My Favorite Fairy Tale Retellings #1

[@paulap1237]

My TBR just increased by about 20 books...Your love for books is infectious!!!

[@bg97075]

The Castle Glower Series has a main character named Cecelia. It, along with Ella Enchanted, is one of my favorites. It's a children's series, but it is amazing. Lighthearted, with an fabulous main girl, with a blend of suspense and humor that with keep you entertained. If you haven't read it yet, you should. The first book is called Tuesdays at the Castle. It is not a fairytale retelling, but is about a young princess in a magic castle.

[@abasketcaseyreads6567]

How did I not see this video sooner? I'm a huge fairy tale person. Gail Carson Levine is amazing. Ella Enchanted is one of my very favorites. I love Shannon Hale as well. I've never heard of Just Ella, but it sounds great. I've always wanted to read East. I like the book Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow which is a rebelling of the same tale. My favorite fairy tale author is Juliet Mariller. Great video!!

[@Tay-wj9et]

Juliet Marillier has written some exceptional fairy tale retellings, like Wildwood Dancing, which is a version of The Twelve Dancing Princesses set in 16th century Transylvania, Heart's Blood, a retelling of Beauty and the Beast which escapes the usual Stockholm issues because the main character is employed by the 'Beast' to live in his lonely fortress as a scribe, escaping her own troubled past, rather than being kidnapped or blackmailed into staying with him. The Daughter of the Forest is a dark retelling of The Six Swans that I personally adore. And The Wild Girl and Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth both have fairy tale elements and lush, gorgeous prose. Out of all of them, Heart's Blood (with its misty, cursed Celtic setting) and Bitter Greens (with its complex female characters) are my favourites :)

[@edelmirayabes1308]

I love Alex Flynn ! Her books are amazing ! :) Met her once, I adore her !

[@audreydixon1760]

This makes me so happy! Ella Enchanted is the book that really got me into reading! I've read it probably upwards of 10 times! I haven't seen any other youtuber recommend this so this was so exciting for me! Loved the rest of your recommendations too, I'll have to go check them out!!

[@RosavaDo]

I love 'Reckless' and Shannon Hale's retellings!

[@bookwurmlibrary3064]

I live the fact that you recommend books I have never heard of. My tbr just went up again.

[@hannahbright6276]

You're so energetic! I LOVE IT

[@aintnobodygottimeforthat7309]

I'd recommend the TV show Once Upon A Time if you're into fairytale retellings. It's going into its 5th season in September

[@jeyca537]

Hey, that was me who asked for this video. Thank you very much for making it!

[@georgiaoneill2708]

You should read Sister's Red and Sweetly by Jackson Pierce - they're retellings of little red riding hood and hansel and gretel respectively and they have really powerful female characters and are incredibly written.

[@catarinareis5703]

OMG! You're hair! It's greate, i loved it! I had my own hair painted all in pink, but your's awesome!

[@Kate-he8ug]

*your *great

[@prettyxdangxcool]

Finally someone loves East as much as I do! It's one of my favorite books ever

[@italianbookworm]

I am so excited that you mentioned Cameron Dokey and Gail Carson Levine. They wrote some of my favorite retellings (most of which you mentioned). Have you read Dokey's Beauty Sleep or Levine's The Princess Test? They're both quick reads and very good. Beauty Sleep is still a favorite reread. And if you liked the story of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, try the movie retelling called The Polar Bear King. Other ones you might like are Robin McKinley's Beauty, Spindle's End, and Imaginary Lands. She also did one called Rose Daughter, but I haven't read that one yet. Beauty is another treasured reread (as in I no longer have idea how many times I've read this book). Orson Scott Card also did a phenomenal Sleeping Beauty retelling called Enchantment (bit bigger but worth it).

[@thereadinglist]

I love fairytale retellings. I'd like to recommend some by Neil Gaiman, because he's awesome. There's a short story he wrote, a retelling of Snow White, it's called Snow Glass Apples and you can find it online. It was the first retelling I ever read and ohmygod. He also wrote a very short book based on Nordic stories, called Odd and the Frost Giant; and a graphic novel called The Sleeper and the Spindle, where he puts together Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. All very short books but very powerful storytelling. Oh, and I think you might like Faerietale by stephanie Rabig and Angie Barry. They did the 'a bunch of fairytale characters in one universe' before the Once Upon a Time tv show, so they included darker elements, and supernatural things and it's really good.

