5 trips to the darker side of Fairyland

List by Danielle

'Ellum do grieve,

Oak he do hate

Willow do walk

If Yew travels late'

~ From Faeries

This is inspired in part by Scriven's fab selection of recent fairytales on the Auckland Libraries blog - including fairytale knits! - and in part by reading the wonderful Locus Award-winning The girl who circumnavigated Fairyland in a ship of her own making, by Catherynne M. Valente. I love fairytales, and I love it when authors take the old familiar settings, characters and motifs and make something dark and eerie and wonderful and new with them. I'm particularly fond of stories that give me a sense of the strangeness and power of Fairyland and its denizens. I think it *should* be scary - a trip to Fairyland should give you pause, should tempt and terrify in equal measure.

Also recommended:

• Wicked lovely, Melissa Marr's YA series - darkly beautiful, enjoyable if you've got a reasonable tolerance for angst and teenaged love triangles
• Erica Hayes' erotic Shadowfae series - flawed, and the characters aren't particularly likeable, but she has some nice imagery that gives you all the glorious tastes and scents of fairy life, alongside the crazy sights; especially in the stand-alone second book, Shadowglass
• Kissing the witch / Emma Donoghue - before she became uber-famous for the amazingly strong and unforgettable Room, Donoghue wrote this book of short interconnected stories that explore the relationships between female characters in fairytales
• Any anthologies from Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
• Victorian fairytales, French fairytales, fairytales in picture books... it's all good!

Top 5 much loved fairytale reboots

List by Danielle and friends & family

"Fairy tales were not my escape from reality as a child; rather, they were my reality -- for mine was a world in which good and evil were not abstract concepts, and like fairy-tale heroines, no magic would save me unless I had the wit and heart and courage to use it wisely."
~ Terri Windling

Like a lot of fantasy readers, I grew up devouring fairytales and folklore, and practically haunted the 398s in my local and school libraries. (To this day, it's the one Dewey number that I could find in the dark, the path to it is just engraved on my brain somewhere.) There's a lot of magic to be wrung out of those deceptively simple stories, plenty for writers to explore and readers to latch onto - heroes and heroines taking destiny into their own hands, adventures into unfamiliar realms, happily ever afters.

Me, I loved the sparkliness... girls transported from their own mundane lives to palaces full of gems, through forests of trees with glittering leaves, wearing gowns of gold and silver... SIGH. That said, one of the most moving (though least sparkly) reimaginings of the 'girl meets palace' storyline that I've read recently was in Margo Lanagan's Tender morsels, where a transformed hut with straight walls, clean floors and sturdy furniture - and absent an abusive father - is the most incredible gift for Lanagan's heroine.

Here below, inspired by Annie and Teigs' brilliant lists of late, my mum and my co-worker Julia have helped put together a list of the five retellings that have meant the most to us, over the years.

Top 5 fractured fairytales

List by Annie, Central Library

"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."
~ Albert Einstein

Annie is one of the stars behind Auckland Libraries' Teen blog, and she recently posted an introduction to fairytales, fractured and otherwise, as well as linking to an earlier selection of fairytale retellings reviewed by fellow librarian Teigs. Here are some of her favourite older titles.

Top 5 animated family flicks that bear repeat viewing

List by Danielle
"RJ: Loads of food! Heaps of food! Food out the wazoo!
Verne: Well, you know, whatever kind of food comes out of a wazoo, I really don't think we're interested in eating."

If you have small children, and they find a film they like, then chances are you'll be watching it over. And over. And over. Again. Fortunately, film-makers these days seem to excel at making family-friendly tales that not only enchant small children with their bright colours, fun animation and cute stories, but give parents enough sly humour and smart characterisation to get by on your ninth, your tenth, your happily-ever-after umpteenth viewing! Note: this is a non-Pixar list, since Pixar pretty much deserve their own Top 5!

Top 5 fairytales

List by Kalani
Compiled by Tosca

"If you can see the magic in a fairytale, you can face the future."
- Danielle Steel

My mum read fairytales to my siblings and myself as children and, as a result, I am a longtime fan of Hans Christian Andersen's stories. Even though they were desperately sad. Heck, maybe because they were so desperately sad. Kalani, however, enjoys fairytales with happier endings - even if someone has to smooch a slimy, pond dwelling creature to get there! His favourite teacher, Miss Damon, has been reading fairytales to the class over the last couple of months and these are Kalani's favourites. Complete with unedited comments. Two stories have wolves, one has a sneaky blonde, one features a giant and one sees a princess playing kissy face with a frog. All, as Kalani has pointed out, live happily ever after (unless you're a giant, or a wolf...). Feel free to leave your own Top 5 fairytales as a comment - or even your own favourite Hans Christian Andersen tales :)