New Book: Magic Beans: A Handful of Fairytales from the Storybag

Magic Beans: A Handful of Fairytales from the Storybag is a recent book released in the UK with many short stories by well-known authors based on fairy tales. I missed this when it was released a few months ago and it is pushed primarily in ebook format here in the US. The ebook is $9.99 which looks like a bargain when one finds that each of the short stories are also available separately for $1.95 each in ebook format.

The best part--besides a stellar author list--is that many of these are lesser used tales for retellings. I'm not sure how much interpretation is in these versions or if they are more straightforward rewritings by the authors, but either way I am sure they are fun reading. I do know enough to recognize they are reprints of dollar books printed by Scholastic with each title. The illustrations appear to be included here, so this is a good way to collect them all if they interest you or a child in your life.

Book description:

Magic beans. Sow them. Plant them. Watch children grow.

'If you are a dreamer, come in. If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hoper, a prayer, a magic-bean-buyer. If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire, for we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! Come in!' - Shel Silverstein, Poet

Each and every one of the stories in this anthology is a magic bean: a wondrous tale that will capture your imagination. Prepare to be dazzled by Rapunzel's golden tresses. Prepare to be moved by the suffering of the Little Mermaid. Prepare to laugh yourself silly as 'Mr Sultana' struggles to get the better of a little red rooster!

Lovingly crafted by the finest authors and illustrators, these 'magic beans' will delight, thrill and thoroughly entertain.

Table of Contents:

Adèle Geras
The Six Swan Brothers

Anne Fine
The Twelve Dancing Princesses

Henrietta Branford
Hansel and Gretel

Jacqueline Wilson
Rapunzel

Malorie Blackman
Aesop’s Fables

Philip Pullman
Mossycoat

Tony Mitton
The Seal Hunter

Alan Garner
Grey Wolf, Prince Jack and the Firebird

Berlie Doherty
The Snow Queen

Gillian Cross
The Goose Girl

Kit Wright
Rumpelstiltskin

Michael Morpurgo
Cockadoodle-doo, Mr Sultana!

Susan Gates
The Three Heads in the Well

Linda Newbery
The Little Mermaid

Book: Fractured Fables from Image Comics

 

I never wrote about this Fractured Fables (Hardcover), first because I came to it late, second because I am not at all well-versed in current comic books,* and lastly because I didn't look past the cover when I saw it, which to me, hate me if you want, looked very generic, like cheap fairy tale books at the dollar store. Nothing wrong with that, but not my usual interest or what I assume to be yours.

Then recently I stumbled across some sample pages from the book and I can fully admit I was wrong. I should know well enough by now to not judge a comic book by its cover, but at least I didn't suffer for my prejudgment forever. In other words, there is some great stuff within this innocuous looking cover. In fact, I learned that two of the pieces inside were nominated for Will Eisner Awards: Best Short Story Nominations--"Cinderella," by Nick Spencer and Rodin Esquejo & "Little Red Riding Hood," by Bryan Talbot and Camilla d'Errico.

So like a diligent SurLaLune keeper, I have ordered my own hardcover copy to investigate further. It hadn't arrived when I wrote this, but I am not worried. I know I will like it. It's has enough pretty and I respond well to pretty. A paperback edition is due out in late January, so you can wait for that if you are interested. I wanted a hardcover myself.

From the publisher:

Some of the comic book industries best and brightest use their talents to welcome the next generation of comic book readers with the kid-friendly anthology, Fractured Fables! Featuring an introduction by Bill Willingham (FABLES), this all-new, humorous take on our most beloved fairy tales boasts a cover by Madman Atomic Comics creators Mike & Laura Allred and all-new stories by award-winning creators including Jill Thompson, Bryan Talbot, Peter David, Ben Templesmith, Scott Morse, Doug TenNapel, Laini Taylor, Ted McKeever, Terry Moore, Bill Morrison, Larry Marder, Jim Valentino, Phil Hester, and New Yorker artist Shannon Wheeler, among others.

From an article, Comic book review: 'Fractured Fables' by Joseph Szadkowski:

Here are just a few of my favorites:

■ "Little Red Riding Hood" is updated by writer Bryan Talbot and finds the brightly dressed child on a direct path to the Big Bad Wolf's stomach until she displays some surprising skills. Painter Camilla d'Errico brings a bit of an anime influence to the action and makes me exclaim when viewing Red, "My, what gigantic blue eyes you have."