[@andrealewis2501]

I''m going to recommend Sleeping Beauty Vampire Slayer by Maureen McGowen. While I have to be honest the beginning took me a while to get into and the ending was a bit predictable the middle was SO interesting with the politics and I just absolutely loved the concept of the book. It's also one of those books where you get to make some decisions for her, and you flip to that chapter, which I was so thankful for toward the middle of the book when she was stuck between choosing from two guys one being a vampire. The curse is that she is awake at night and the rest of the kingdom is forced to be asleep, then she has to face the vampires alone if the curse takes hold, and she is forced to sleep during the day while the rest of the castle remains awake. Her parents had very different ideas about how to prepare her for what was to come or how to try to prevent it. Maybe I'm crazy but I highly recommend!

[@NandaAKAMiranda]

If you like Alice in Wonderland there is a book called "Splintered" by A.G. Howard that is about one of Alice's descendants. Its an amazing series (there are 3 books and a novella).

[@baileebills3543]

I LOVE YOUR HAIR!!

[@freitags]

Actually Cornelia Funke didn't give the dark twist to the fairytales, instead she is closer to the originals by the Brothers Grimm(the two brothers in the book are named after those by the way) and I love her books for that! Thank you for mentioning them!

[@a.m.p.m.965]

You MUST read The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede, which starts with Dealing with Dragons. They SOO good.

[@jessicaelizabethdelaney7756]

The Goose Girl was my favorite Grimm tale!

[@CraftieChelseaMarie]

My favorite story for retellings for some reason is 12 Dancing Princesses... and there are some good ones. Entwinded is good as it is a more "darker"/"mature" retelling out of them... I love Jessica Day George and her retellings. Althea Kontis has great retellings as well. A.G. Howard's series is a great Wonderland retelling. My all time favorite author is Melanie Dickerson. There are so many more than I just love, because I am OBSESSED with fairytales... You probably don't need that many recommendations, but my friend sent me your video because she knows I'm obsessed haha.

[@leigh7569]

Lovely video, I rather enjoy fairy tale retellings. If you haven't you should definitely check out The Sevenwaters Saga by Juliet Marillier. The first book is The Daughter of The Forest. It comes from the Seven Swans story by Hans Christen Anderson, but it has a lot of celtic influence in it. Her writing is so wonderful, and the book took my breath away. One of my favorite fantasy of all time.

[@somberhoney]

Cornelia Funke's Mirrorworld series is so so so so good. I fell in love with Reckless within the first couple of pages, and Fearless was amazing as well. I can't wait for book three, which I think I heard is being called Heartless, to come out.

[@rockies113377]

The Child Thief by Brom is such a wonderfully dark retelling of Peter Pan. Its an adult twist on this beloved story. I would also recommend the audio book to it as well.

[@ringwraith10]

You definitely need to read anything by Donna Jo Napoli! I haven't read her since I was a young adult, but she was one of my favorite authors back then. Robin McKinley, of course, is also AMAZING.

[@smiley7083]

East! Yes, that’s my favorite book of all time. ❤️

[@kclantz]

I am exceedingly late on this video, but I am SO GLAD you have read East and love it as much as I do. I don't know anyone else who has ever read it, but I always recommend it to people because it's so good!

[@lovetolovefairytales]

I LOVE East!

[@kellyr7071]

I love Ella Enchanted. I don't think I've ever seen anyone else on booktube show it, so thank you. I recommend Spindle's End and Beauty (I'm not sure of the genre for these) by Robin McKinley. I've read both of them multiple times they are really amazing. They aren't fairytale retellings (that I know of) but I would also recommend The Blue Sword and The Hero & the Crown by Robin McKinley. They have a fairytale retelling kind of fibe and if you enjoy fantasy and female heroes in your books (Hero & the Crown has dragons) I would highly recommend these. They are a sort of companion duology (Blue and Hero) in that they are set in the same world but not the same time period. I don't think it matters what order you read them in.

[@pattihanson7921]

Kelly R love those books!!! They are in my reread every year pile along with K.M. Shea’s fairy tale retellings, Lord of the Rings, Lynn Kurland’s Nine Kingdoms series starting with Star of the Morning and Nalini Singh’s Guildhunter series. Any recommendations? I would value them.

[@crawlinsideasong]

They're not really "retellings" but The Grimm Legacy, The Wells Bequest and the soon to be released The Poe Estate by Polly Shulman kind of fit in the same vein. They're about the (fictional) New York Circulating Material Repository (basically a library but for objects instead of books) and the "special collections" of objects from "fictional" stories that can be borrowed. Each book centers on a different collection and different employees. So like the Grimm collection has things from fairytales, like the 7-league boots, and the 12 dancing princess' slippers, and the Wells bequest has things from sci-fi stories like a shrink ray and a time machine, and it looks like The Poe Estate will have things from scary stories, like a witch's broom. Also, in the short story vein, Neil Gaiman has a couple good retellings, like The Sleeper and the Spindle.

