The Tale of Despereaux
released: 2008
rated: G
length: 93 min.
age: 6+
interests: mice, rats, castles, princesses, cooking, updated fairy tales, adventure
Next: read the book!
The Tale of Despereaux (2008)
15 Jan 2014 Leave a comment
in Movies, movies 6+ Tags: adventure, castle, cooking, fairy tale updated, knights, mice, Princess, rats
The Tale of Despereaux
20 Nov 2013 3 Comments
in Books, books 7+ Tags: castle, cooking, fairy tale updated, mice, Princess, rats
The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread
by Kate diCamillo
Age: 7+
Interests: mice, castles, princesses, rats, soup, cooking
Rootabaga Stories
16 Nov 2013 Leave a comment
in Books, books 5+, Classics Tags: animals, comedy, fairy tale updated, folktales, Magic
Rootabaga Stories
by Carl Sandburg
illustrated by Maud and Miska Petersham
Age: 5+
Interests: folk tales, history, poetry, language More
The Little Bookroom
06 Sep 2013 Leave a comment
in Books, books 6+, books 9+ Tags: fairies, Fairy Tale, fairy tale updated, helping others, Magic, morality, prince, Princess, romance, satire, short stories
The Little Bookroom
by Eleanor Farjeon
Age: 6 (read to); 9 (independent reading)
Interests: short stories, updated fairy tales, satire, magic, romance, princesses and princes, helping others, morality
The Jolly Christmas Postman
11 Mar 2013 Leave a comment
in Books, books 4+ Tags: Christmas, fairy tale updated, letters, mailman, nursery rhymes, wolves
GREENAWAY MEDAL WINNER – 1991
text by Allan Ahlberg
illustrations by Janet Ahlberg
Little, Brown and Company: 1991
32 pages
Age: 4+
Interests: mail, Christmas, nursery rhymes
Also by these author/illustrators: The Jolly Postman (or Other People’s Letters), The Jolly Pocket Postman, Each Peach Pear Plum, Burglar Bill
The Reluctant Dragon
05 Feb 2013 Leave a comment
in Books, books 6+, books 8+ Tags: dragons, fairy tale updated, knights, non-violence
by Kenneth Grahame
originally a chapter within the 1898 novel Dream Days; later published on its own
Holiday House: 1938
1966 edition: 55 pp.
Age: 6+ (read to); 8+ (independent reading)
Interests: dragons, knights, revisionist fairy tales, non-violence
Also by this author: The Wind in the Willows
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs
11 Jan 2013 Leave a comment
in Books, books 6+ Tags: crime, fairy tale updated, wolves
The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs
text by Jon Scieszka
illustrations by Lane Smith
New York: Viking Penguin, 1989
28 pp.
Age: 6+
Interests: twisted fairy tales, crime and punishment, wolves
Next: The Three Pigs by David Wiesner (another weird take on the story); The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon by Mini Grey (a modern rewrite of a nursery rhyme with lots of crime and violence)
Also by this author and illustrator: The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales; Squids Will Be Squids; Math Curse; Science Verse
Snow White in New York
07 Apr 2012 Leave a comment
in Books, books 7+ Tags: art, crime, fairy tale updated, fashion, jazz, New York
GREENAWAY MEDAL WINNER – 1986
Fiona French
Oxford University Press, 1986
32 pp.
Age: 7+
Interests: updated fairy tales, New York, 1920s flapper era, art styles, fashion
Next: Ella’s Big Chance (a Cinderella update also set in the 1920s)
The Phantom Tollbooth
25 Mar 2012 2 Comments
in Books, books 10+, Classics Tags: adventure, fairy tale updated, maps, math, nonsense, puns, word play
by Norton Juster
Jules Feiffer, illustrations
Alfred A. Knopf, 1961
256 pp.
Age: 10+
Interests: word play, puns, adventure, nonsense, fantasy, science, math, modern fairy tales, philosophy
Also by this author: The Dot and the Line, The Hello, Goodbye Window, Sourpuss and Sweetie Pie, Otter Nonsense
Also by this author & illustrator: The Odious Ogre
The Book of Dragons
09 Mar 2012 Leave a comment
in Books, books 6+, Classics Tags: adventure, dragons, Fairy Tale, fairy tale updated, Magic, Princess, short stories
by E. Nesbit
North-South Books, originally published 1900
172 pp, 8 stories
Age: 6+ independent reading age: 9+
Interests: dragons, fairy tales, adventure, princesses
Also by this author: The Enchanted Castle, Five Children and It, The Railway Children, The Story of the Treasure Seekers
Rarest Kind of Best 