February 26 is National Tell a Fairy Tale Day

Did you know that today is National Tell a Fairy Tale Day? From classic Grimm tales to modern day retellings, today is about appreciating the art of the story and how it captivates our imagination.

Storytelling has been around since the dawn of man. We all love stories. They ignite feelings and emotions without having to go anywhere or do anything. They appeal to the power of our imaginations, to our curiosity, and to our desire to know more.

There are countless fairy tales and infinite variations. Some stories, like Cinderella, are near universal and can be found in cultures and languages across the globe. But unlike other forms of narrative, fairy tales, through the use of intriguing narratives and captivating characters, attempt to convey a culture’s moral, social or political lessons.

While we might not be so comfortable with some of the lessons imparted in fairy tales today, it’s interesting to consider how these stories have ebbed and flowed alongside our culture and society. Some tales have lived on for over two thousand years displaying an extraordinary power and longevity. In many cases what remains is the essence of the fairy tale, a story where everything is possible and dreams can come true. It is this reason why I think they are still so popular today.

So, on National Tell a Fairy Tale Day let us celebrate these enchanting tales. Gather with friends or family and read one aloud or check out one of these fun retellings on DVD.

Below you will find a sampling of some of the books and DVDs available at the library!

Books

Popular Reading Collection

deer-life

Deer Life: A Fairy Tale
by Ron Sexsmith
Deryn Hedlight was not having a very good day and it was about to get much worse. He’’’d read stories of witches as a boy, but never believed for a second they were true. That is, until an unfortunate hunting accident turns his world upside down. What seemed like an honest mistake leads to an altogether unexpected transformation. But poor Deryn wasn’’’t the only wronged character tied up in these gloomy circumstances and sinister forces.

echo-north

Echo North
by Joanne Ruth Meyer
Echo Alkaev’s safe and carefully structured world falls apart after her father leaves for the city and mysteriously disappears. Believing he is lost forever, Echo is shocked to find him half-frozen in the winter forest six months later, guarded by a strange talking wolf—the same creature who attacked her as a child. The wolf presents Echo with an offer: for her to come and live with him for a year. But there is more to the wolf than Echo realizes.

girl-in-the-tower

The Girl in the Tower
by Katherine Arden
Orphaned and cast out as a witch by her village, Vasya’s options are few: resign herself to life in a convent or allow her older sister to make her a match with a Moscovite prince. Both doom her to life in a tower, cut off from the vast world she longs to explore. So instead she chooses adventure, disguising herself as a boy and riding her horse into the woods.

hazel-wood

The Hazel Wood
by Melissa Albert
Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice’s life on the road, always a step ahead of the uncanny bad luck biting at their heels. But when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get: her mother is stolen away―by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother’s stories are set. Alice’s only lead is the message her mother left behind: “Stay away from the Hazel Wood.”

kill-the-farm-boy

Kill the Farm Boy
by Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne
Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom, a hero, the Chosen One, was born…and so begins every fairy tale ever told. This is not that fairy tale. There is a Chosen One, but he is unlike any One who has ever been Chosened. And there is a faraway kingdom, but you have never been to a magical world quite like the land of Pell. There, a plucky farm boy will find more than he’s bargained for on his quest to awaken the sleeping princess in her cursed tower. First there’s the Dark Lord who wishes for the boy’s untimely death…and also very fine cheese. Then there’s a bard without a song in her heart but with a very adorable and fuzzy tail, an assassin who fears not the night but is terrified of chickens, and a mighty fighter more frightened of her sword than of her chain-mail bikini. This journey will lead to sinister umlauts, a trash-talking goat, the Dread Necromancer Steve, and a strange and wondrous journey to the most peculiar “happily ever after” that ever once-upon-a-timed.

norse-mythology

Norse Mythology
by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman, long inspired by ancient mythology in creating the fantastical realms of his fiction, presents a bravura rendition of the Norse gods and their world from their origin though their upheaval in Ragnarok.

spinning-silver

Spinning Silver
by Naomi Novik
Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father is not a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has left his family on the edge of poverty–until Miryem intercedes. Hardening her heart, she sets out to retrieve what is owed, and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold. But when an ill-advised boast brings her to the attention of the cold creatures who haunt the wood, nothing will be the same again. For words have power, and the fate of a kingdom will be forever altered by the challenge she is issued.

two-years

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights
by Salman Rushdie
Once upon a time, in a world just like ours, there came “the time of the strangenesses.” Reason receded and the loudest, most illiberal voices reigned. A simple gardener began to levitate, and a powerful djinn — also known as the Princess of Fairyland — raised an army composed entirely of her semi-magical great-great-great-grandchildren. A baby was born with the ability to see corruption in the faces of others. The ghosts of two philosophers, long dead, began arguing once more. And a battle for the kingdom of Fairyland was waged throughout our world for 1,001 nights — or, to be more precise, for two years, eight months, and twenty-eight nights.

