Title : Book Blogger Hop: Do You Enjoy Retellings Of, or Sequels To, Classic Novels
link : Book Blogger Hop: Do You Enjoy Retellings Of, or Sequels To, Classic Novels
Book Blogger Hop: Do You Enjoy Retellings Of, or Sequels To, Classic Novels
Well, this question is about books, reading and stories. And yes, I do. If I didn’t, my reading choices would be much more limited. Broadening it to “classic stories” lets me include Shakespeare. There are so very many books and films inspired by Shakespeare. Romeo And Juliet turns up everywhere, but an example is West Side Story, in which the feuding Montagues and Capulets become two street gangs, the Jets(Montagues) and the Sharks(Capulets) and who wouldn’t love the film version with the aerial shots of the dancers in the streets of New York?
Kurosawa did at least two films based on Shakespeare, Throne Of Blood(Macbeth) and Ran(King Lear). Shakespeare translates to Japan!
American rom-com She’s The Man takes Twelfth Night to a high school soccer team. That one is great fun, and I have used it with my Year 8 English classes.
I have to confess, I have an unfinished YA novel inspired by Much Ado About Nothing. Benedick and the other soldiers are a high school boys’ footy team. Must finish!
And if the Japanese film industry borrowed from English language classics, the Americans returned the compliment with The Magnificent Seven borrowed from Japanese classic The Seven Samurai, not to mention The Hidden Fortress providing inspiration for Star Wars.
You probably know that Clueless was a Hollywood version of Jane Austen’s Emma, both the original and the film hugely entertaining. And I loved Bride And Prejudice, which took Austen’s original to modern India, the Bennets becoming the Bakshis and dancing around the streets, singing, Bollywood style. Amazing how well it translated.
But let’s go to books. Sophie Masson, Kate Forsyth and Juliet Marillier, all of whom live in Australia, by the way, are wonderful fairytale re-tellers. Juliet Marillier has done quite a few, for example the Sevenwaters series beginning with Daughter Of The Forest, which sets “The Six Swans” in mediaeval Ireland, Heart’s Blood which also sets “Beauty And The Beast” in mediaeval Ireland.
Kate Forsyth has done a wonderful version of Rapunzel, Bitter Greens, in which the witch is an Italian courtesan who once modelled for Titian. Her historical novel The Beast’s Garden, takes a Grimm fairytale, “The Singing, Springing Lark” to Nazi Germany. It’s a sort of “Beauty and The Beast” story. A fabulous book! I loved it. And in case you hadn’t noticed she likes fairytales, there is The Wild Girl, about the girl next door to the Grimms. She told them a large chunk of the folk tales they wrote down and married one of them. Another favourite.
Sophie Masson has done a lot in this area, but I’ll discuss two of her fairytale re-tellings. Moonlight And Ashes, which I have reviewed on this blog, is a very enjoyable version of “Ashenputtel”, the Grimm version of “Cinderella”. It’s set in the 19th century, with steam trains and newspapers. Hunter’s Moon is set in the same universe as Moonlight And Ashes. It’s “Snow White” with the father being the owner of a chain of department stores. The mirror is The Mirror, a newspaper which annoys the stepmother by proclaiming Bianca/Snow White the Fairest, an annual thing. It certainly worked for me.
Sophie Masson has also edited a series of fairytale and mythology re-tellings published by Christmas Press. They’re gorgeously illustrated, written by some of Australia’s top children’s writers, plus at least one from outside Australia, Adele Geras, who re-told “Beauty And The Beast” and “Bluebeard”. I should add that when I got my Year 7 kids to do a fractured fairytale I read them “Bluebeard”, which gave one student an idea for, not a fractured fairytale, but a version of his own, told by Bluebeard, and dear me, it was a chilling piece! It was totally publishable, in my opinion. I hope it will turn up at least in the school anthology.
Look, there are heaps of amazing re-tellings and sequels, but that will do me for now.
Do you have any favourites?
Kurosawa did at least two films based on Shakespeare, Throne Of Blood(Macbeth) and Ran(King Lear). Shakespeare translates to Japan!
American rom-com She’s The Man takes Twelfth Night to a high school soccer team. That one is great fun, and I have used it with my Year 8 English classes.
I have to confess, I have an unfinished YA novel inspired by Much Ado About Nothing. Benedick and the other soldiers are a high school boys’ footy team. Must finish!
And if the Japanese film industry borrowed from English language classics, the Americans returned the compliment with The Magnificent Seven borrowed from Japanese classic The Seven Samurai, not to mention The Hidden Fortress providing inspiration for Star Wars.
You probably know that Clueless was a Hollywood version of Jane Austen’s Emma, both the original and the film hugely entertaining. And I loved Bride And Prejudice, which took Austen’s original to modern India, the Bennets becoming the Bakshis and dancing around the streets, singing, Bollywood style. Amazing how well it translated.
But let’s go to books. Sophie Masson, Kate Forsyth and Juliet Marillier, all of whom live in Australia, by the way, are wonderful fairytale re-tellers. Juliet Marillier has done quite a few, for example the Sevenwaters series beginning with Daughter Of The Forest, which sets “The Six Swans” in mediaeval Ireland, Heart’s Blood which also sets “Beauty And The Beast” in mediaeval Ireland.
Kate Forsyth has done a wonderful version of Rapunzel, Bitter Greens, in which the witch is an Italian courtesan who once modelled for Titian. Her historical novel The Beast’s Garden, takes a Grimm fairytale, “The Singing, Springing Lark” to Nazi Germany. It’s a sort of “Beauty and The Beast” story. A fabulous book! I loved it. And in case you hadn’t noticed she likes fairytales, there is The Wild Girl, about the girl next door to the Grimms. She told them a large chunk of the folk tales they wrote down and married one of them. Another favourite.
Sophie Masson has done a lot in this area, but I’ll discuss two of her fairytale re-tellings. Moonlight And Ashes, which I have reviewed on this blog, is a very enjoyable version of “Ashenputtel”, the Grimm version of “Cinderella”. It’s set in the 19th century, with steam trains and newspapers. Hunter’s Moon is set in the same universe as Moonlight And Ashes. It’s “Snow White” with the father being the owner of a chain of department stores. The mirror is The Mirror, a newspaper which annoys the stepmother by proclaiming Bianca/Snow White the Fairest, an annual thing. It certainly worked for me.
Sophie Masson has also edited a series of fairytale and mythology re-tellings published by Christmas Press. They’re gorgeously illustrated, written by some of Australia’s top children’s writers, plus at least one from outside Australia, Adele Geras, who re-told “Beauty And The Beast” and “Bluebeard”. I should add that when I got my Year 7 kids to do a fractured fairytale I read them “Bluebeard”, which gave one student an idea for, not a fractured fairytale, but a version of his own, told by Bluebeard, and dear me, it was a chilling piece! It was totally publishable, in my opinion. I hope it will turn up at least in the school anthology.
Look, there are heaps of amazing re-tellings and sequels, but that will do me for now.
Do you have any favourites?
Thus Article Book Blogger Hop: Do You Enjoy Retellings Of, or Sequels To, Classic Novels
That's an article Book Blogger Hop: Do You Enjoy Retellings Of, or Sequels To, Classic Novels This time, hopefully can give benefits to all of you. well, see you in posting other articles.
You are now reading the article Book Blogger Hop: Do You Enjoy Retellings Of, or Sequels To, Classic Novels with the link address https://capitalstories.blogspot.com/2018/03/book-blogger-hop-do-you-enjoy.html
0 Response to "Book Blogger Hop: Do You Enjoy Retellings Of, or Sequels To, Classic Novels"
Post a Comment