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

Short Story Online: Swans by Kelly Link

Fantasy Magazine Online reprinted the short story, Swans by Kelly Link, last month. The story originally appeared in A Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales edited by Ellen Datlow & Terry Windling. It is a Wild Swans/Six Swans retelling.

Here are the first few paragraphs to spark your interest but you'll have to visit the site to read the rest:

My name is Emma Bear, and I am eleven years old. I live on Black Ankle Road beside the Licking River. I live in a palace. My father is a king. I have a fairy godfather. This summer I read The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle and learned how to make blue dye from a flower called woad. I have six brothers. My mother is dead. I’m in the seventh grade. My father remarried this summer. My favorite class is home ec. I love to sew. I make all my own clothes. My mother taught me how to sew. I can also knit, crochet, and quilt.

Yesterday my stepmother pointed her pinkie finger at my brothers and turned them all into swans. They were being too noisy. I’m never too noisy. I don’t talk at all.

This year I was failing choir. I opened my mouth to sing, and nothing came out. I hadn’t been able to say a word since my mother died. In my other classes, it was okay. Homework was okay. Math was okay, and English. Art was okay. I could write down answers on the black board. I carried around a pad of paper and a pen. You’d be surprised how often you don’t actually have to say anything. Mostly if I just nodded, it was okay. But choir doesn’t work that way. You can’t sing by writing on a pad of paper. But nothing came out of my mouth when I opened it.

And if you enjoyed the story, you might also enjoy some of Link's other works, including Stranger Things Happen: Stories and Magic for Beginners and Pretty Monsters: Stories.

 

Martin Harry Greenberg (1941-2011)

   

 

Martin Harry Greenberg (1941-2011) passed away last Saturday after a long battle with cancer. Although he isn't automatically associated with fairy tales, among the many he edited several had fairy tale themes. So as a salute to him I wanted to highlight those books today.

From Tor.com:

He was best known as the editor or co-editor of literally hundreds of anthologies of short fiction, often in collaboration with well-known writers such as Robert Silverberg, Jane Yolen, and Mike Resnick. He famously co-edited over 125 anthologies with Isaac Asimov. He also co-edited a large number of anthologies with scholars such as Charles G. Waugh, Joseph D. Olander, and/or Patricia Warrick. A holder of a doctorate in political science, Greenberg taught at the University of Wisconsin from 1975 until his retirement in 1996. In 2001, he founded book packaging company Tekno Books.

Greenberg edited many, many books and most were not fairy tale related, but here are some of my favorites with those themes. I'm sure I am missing some, but this is a great place to start with some wonderful stories to be found.

Terribly Twisted Tales

Once Upon a Galaxy

Faerie Tales

Once Upon A Crime

LIttle Red Riding Hood in the Big Bad City

Magic Tails

Fantasy Gone Wrong

Maiden, Matron, Crone

Elf Magic

Children of Magic

Sisters in Fantasy 2

New Book: Happily Ever After

Kate's post at Diamonds and Toads yesterday reminded me that I hadn't posted yet about Happily Ever After which was released last month, an anthology of fairy tale inspired short stories.

Most of the work in this collection is not original to the publication, only one short story and the introduction are brand new. However, the collection pulls from many anthologies--at least 16--and nice person that I am, I included many of the original sources in the table of contents below. Also, for interesting articles resulting from the publicity for this anthology don't miss Happily Ever After: An Interview with John Klima, Fairy Tale Anthologist by Jeff VanderMeer and Making fairy tales realistic, with Fables creator Bill Willingham by Annalee Newitz (which Kate linked to yesterday).

Description:

Once Upon A Time...

...in the faraway land of Story, a Hugo-winning Editor realized that no one had collected together the fairy tales of the age, and that doorstop-thick anthologies of modern fairy tales were sorely lacking...

And so the Editor ventured forth, wandering the land of Story from shore to shore, climbing massive mountains of books and delving deep into lush, literary forests, gathering together thirty-three of the best re-tellings of fairy tales he could find. Not just any fairy tales, mind you, but tantalizing tales from some of the biggest names in today's fantastic fiction, authors like Gregory Maguire, Susanna Clarke, Charles de Lint, Holly Black, Aletha Kontis, Kelly Link, Neil Gaiman, Patricia Briggs, Paul Di Filippo, Gregory Frost, and Nancy Kress. But these stories alone weren't enough to satisfy the Editor, so the Editor ventured further, into the dangerous cave of the fearsome Bill Willingham, and emerged intact with a magnificent introduction, to tie the collection together.

And the inhabitants of Story, from the Kings and Queens relaxing in their castles to the peasants toiling in the fields; from to the fey folk flitting about the forests to the trolls lurking under bridges and the giants in the hills, read the anthology, and enjoyed it. And they all lived...

...Happily Ever After.

Table of Contents:

Bill Willingham - Introduction
Gregory Maguire - The Seven Stage a Comeback (A Wolf At the Door: And Other Retold Fairy Tales)
Genevieve Valentine - And In Their Glad Rags (Straying from the Path)
Howard Waldrop - The Sawing Boys (Black Thorn, White Rose)
Michael Cadnum - Bear It Away (Black Heart, Ivory Bones)
Susanna Clarke - Mr. Simonelli or the Fairy Widower (Black Heart, Ivory Bones)
Karen Joy Fowler - The Black Fairy's Curse (Black Swan, White Raven)
Charles de Lint - My Life As A Bird (Black Heart, Ivory Bones)
Holly Black - The Night Market (The Faery Reel)
Theodora Goss - The Rose in Twelve Petals (from chapbook The Rose in Twelve Petals & Other Stories and Realms of Fantasy, April 2002. The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Sixteenth Annual Collection, 2003. In the Forest of Forgetting, 2006. Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology, 2006.)
Jim C. Hines - The Red Path (Terribly Twisted Tales)
Alethea Kontis - Blood and Water (Intergalactic Medicine Show)
Garth Nix - Hansel's Eyes (A Wolf At the Door: And Other Retold Fairy Tales)
Wil McCarthy - He Died That Day, In Thirty Years (Once Upon a Galaxy)
Jane Yolen - Snow In Summer (Black Heart, Ivory Bones)
Michelle West - The Rose Garden (Little Red Riding Hood in the Big Bad City)
Bruce Sterling - The Little Magic Shop (Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology)
K. Tempest Bradford - Black Feather (Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing)
Alan Rodgers - Fifi's Tail (Twice Upon a Time)
Kelly Link - The Faery Handbag (The Faery Reel)
Peter Straub - Ashputtle (Black Thorn, White Rose)
Leslie What - The Emperor's New (And Improved) Clothes (Twice Upon a Time)
Robert J. Howe - Pinocchio's Diary (original to the collection)
Wendy Wheeler - Little Red (Snow White, Blood Red)
Neil Gaiman - The Troll Bridge (Snow White, Blood Red)
Patricia Briggs - The Price (Silver Birch, Blood Moon)
Paul Di Filippo - Ailoura (Once Upon a Galaxy)
Jeff VanderMeer - The Farmer's Cat (The Surgeon's Tale and Fantasy: The Very Best of 2005)
Gregory Frost - The Root of The Matter (Snow White, Blood Red)
Susan Wade - Like a Red, Red Rose (Snow White, Blood Red)
Josh Rountree - Chasing America (Polyphony 6)
Nancy Kress - Stalking Beans (Snow White, Blood Red)
Esther Friesner - Big Hair (Black Heart, Ivory Bones)
Robert Coover - The Return of the Dark Children (A Child Again)

Book covers for many of the original anthologies, most of which are out of print.