Main Collection

irresistable-fairy-tale

The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre
by Jack Zipes
If there is one genre that has captured the imagination of people in all walks of life throughout the world, it is the fairy tale. Yet we still have great difficulty understanding how it originated, evolved, and spread–or why so many people cannot resist its appeal, no matter how it changes or what form it takes. In this book, renowned fairy-tale expert Jack Zipes presents a provocative new theory about why fairy tales were created and retold–and why they became such an indelible and infinitely adaptable part of cultures around the world.

twice-upon-a-time

Twice Upon a Time: Women Writers and the History of the Fairy Tale
by Elizabeth Wanning Harries
Fairy tales, often said to be ”timeless” and fundamentally ”oral, ” have a long written history. However, argues Elizabeth Wanning Harries in this provocative book, a vital part of this history has fallen by the wayside. The short, subtly didactic fairy tales of Charles Perrault and the Grimms have determined our notions about what fairy tales should be like. Harries argues that alongside these ”compact” tales there exists another, ”complex” tradition: tales written in France by the conteuses (storytelling women) in the 1690s and the late-twentieth-century tales by women writers that derive in part from this centuries-old tradition.

folk-and-fairy-tales

Folk and Fairy Tales: A Handbook
by D.L. Ashliman
Just about everyone is familiar with folk and fairy tales. Children learn about them from parents, teachers, and other adults, while researchers study these tales at colleges and universities. At the same time, folk and fairy tales are inseparable from everyday life and popular culture. Movies, music, art, and literature offer imaginative retellings and interpretations of fairy and folk tales. But despite the pervasiveness of this folklore type, most people have only a vague understanding of these tales. This reference is a convenient introduction to folk and fairy tales for students and general readers.

classic-fairy-tales

The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales
edited by Maria Tatar
In this illuminating work, a leading expert in the field of folklore guides readers through 26 fairy tales, exploring their historical origins, their cultural complexities, and their psychological effects on children. 350 full-color photos, paintings & illustrations.

oxford-companion-fairy-tales

The Oxford companion to Fairy Tales
edited by Jack Zipes
From its ancient roots in the oral tradition to the postmodernist reworkings of the present day, the fairy tale has retained its powerful hold over the cultural imagination of Europe and North America. Now The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales provides the first authoritative reference source for this complex, captivating genre.

DVDs

big-fish

Big Fish
William Bloom, is a young man who never really knew his now dying father, Edward – outside of the tall tales his dad told him about growing up. During Edward’s last days William and his wife Josephine hold a bedside vigil next to the old man as he recollects elaborate memories of his youth.

into-the-woods

Into the Woods
A modern twist on several of the beloved Brothers Grimm fairy tales, intertwining the plots of a few choice stories and exploring the consequences of the characters’ wishes and quests. This humorous and heartfelt musical follows the classic tales of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Rapunzel, all tied together by an original story involving a baker and his wife, their wish to begin a family and their interaction with the witch who has put a curse on them.

maleficent

Maleficent
A beautiful, pure-hearted young fairy, Maleficent has an idyllic life growing up in a peaceable forest kingdom, until one day when an invading army threatens the harmony of the land. Bent on revenge, Maleficent faces a battle with the invading king’s successor and, as a result, places a curse upon his newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Maleficent realizes that Aurora holds the key to peace in the kingdom, and perhaps to Maleficent’s true happiness as well. A retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story.

mirror-mirror

Mirror, Mirror
An exiled princess is assisted by seven rebels in order to reinstate her stolen birthright.

pans-labyrinth

Pans Labyrinth
A dark fable set five years after the end of the Spanish Civil War. Eleven-year-old Ofelia comes face to face with the horrors of fascism when she and her pregnant mother are uprooted to the countryside, where her new stepfather, a sadistic captain in General Franco’s army, hunts down Republican guerrillas who refuse to give up the fight. The violent reality in which she lives merges seamlessly with a fantastical interior world when Ofelia meets a faun in a decaying labyrinth.

stardust

Stardust
Tristan hopes to win the heart of his beautiful, but shallow love, Victoria. He promises to recover a star that fell somewhere beyond the stony wall that sets between the mundane England and the fantasy kingdom of Stormhold. So Tristan sets forth on his own journey in Stormhold. Meanwhile in that magical land, the dying king has set his four surviving sons on a quest for the crown. And the witch Lamia is seeking the heart of the star for an entirely different purpose, one that involves her secret power.

Anjanette Jones, UX and Web Design Librarian