"The Fairy's Return" by Gail Carson Levine

-

Read: 5/24/09

3/5 stars

A retelling of the Tale of the Golden Goose, The Fairy's Return is a silly little book appropriate for middle readers. The story also incorporates elements from the story "The Princess who refused to laugh."

The two main characters, Lark, the princess, and Robin, the baker's son, meet as children and fall in love, primarily because they can be who they really are with each other. Robin doesn't treat Lark as a dainty princess, and Lark laughs at Robin's jokes, which Robin's family never does. The story's main conflict comes when Lark is to be married off to an actual prince, and not, of course, to a baker's son. So, true to fairy tale form, a contest takes place to make Lark laugh, on account of the fact that she has refused to laugh now that she is to be married off to one she does not love. This being a fairy tale, a fairy helps Robin out by giving him a golden goose and helping him with other tasks along the way.

Apparently, The Fairy's Return is only one among Levine's series of Princess Tales books. The retellings are charming and somewhat funny. Levine has peopled her book with absurd minor characters--Robin's bad-poetry-spouting father, his two arrogant word-inventing brothers, Lark's mumbling father, and the initially insecure fairy. If I were a grade school girl, I'd probably be laughing in my shoes. As it is, I could only manage a few chuckles. Nevertheless, I would recommend this book to its target audience. At its own level, it already gives children an intelligent taste of intertextuality.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Soledad's Sister by Jose Dalisay, Jr.

-
Image
Soledad's Sister  by Jose "Butch" Dalisay is the first Philippine novel to be shortlisted for the distinguished Man Asian Literary Prize  in 2007. I remember reading about the Man Asian at that time and finding out about Dalisay's shortlisted novel. And I recall thinking, "Well, that sounds about right." After all, Butch Dalisay is one of the country's premier writers.This much is evident when you read Soledad's Sister . Way back in college, I was fortunate enough to have Butch Dalisay as one of my professors. The class was an undergrad course on Survey of American Literature, and I remember every single story and poem we took up to this day. I also remember him reading to us one of his essays during class. He had his Mac open on his desk and was reading his essay from the screen. Back then, I was thinking, "This should be boring. But it isn't." And I realized it wasn't boring because I was entranced by his words. The summary...
Read more

Filipino authors with internationally-published books

-
Image
Some of the books from Filipino authors published by intl. publishers. Clockwise from top left: Age of Blight by Kristine Ong Muslim; The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco; The Courageous Princess Vol. 1 by Rod Espinosa; Learning To Fall by Mina Esguerra, Smaller And Smaller Circles by F.H. Batacan; The Last Time I'll Write About You by Dawn Lanuza. It seems an exciting time for Filipino authors. A Filipina YA author was at the Brooklyn Book Festival and other festivals, some Filipino authors just wrapped up panels during the Fil-Am International Book Festival in San Francisco , a few other Fil-Am authors are coming out with new books from a major publisher in the next few months ( literary fiction , young adult , and middle grade ), and another classic author was recently published by Penguin Classics. Not to mention that a few Filipino authors have been pitching at #dvpit and have already found agents . And I'm pretty sure I'm barely scratching the surface her...
Read more

The El Bimbo Variations by Adam David

-
Image
When reading a poetry collection, one of the last things you expect to do is laugh out loud. But, if you were to read Adam David's new edition of The El Bimbo Variations , that is exactly what you'd be doing. My advice: try not to read it in public, unless you're okay with people looking at you weird because your shoulders are suddenly shaking in laughter or you have a snap-happy grin on your face. I first read The El Bimbo Variations back when it was still in pdf format. Four years ago, the poet Adam David gave a talk to one of our high school junior classes during a yearly activity where we expose students to real-life writers. In preparation, he sent us  a copy of his El Bimbo Variations , and told me that we could distribute it to the students so that they'd know his work. We photocopied them for the classes assigned to Adam and, on the day of the talk, I went in and listened to his session where he got riled up about big publishers and their limited repertoire...
Read more