[@anaaguilar4373]

I've only read five retellings and four of them are the main books of the Lunar Chronicles series!! The other one is "Breadcrumbs" by Anne Ursu, a retelling of The Snow White by Hans Christian Andersen, I highly recommend it! :)

[@annahumphrey3225]

Really great video. Some suggestions (since now my own list has grown exponentially :P ): "Enchantment" by Orson Scott Card, "Deathless" by Catherynne Valente (Koschei the Deathless, of Russian folklore), Beauty/Rose Daughter/Spindle's End/Chalice/Deerskin/Sunshine by Robin Mckinley. All of these are just magic. And the prose in "Deathless" is absolutely stunning. (Just as a note, none of these are YA.) EDIT: I don't know how I forgot these two, but you MUST READ "Cruel Beauty" and "Crimson Bound" by Rosamund Hodge. Both are YA and of the recent retellings I've read, these are far and away the best. Her writing is gorgeous. Both are pretty dark. The characters are...not typical and there are a lot of deeper threads running through them. Breathtaking. (note also that they're not connected to each other)

[@BresBooks83854]

I've read most of these and really enjoyed them! Fairy tales are my weakness. Haddix has a third book to her Palace Chronicles series as well called Palace of Lies you may want to check out.

[@nikkigrossman4244]

Shannon Hale is my absolute favorite author!!!

[@nerdymermaid905]

I love Ella Enchanted!! It's probably my favorite retelling as well! :)

[@lovetolovefairytales]

Also I love Alex Flinn -- Especially Mirrored and Towering!

[@samjensen392]

Have you heard of/seen the movie adaptation of Ella Enchanted, starring Anne Hathaway? I first watched it when I was really little, and it was before I read the book, but I loved it even then, as I still do now.

[@myonna1312]

Ella Enchanted was my favorite movie as a kid, I never put it together that it was a retelling of Cinderella, when you said I was like whaaaat lol also I wish that I knew there was a book when I was child but obviously I'm still going to read it!!!

[@ReadingMissFroggy]

Love Shannon Hale, The Goose Girl was so good! Alex Flinn is so good, I have only read Beastly but I need to read all the other ones asap! If you are looking for a good fairy tale retelling I recommend that you look into The Wide-Awake Princess by E.D. Baker. It's about Sleeping Beauty's sister who stays awake while everyone else in the kingdom falls asleep (due to reasons) and she has to safe the kingdom :) It's a great story with a good message underneath it all.

[@HunebeeNZ40]

New subscriber here - thoroughly enjoying your videos =) This sub-genre is one of my favourites and I can highly recommend those books you have mentioned that you haven't read - the Lunar chronicles in particular are absolute must-reads for people who love this genre. But a few others you might enjoy are: The Isle of the Lost by Melissa de la Cruz - a mash-up of characters Stitching snow by R. C. Lewis - a sci-fi retelling of Snow White Beast charming by Jenniffer Wardell - this is an adult fun quirky Beauty and the Beast retelling. Also a series of children's quick 10 minute reads are the After Happily Ever After series by Tony Bradman - I love these little books and they are fantastic to read out loud to kids.

[@kathrynhoff9096]

I love Ella Enchanted! :) I hate how the movie was made though.

[@aliciacampos5789]

Original fairy tales were almost always quite dark.

[@singinwithceline]

CeCe Wicked is freaking amazing. Pick up Lost and Mirror Mirror too.

[@catarinathebookworm]

If you love retellings you should read FABLES! It's a compilation of 20ish volumes (graphic novels) and it's about a war that makes all the characters from fairy tales come to our world. It's an adult read and it's freaking awesome it's my favorite retelling of all time and I so recommend it! Also I would like to know your thoughts about it, if you decide to give it a chance! I promise you won't regreat!

[@ringwraith10]

I second this! Fables is excellent, and pulls from some much lesser known fairy tales!

[@BeccawithaBook]

I'm totally going to be picking some of these up! I love fairytale retellings! The Land of Stories books are kind of cute. They're middle grade though. One question, are the Alex flub books a series or stand alones?

[@ProblemsofaBookNerd]

BookwormBecca They all stand alone! I just sort of read them in the order they've come out. But, like I said, I'm a couple of books behind. As far as I know, the only thing that has sort of connected the books (not in any particular order) is that the same witch is often present.

