup. Just as in the fairy tale, the usurped princess takes work as a gooseherd outside her intended husband's city. However, unlike the hapless fairy tale princess who's restored to her place only by the cleverness of her father-in-law, Princess Ani organizes her fellow workers, exposes the false bride, prevents a needless war, and brings some much-needed social reform to her adopted country. Readers unfamiliar with the underlying story will find The Goose Girl a satisfying high fantasy with a thoughtful subtext about persuasion, politics, and power. Those who know the fairy tale's ending will particularly enjoy the twist at the novel's end: Ani gets to decide whether she'll marry, and does so willingly–because her intended husband turns out to be the kind, friendly man whom she's loved all along.

Mette Ivie Harrison's Mira, Mirror (Viking, 2004) is full of similar plot twists, all necessary to frame a story that encompasses two different fairy tales. Once she was a young woman, but now Mira is only a magic mirror, having been transformed against her wishes by her adopted sister, the wicked Queen from "Snow White." The Queen has disappeared, presumably after her final confrontation with Snow White, and Mira has hung alone on a cottage wall for 100 years. At last she is taken away by an abused peasant girl, Ivana, whom Mira rewards by switching her identity with that of a merchant's daughter, Talia. Although Mira performs this magic without Talia's approval, both young women are satisfied with the exchange. Talia is freed from an arranged marriage to a mysterious count and can pursue her own way in business. Meanwhile, Ivana decides to marry the kindly but disfigured count because, like the heroine of "Beauty and the Beast," she loves the man behind the ugly face. The magic described in Mira, Mirror comes from living things as they die, and the novel ends with Mira's death beside the rediscovered Queen, albeit after all sins between the sisters are forgiven. In addition to its unusually somber tone, Mira, Mirror follows its familiar, underlying fairy tales much less closely than is typical for this genre. The result is a complex, highly original fantasy that links two stories with a single theme: the ability of love, rather than beauty, to bring lasting happiness.

While it's just as complex and richly detailed as the previous three novels, Edith Pattou's East (Harcourt, 2003) reads more like a realistic adventure than a fantasy. Based on "East of the Sun and West of the Moon," it tells the story of a poor peasant girl who's born a wanderer. When a great white bear promises to heal Rose's dying sister and restore her family's fortune, she accompanies him to his hidden cave far away. She lives with the bear, who is actually an enchanted prince, for almost a year before she accidentally condemns him to marry a Troll Queen. The Queen carries the bear prince off to her ice palace "east of the sun and west of the moon," and Rose sets out to rescue him. While keeping the familiar structure of the original story intact, Pattou surprises readers by replacing many of its magical elements with details appropriate to the novel's setting in long-ago Scandinavia. In place of the four Winds that carry the fairy tale's heroine to her beloved bear prince, Rose relies on a series of human helpers: a kind mother and daughter, a drunken longship captain, and an Inuit wise woman. Told in the voices of several characters, East is an action-packed read, made all the more gripping because Rose accomplishes her quest essentially without supernatural help.

Even more realistic than East is Donna Jo Napoli's Bound (Atheneum, 2004), a retelling of the tale of Yeh-Shen, the "Chinese Cinderella." Written as historical fiction with almost no magical elements, the story takes place in a northern Chinese village during the late 1300s. After the death of her mother and father, Xing Xing is bound by tradition to live with her stepmother and stepsister, who treat her as a servant. Against Stepmother's wishes, she attends a festival disguised in beautiful clothes her mother had hidden away for her; when Stepmother begins to recognize her, Xing Xing flees, dropping one of her tiny golden slippers. The slipper soon belongs to the local prince, who searches for the beautiful woman reputed to have left it behind. The prince finds Xing Xing, becomes entranced with her, and decides to marry her immediately. In all these particulars, the novel resembles both "Yeh-Shen" and many European versions of "Cinderella." Napoli goes on to add details not found in the Chinese or European versions, but that are suggested instead by the novel's setting and period. In another of the many meanings of the book's title, the stepsister is mutilated by the practice of foot binding to keep her feet small and thus attractive to men. Xing Xing undertakes a dangerous journey to find medicine for her stepsister's terribly infected feet; along the way she develops the self-reliance needed to face the prince with courage, a quality that enchants him as much as her beauty. The conclusion may seem a bit less than romantic for Western readers, but is in perfect keeping with this retelling's cultural trappings. Like the other excellent retellings noted above, Bound offers readers unexpected details within a well-known framework, blending the familiar and the original into a compelling story reminiscent of, but not bound by, its traditional source.

Hague, Kathleen & Michael Hague, retellers. East of the Sun and West of the Moon. Harcourt. 1980.
Louie, Ai-Ling. Yeh-Shen: a Cinderella Story from China. Philomel. 1982.
MacHale, D. J. East of the Sun West of the Moon. Rabbit Ears Books. 1992.
Opie, Iona & Peter Opie. The Classic Fairy Tales. Oxford University Press. 1974.