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****Swan Sister

Fairy Tales Retold

edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

Reviewed February 3, 2004.
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, New York, 2003.  165 pages.

By now, all my readers know that I love retellings of fairy tales.  This book was no exception.

The stories in this collection are all loosely based on a fairy tale.  Most of them didn’t tell the exact same story, but took the ideas and events and set them in a more modern time.  The result is fun, playful and delightful.

A few of my favorites were “Golden Fur,” by Midori Snyder, “Chambers of the Heart,” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, “The Fish’s Story,” by Pat York, and “The Children of Tilford Fortune,” by Christopher Rowe.  Pat York and Christopher Rowe are both working on their first novels, which I will have to watch for.  I will also need to look for the novels of Midori Snyder and Nina Kiriki Hoffman (I already planned to look up hers after reading Firebirds).

The stories in this collection stay on the light side, but they do have the magic of fairy tales.

Review of another book edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling:
The Faery Reel