A Reading Vocation
"I Must Read, Read, and Read. It is my Vocation." - Thomas Merton
This is where I chronicle my reading life. I also blog about writing at Lacey's Late-night Editing.
Book 42/100: Far Out Fairy Tales by Various
These short, graphic-novel retellings of popular fairy tales are meant for middle-grade readers, and unfortunately they have very little crossover appeal for an older audience. They all introduce something "far out" or "edgy" into the traditional fairy tales -- Cinderella is a ninja, Hansel and Gretel are zombies, Red Riding Hood is a super hero, etc. The problem is that these seem to be changes for the sake of changes -- there is nothing about them that hooks into the original tale and makes you think, "Aha, this interpretation makes perfect sense when you look at it that way!" (Such as Neil Gaiman's interpretation of Snow White as a vampire in "Snow, Glass, Apples.") The "Snow White and the Seven Robots" retelling was my favorite of the bunch, and the others were all sort of meh.
The artwork is passable -- very much manga-styled and quite energetic, but not the sort of illustrations that cause you to linger on the page.
