"The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in."
-W. H. Auden
Come Fall
by A. C. E. Bauer
Foster kid Salman Page is starting seventh grade in yet another new
school when he's assigned a "designated buddy," eighth-grader Lu-Ellen
Zimmer. Past experience has made him distrustful, so he tries to avoid
Lu at first, but Salman eventually becomes friends with her and another
kid on the fringes, Blos Pease. The three of them deal with the ups and
downs at Riverfalls Junior High together, little suspecting that the
fairy Puck (who narrates many chapters of the book) is meddling in their
affairs. Based loosely on Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, this absorbing mix of realistic fiction and fantasy "makes middle school feel like a trip through a dark and scary forest" (Publishers Weekly), but it has a triumphant, feel-good ending.
Reckless
by Cornelia Funke
After his father goes missing, 12-year-old Jacob discovers that a mirror
in his house is a portal to another realm -- the dark and magical
Mirrorworld. For many years after discovering the portal, Jacob visits
Mirrorworld and retrieves enchanted fairy-tale objects (such as locks of
Rapunzel's hair) for profit, but when his younger brother, Will,
follows him into the mirror, disaster looms.
Reckless is sure to make fans of somewhat sinister, action-packed fantasy adventures (like Chris Wooding's
Malice) shiver with glee.
A Tale Dark & Grimm
by Adam Gidwitz
If you think of fairy tales as nice, pretty little stories to bore children to sleep with,
A Tale Dark & Grimm
will make you think again. Weaving the disturbing bits of several
Brothers Grimm tales and plenty of his own mischief into a single story,
author Adam Gidwitz tells his own version of the (often gruesome)
adventures of Hansel and Gretel. Readers who enjoy wry humor, grisly
horror, and interrupting narrators (à la Lemony Snicket) will be
thrilled with this book -- and might also like the dark but less bloody
stories in Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling's collection
Troll's Eye View.
Which fairy tale adaptations are your favorites?