[@BeccawithaBook]

ProblemsofaBookNerd Ok! They sounded so cool I just wasn't sure if it was a series. I totally want to read them. It's interesting that the witch is present haha

[@harrypottergleestarwarsdis4817]

have you read stealing snow yet it's a retelling of the snow queen

[@ryleecaufield3066]

Need to read splintered by a.g. Howard!!! It's really really good!

[@sirjedisentinel]

I'm just curious, with these Fairy Tail retellings, what are your thoughts on Gregory Maguire books (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Mirror Mirror, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, etc)

[@CamelFairy]

First :3 Love your videos!

[@issamhamad3828]

I’ve retold The Shawshank Redemption with bird characters ; The Birdshack Redemption is the title of my novel

[@quentinmirabal9938]

If any of you are on Wattpad, I suggest you check out Brutalis. It's a darker Beaty and the Beast retelling. It's really cooler and author JamieMc is really nice.

[@Kate-he8ug]

Me: starts video, is about to comment that The Lunar chronicles better be on here Her: I haven’t read TLC yet.... Me:WHAT?!

[@ProblemsofaBookNerd]

Kate Funnekotter if it helps, this video is 3 1/2 years old and I have no read The Lunar Chronicles lol GROWTH am I right?

[@Kate-he8ug]

ProblemsofaBookNerd You totally should! To be fair, I only read it this summer, but if you like sci-fi/fantasy then you'll probably enjoy it.

[@rebekahgrace4984]

Have you read mechanica? It is a cinderella, although a much better one.

[@ProblemsofaBookNerd]

No I've never heard of that book, but I'll have to check it out!

[@pamelakibildis1177]

You should definitely check out The Ravenspire Series by C.J. Redwine They are so much fun 😊 And I see that you’ve read the Gone Series By Michael Grant 📚🙂 I Love That Series so much 😉👍🏻 And just a note that they’re are more books in the series other than the ones you have on your bookshelf behind you 🙂 Have a Wonderful Evening & Happy New Year 🎊🎆🎊😊

[@harrypottergleestarwarsdis4817]

I am reading stealing snow cinder and a court of thrones and roses

[@ksmontei]

Ha! I was going to ask if you'd read any Robin McKinley and then you ended the video by saying you hadn't. So...you were way ahead of me! That being said, I *haven't* read any her books. But, I've been picking up her retellings as I've come across them and have been really excited to read them. I also love The Goose Girl. I read it years ago closer to when it first came out and thought it was fab. But I want to reread it because I remember very little of it! Plus I haven't read the next two in the series (even though I own them. Sigh.).

[@clairebearbooks6248]

Have you read Ash by Malinda Lo? Retelling of Cinderella with a lesbian/bisexual main character.

[@ProblemsofaBookNerd]

Girl-Who-Got-Tired-Of-Waiting I have really wanted to! Especially as it combines my love of retellings with my intense desire to read far, far more LGBTQIA+ books in my life.

[@jenappell3397]

ProblemsofaBookNerd As soon as I saw the title of this video, I was going to suggest Malinda Lo. Ash was really good, and I think Huntress is a continuation but I haven't read that one yet.

[@harrypottergleestarwarsdis4817]

want to read reckless

[@MM-px4hw]

You could read "Tiger Lily" by Jodi Lynn Anderson. It's not really a "fairytale retelling" as it is a Peter Pan retelling from Tiger Lily's perspective, but I really enjoyed it. Also, you don't really have to know the original to understand the story.

[@Jacquelynrose94]

Have you made an update video yet?

[@ProblemsofaBookNerd]

I haven't yet! I love retellings, but I haven't read that many new ones since I made this video. Sorry!

[@melissarodriguez3516]

you remind me of happiness from inside out hahaha ☺️😂

[@grace2106]

***joyyyy xD but ikr!!

[@ScorpionFlower95]

Belle wasn't abducted. she sacrificed her freedom to save her father. but other than that, some of the books here seem very interesting

[@00moon]

!!! One thing I keep seeing about Acotar, people keep calling it a Beauty and the Beast retelling, it's not! It's Tam-Lin/ Tam Lin, a Scottish story, retelling please not every human-monster love story is Beauty and the beast T-T Okay that's it, new sub thanks for the video I like.. fairytales.. Especially dark ones..

[@derbuchhandel]

Bookstore Berlin Germany

[@estrellaadilene6589]

Can you like tell, your favorite fairy books? Not fairy tale!