■ Doug TenNapel's "Rumpelstiltskin" turns the classic into a "Ren and Stimpy" episode. He dementedly uses a grotesque art style that chaotically blends with the sophomoric hijinks of a magic little man who can turn hay into gold, a grumpy king and a dumber-than-a-post future queen.

■ The adventure of "The Little Mermaid" turns much more ominous in the hands of comics scribe extraordinaire Peter David as her quest to live happily ever after with a human prince becomes a puzzling problem in podiatry. Artist Ron Ferrara offers ample arch support for the mermaid's issues.

■ Writer Nick Spencer's "Cinderella" satisfies through a fable more about the frustrations of an unhip fairy godmother than the abused princess while artist Rodin Esquejo's beautiful and Disneyesque art style puts the story near the top of my favorites.

■ "Rip Van Winkle" meets Len Strazewski's imagination and we enjoy a story about a conceited girl named Pipi Van Wrinkles who gets loaded on cherry cordials and learns her fate as an adult. The slapstick shenanigans throughout come to life thanks to the pop-art and retro-Archie-Comics-like stylings of Paul Fricke.

*Except for my few years of avid Superman collecting and reading in the mid 90s, so I am not completely ignorant of how the industry works. I had a large collection that was stolen when we moved to California although I had quit collecting at that point. But I gave up for good then. It was just too depressing. I was also raised around a brother who was a Marvel fan, so I've spent some time in comic book shops and it is my favorite set on Big Bang Theory.

Disney Characters As Humans by Jirka Väätäinen

Discovered via What Disney Princesses Would Look Like If They Were Actually Human by Jamie Frevele from the artist's blog at Jirka Väätäinen.

From the article:

Jirka Väätäinen is a graphic design student at the Arts University College at Bournemouth in the UK, and he’s come up with some really interesting interpretations of what Disney's animated heroines would look like in real life using photo manipulation

I really enjoyed these and thought you may, too.

This is the most recent and strongest celebrity influence--definitely some Amanda Seyfried in his version of Rapunzel.

Disney Princesses as Cover Models by Petite Tiaras

Oh, me oh my. I have to devote a few posts to Disney princesses this week because I really enjoyed these on different levels. First up, found at 13 Disney Princesses Magically Transformed Into Magazine Cover Models by Jill Pantozzi and originally from Petite Tiaras who I believe created them. Love the tag lines, too.

 

 

Alice Munro on Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid”

This was a few weeks ago, but I am still adding in things I missed while on vacation. From Maria Tatar's Blog, Breezes in Wonderland, just in case you missed this:

Here’s Alice Munro on H.C. Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid.” In The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen, I referred to Claire Bloom’s memoir, Leaving a Doll’s House. There, Bloom confesses that she gave in to the Little Mermaid complex, embracing the view that love meant pain and suffering: “I believe that the stories my mother quite innocently passed on to me, The Snow Queen and The Little Mermaid, so innocently read to me years ago in a sunlit garden, stories of one young girl after another who had sacrificed herself at the altar of romantic love . . . had given me an extremely distorted image of sexual relationships between men and women.”

Alice Munro tells a different story. She read “The Little Mermaid” and was “appalled”: “She didn’t have to be changed to foam on the sea.” And so, Munro made up her own happy ending, because she had to “do something” about what she had found.

I loved hearing that. She is a kindred spirit.

 

Mermaids and Sirens in Art

Here is our Sunday morning video of Mermaids and Sirens in Art, courtesy of joshje777. This one is over 10 minutes long so sit back and enjoy. Check back next Sunday for the next in the series.

Learned at The Southern Festival of Books

Not only did I present at the Southern Festival of Books this past weekend--I thought it was a success and thank everyone who attended--I also got to attend some of the sessions of other authors. Things learned to anticipate include:

Matthew Reinhart has a Sleeping Beauty pop-up book slated for a 2013 release. It's not even listed yet, but I will be preordering it and adding it to my shelves with Cinderella: A Pop-Up Fairy Tale and Robert Sabuda's Beauty & the Beast: A Pop-up Book of the Classic Fairy Tale. Need I mention that this makes me really, really happy? There were no previews, but Reinhart said he worked long and hard on the castle pop up for this book in his desire to make it beautiful.

Jackson Pearce was also there and talked about her fairy tale novels. She has a third one slated for 2012, a Little Mermaid retelling from the "temple princess's POV" titled Fathomless. Pearce has already given us Sweetly and Sisters Red. Which have some of the greatest covers for fairy tale retellings ever. I hope Fathomless has the same artist to complete the set.