A Different Once Upon A Time

Watched the season finale of Once Upon A Time last night and I LOVED it!  I'm not sure why I am so in love with this show, it's cheesy and ridiculous and completely addictive.  The show is all about retelling tales in a twisty mushed together way and we all know I'm love a good twisted fairy tale.  Got me thinking what some of my favorite re-workings of the good old standards and what popped out at me was Gail Carson Levine's  The Fairy's Return and other Princess Tales.  Ms. Levine is known for her retelling of fairy tales, such as Ella Enchanted which is still one of my favorite versions of Cinderella.  Her Princess Tales however are about as humorous as they come, they are tongue-in-cheek, snarky, and oh so funny!

We start off with The Fairy's Mistake which is a retelling of Diamonds and Toads with two girls, one deserving and the other not so much being visited by a fairy just trying to do some good.  When the good girl gets harassed for her gift, and the naughty girl uses her curse to her advantage, all kinds of unintended chaos ensues.

Next we have The Princess Test a based on The Princess and the Pea. In this version the Prince has fallen in love with a blacksmiths daughter who is just persnickety enough to pass the insane test devised for the future bride.

Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep, a re-telling of Sleeping Beauty is my favorite story in this collection.  The author takes the normally passive Sleeping Beauty and turns her into an extremely intelligent, precocious princess who decides for herself when the best time to go to sleep is, I really really really love this one.

Moving on we have Cinderellis and the Glass Hill based on The Princess on the Glass Hill (a lesser known fairy tale)  In this tale we see Cinderellis as our male hero who invents the craziest things on his farm.  My favorite parts of this story was reading the different things he put into his concoctions.

For Biddle's Sake is based on a tale called Puddocky which I had to look up.  Parsley is a girl obsessed with eating parsley, in fact she eats so much her teeth turn green.  When she ventures into the local witches parsley patch she is turned into a toad with very funny consequences.

The Fairy's Return is a re-telling of The Golden Goose.  The fairy from the first story in this collection is now skittish about giving gifts, not knowing how they will turn out.  When she meets the baker's son and finds out the king has forbidden to allow him to marry the princess, she cannot resist helping in the form of a golden goose.

All of these stories are short and sweet.  They do not contain any real objectionable material, so they are perfect reading for all of those young prince and princesses out there.  They are perfect for reading out loud or for curling up on the front porch.

Do you like the humorous twist on these classic tales?  Who do you like to read these kinds of stories to?  How are we going to make it to the next season of Once Upon A Time!!!!!!!