I’ve always loved fairy tales, but it was only when I got to Leeds University that I discovered you could enjoy them as an adult. I remember enthusiastically signing up for the “Romance, Ballad and Fairy Tale” module with the inimitable Professor Wawn. I’m now a keen amateur folklorist with an ever-growing collection of books. I use them A LOT in my own writing, and enjoy connecting with my fellow enthusiasts, particularly at the Todmorden Folklore Centre, Yorkshire.
It reminds me of the classic Joan Aiken/Jan Pienkowski fairy tale books of my childhood, such as The Kingdom Under the Sea. The amazing silhouette illustrations by Lorena Carrington just make it. Apparently, the girls in the images are Kate and Lorena’s daughters!
I love how this book brings to light the many fairy tales from our past in which female characters are brave and resourceful. The stories don’t have to be changed; they already exist. Each tale comes with an introduction stating its source, and a little afterword from both Kate and Lorena, which feels cosy.
I’ve been a fan of Jen Campbell since first watching her YouTube channel.
She is very knowledgeable about fairy tales, and as a queer, disabled person, keen to challenge some of the genre’s othering tropes. (I’ve met her, too!). I especially like how Jen makes the Irish merman tale “The Souls Trapped Under the Sea” more obviously gay, but in a child-friendly way, and has the merman communicate underwater using sign language.
The book has a good selection of tales from across the continents, and the illustrations are just the right mix of creepy and cosy.
Fourteen of the most gruesome fairy tales from around the world are re-told for contemporary readers and restored to their original, grisly versions.
Jen Campbell's collection of terrifyingly gruesome tales lends a modern edge to fairy tale collections for young readers. Drawing on her extensive knowledge of fairy tale history, Campbell's stories undo the censoring, gender stereotyping and twee endings of more modern children's fairy tales, to return both classic and little-known stories to their grim versions, whilst celebrating a diverse range of characters.
Featuring 14 short stories from around the globe, The Sister Who Ate Her Brothers is…
We are all surrounded by darkness. And we are all drawn to the light.
The Orkney Islands north of Scotland are steeped in stories of selkies, seal folk who swim in cold ocean waters and shed their skins to sing and dance on land.
I was recommended this book at a local festival of African and Caribbean culture, by a storyteller who performed two of the tales from it - with music!
I love it that the tales come from many countries in the Caribbean, and reflect the many cultures that have gone into its melting pot, including West African, Indian and Indigenous peoples.
Even better, I don’t just get the tales, I get to hear about the tellers. Between the stories are recollections of the Windrush Generation, who emigrated from the Caribbean to Britain in the 1950s and 60s. As a British reader, I really appreciate that.
Professional storyteller Wendy Shearer has gathered together stories from many Caribbean islands and countries, drawing on oral history and written texts to bring these folk tales to life. Many stories are of West African origin, kept alive through rhythm and song. These tales and their languages were blended with European and East Indian folklore, with royalty, heroes and spirits exacting revenge. Alongside the stories are newly collected reminiscences of migration to Britain from Caribbean countries during the Windrush years. These first-hand accounts mirror the themes found in the folk tales with love and loss, magic and mystery, caution and justice.
I remember the excitement when the news broke in 2009 that five hundred previously unknown German fairy tales had been discovered in an archive in Bavaria.
I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. And I still love it now. As an amateur folklorist, I like the unembellished rawness of the tales. It can be weird at times, but it brings me closer to the original tellers all those years ago.
And the little commentaries and notes on each tale, comparing them with similar tales and giving each their Aarne-Thompson-Uther classification number. Super helpful, both for studying and retelling the tales.
A rare discovery in the world of fairy tales - now for the first time in English.
With this volume, the holy trinity of fairy tales - the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, and Hans Christian Andersen - becomes a quartet. In the 1850s, Franz Xaver von Schoenwerth traversed the forests, lowlands, and mountains of northern Bavaria to record fairy tales, gaining the admiration of even the Brothers Grimm. Most of Schoenwerth's work was lost - until a few years ago, when thirty boxes of manu scripts were uncovered in a German municipal archive.
Wishes are dangerous. They can bring you a night out, a gown, even a pair of slippers. Or something you never should have wished for in the first place.
After the royal wedding, the girl in the glass slippers has everything she ever wanted: an escape from a life of…
As a Yorkshire lass, how could I not love a book of tales from my native soil and stones? I actually helped crowdfund this book, so was one of the first to read it.
I love that many of the tales are associated with real local places. I get very excited when it mentions somewhere I know well. I was especially happy to find a gender-reversed Rapunzel (or "Man In A Tower") story in here. You don’t normally get many of those.
A collection of rarely heard fairy tales from across Yorkshire, plus some local folklore. It has around fifty tales of dragons, giants, hobs, fairies, witches and other folk, or fairy, tales based in Yorkshire.
Most of these are unchanged, or with very minor changes, to the versions found in old (out of copyright) books, though I've tended to soften the dialect to make them easier to read. A few, however, have had slightly more significant changes as the older versions I found were a little brief, and I took a mixture of these and newer versions to retell the story.…
I wrote this book to express my asexuality, and to show that we’ve always been here, hidden in plain sight. It’s a combination of old tales that resonated with me growing up, when I didn’t have a word for what I was (Greek myths, Grimm’s fairy tales), some I’ve discovered since (silent movie The Man Without Desire), and some of my own tales, told in the traditional style ("The Ice Queen and the Mer-King").
This is the first in a series of three, and a collaboration with my illustrator daughter, Anna. I hope you also enjoy Asexual Myths & Tales and More Asexual Fairy Tales.
