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Stay tuned for wonderful videos from: Wimpy Kid creator Jeff Kinney, National Ambassador Emeritus and Stinky Cheese Man author Jon Scieszka, Fallen series author Lauren Kate, Babymouse creators Matt and Jenni Holm, and many more! A great series for middle-grade readers.Follow our YouTube playlist for fun videos from children’s book creators celebrating children’s books and the joy of reading - now through Book Week! Overall, these books are simple, quick reads that I found to be enjoyable and creative adaptations. And I liked the story enough to forgive the Disney references. However, Shurtliff shows off plenty of knowledge of the original tales, such as the apple being half red and half white as in the Grimm story. Grump has several nods to Disney's 1937 animated film – most notably including Grumpy the dwarf. Shurtliff was clearly going for a depiction of a troublesome young boy, but he was a little too obnoxious and dumb for me to really enjoy his point of view.Īlso, this is more personal, but one of my pet peeves is when fairytale retellings focus on the Disney renditions.
I felt the character of Jack was hardest to get invested in. Shurtliff is great at setting up endearing characters and readable stories. I was also delighted by just how many stories Shurtliff combined to create Jack, and how creatively and seamlessly it came together. It borrows from “Tom Thumb” and “Thumbelina,” and maybe I'm reading into it but I even recognized a touch of “Thumbling the Giant” with the Tom Thumb character being kidnapped by a giant. Another interesting element was how we see the point of view swap of Rumpelstiltskin – first in Rump from the title character in Rump, then in Jack from the queen who bargained with him, who is rather foolish but also manages to be sympathetic.
My personal favorites were Red – particularly the friendship between Red and Goldilocks - and Grump, with its worldbuilding of a dwarf society. So for instance, Red Riding Hood’s grandmother is Rose Red from the less-retold tale of “Snow White and Rose Red.” All four books take place in the same fantasy world, with interconnected characters.
However, they bring in elements of multiple other fairytales. The books retell, in order, Rumpelstiltskin ( Rump), Jack and the Beanstalk ( Jack), Red Riding Hood (Red), and Snow White (Grump). I recently read Liesl Shurtliff’s series of fairytale retellings for children.
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