Silver Birch Blood Moon

Winner of the World Fantasy Award: New twists on classic fairy tales from Neil Gaiman, Patricia Briggs, Robin McKinley, Caitlín R. Kiernan, and more. Long ago, when we were children, our dreams were inspired by the fairy tales we heard at our mothers’ and grandmothers’ knees—stories of princesses and princes and witches and wondrous enchantments, by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, and from the pages of 1001 Arabian Nights. But, as World Fantasy Award–winning editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling remind us, these stories were often tamed and sanitized versions. The originals were frequently darker—and in Silver Birch, Blood Moon, they turn darker still. Twenty-one modern Grimms and Andersens—masterful storytellers including Neil Gaiman, Nancy Kress, and Tanith Lee—now reinvent beloved bedtime stories for our time. The Sea Witch gets her say, relating the story of “The Little Mermaid” from her own point of view. “Thumbelina” becomes a tale of creeping horror, while a delightfully naughty spin is put on “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Author Caitlín R. Kiernan transports Snow White to a dark, gritty, industrial urban setting, and Patricia Briggs details “The Price” of dealing with a royal and unrepentantly evil Rumpelstiltskin. Rich, provocative, and unabashedly adult, each of these tales is a modern treasure, reminding us that wishes have consequences and not all genies have our best interests at heart.

Fairy tales retold—with a twist—from “some of our best storytellers” including Neil Gaiman, Gahan Wilson, Tanith Lee, and others (The Washington Post). In this “no holds barred . . . nightmarish . . . provocative” collection, bestselling and award-winning fantasy masters put a dark, disturbing, and erotic spin on your favorite bedtime stories—and give you something entirely new to trouble your dreams (The New York Times Book Review). A boy is haunted through adulthood by a soul-eating creature that lies forever in wait under Neil Gaiman’s “Troll Bridge”; a melancholy amphibian shares his most private fantasies with a therapist in Gahan Wilson’s “The Frog Prince”; in Tanith Lee’s “Snow-Drop,” a lonely artist invites seven circus performers into her home to satisfy an obsession; in Steve Rasnic Tem’s “Little Poucet,” a band of lost brothers find refuge and terror with a hungry family in the woods; and Wendy Wheeler delves into the deviant psyche of the predatory male in “Little Red.” Also featuring Nancy Kress, Charles de Lint, Melanie Tem, Patricia A. McKillip, Jack Dann, and others, all paying a revisit to our favorite fairy tales in ways you’ve never dared to imagine.

20 fairy tales hauntingly reimagined by some of today’s finest sci-fi and fantasy authors, including Joyce Carol Oates, Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee, and more. Once upon a time, all our cherished dreams began with the words once upon a time. This is the phrase that opened our favorite tales of princes and spells and magical adventures. World Fantasy Award–winning editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling understand the power of beloved stories—and in Black Heart, Ivory Bones, their sixth anthology of reimagined fairy tales, they have gathered together stories and poetry from some of the most acclaimed writers of our time, including Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee, Charles de Lint, and Joyce Carol Oates. But be forewarned: These fairy tales are not for children. A prideful Texas dancer is cursed by a pair of lustrous red boots . . . Goldilocks tells all about her brutal and wildly dysfunctional foster family, the Bears . . . An archaeologist in Victorian England is enchanted by a newly exhumed Sleeping Beauty . . . A prince of tabloid journalism is smitten by a trailer-park Rapunzel . . . A clockwork amusement park troll becomes sentient and sets out to foment an automaton revolution. These are but a few examples of the marvels that await within these pages—tales that range from the humorous to the sensuous to the haunting and horrifying, each one a treasure with a distinctly adult edge.

From A.A. Balaskovits, author of Magic for Unlucky Girls, this new collection of unusual, fabulist fiction leads you down strange paths for dark encounters with familiar fairy tales, odd people from history, and weirdos who may be living right next door. Among the characters in these bizarre stories, a starving beauty finds a beast who can save her village, a man eats everything in sight but is never full, a woman gives birth to bloody animal parts, and a daughter is forced to dance every night to the reenactment of her father's murder. These tales invite you to spend time with people who, in the maddest of circumstances, chew their way forward. With elements of psychological horror, sly humor, and the fantastic, these stories will burrow under your skin, haunt your dreams, and make you wonder what worlds lie just beyond that tiny hole in the wall.

Offers contemporary retellings of traditional fairy tales, including Gregory Frost's "Sparks," "The Dog Rose" by Sten Westgard, and other works by Jane Yolen, Joyce Carol Oates, Nancy Kress, and John Crowley.

Can fairy tales subvert consumerism? Can fantasy and children's literature counter the homogenizing influence of globalization? Can storytellers retain their authenticity in the age of consumerism? These are some of the critical questions raised by Jack Zipes, the celebrated scholar of fairy tales and children's literature. In this book, Zipes argues that, despite a dangerous reconfiguration of children as consumers in the civilizing process, children's literature, fairy tales, and storytelling possess a uniquely powerful (even fantastic)capacity to resist the "relentless progress" of negative trends in culture. He also argues that these tales and stories may lose their power if they are too diluted by commercialism and merchandising. Stories have been used for centuries as a way to teach children (and adults) how to see the world, as well as their place within it. In Relentless Progress, Zipes looks at the surprising ways that stories have influenced people within contemporary culture and vice versa. Among the many topics explored here are the dumbing down of books for children, the marketing of childhood, the changing shape of feminist fairy tales, and why American and British children aren’t exposed to more non-western fairy tales. From picture books to graphic novels, from children’s films to video games, from Grimm’s fairy tales to the multimedia Harry Potter phenomenon, Zipes demonstrates that while children’s stories have changed greatly in recent years, much about these stories have remained the same—despite their contemporary, high-tech repackaging. Relentless Progress offers remarkable insight into why classic folklore and fairy tales should remain an important part of the lives of children in today’s digital culture.

Once upon a time, fairy tales were for children--but not anymore. In Snow White, Blood Red, some of todays most acclaimed fantasy authors present stories that evoke the spirit of classic fairy tales, but that are decidedly for grown-ups. Here you will find magical tales of enchantment and delight, but also stories with a dark, sinister edge in which heroes and heroines are flawed and fallible, fairies and fey beings pursue their own wicked schemes, love lists toward lust, words and actions are weapons that draw blood, and not everyone lives happily ever after. Passionate, erotic, violent, and brutally honest, these stories simmer with emotions that their disarmingly charming fantasies can barely contain. Edited by award-winning editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, and featuring the work of Neil Gaiman, Charles de Lint, Gahan Wilson, Patricia A. McKillip, Steve and Melanie Tem, and fifteen other leading fantasists, Snow White, Blood Red is a connoisseurs collection of fairy tales that have outgrown the nursery.

Altmann and de Vos are back with more great ideas for exploring contemporary reworkings of classic folk and fairy tales that appeal to teen readers. If you loved New Tales for Old (Libraries Unlimited, 1999), this new work will be sure to please. Following the same format, each story includes tale type numbers, motifs, and lists of reworkings arranged by genre, and suggestions for classroom extensions. INSIDE: Beauty and the Beast, Jack and the Beanstalk, Tam Lin, Thomas the Rhymer, and five fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen.