Fairy Tale News

There’s been a few newsy bits about fairy tales of late that I want to weigh in on.

First there was the Guardian’s announcement of “Five hundred new fairytales discovered in Germany” that was immediately picked up around town and the world. In fact, reading further into the article and hearing from others, I learned that these fairy tales collected by Franz Xaver von Schönwerth had been published more than once and so weren’t quite the Indiana-Jones-ish-hidden-away-and-never-seen-before fairy tales suggested by the headline and others.  Now I’m pleased to see that fairy tale scholar Maria Tatar has weighed in with “CINDERFELLAS: THE LONG-LOST FAIRY TALES” over at The New Yorker.

Then there was Tuesday’s announcement (also in the Guardian) of a new collection of Grimm fairy tales retold by Philip Pullman.  Great news indeed, but just to point out that Pullman is no fairy tale novice. He’s been retelling fairy tales forever.  Even before he was a published writer he was a teacher and told stories to his students.  And as a published writer he has been telling new and old tales for quite some time.

Some of his retellings include:

• Mossycoat (I use this with my 4th graders yearly)
• Puss in Boots
• The Wonderful Story of Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp

And then there are his wonderful new fairy tales. Among them are:

• The Scarecrow and his Servant
• Clockwork or All Wound Up
• I Was a Rat!

In addition to being one of the greatest living writers Philip Pullman is also a wonderful mentor to many myself included. We became acquainted many years ago on child_lit and have since then met occasionally. Last summer I was in Oxford and Philip took me to a glorious lunch where he told me about the Penguin project and we had a wonderful time chatting about fairy tales.