Classics Retold
Here's where to find our list of recommended books that are retellings of classic literature and fairy tales. If you would like to help make new lists or add on to an existing list call Carly @ 262-0626 or email at crencsko@biblio.org.
| Classics Retold | |
| Archer, Jodi Lynn | |
| The Poison Apples 2007 | |
| Baker, E.D. | |
| The Frog Princess 2002 | |
| After reluctantly kissing a frog, an awkward, fourteen-year-old princess suddenly finds herself a frog, too, and sets off with the prince to seek the means--and the self-confidence--to become human again. Sequels include Dragon's Breath |
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| Beddor, Frank | |
| The Looking Glass Wars 2006 | |
| When she is cast out of Wonderland by her evil aunt Redd, young Alyss Heart finds herself living in Victorian Oxford as Alice Liddell and struggles to keep memories of her kingdom intact until she can return and claim her rightful throne. Includes the sequel Seeing Redd. |
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| Bennett, Veronica | |
| Angelmonster 2006 | |
| Fictionalized story of Mary Godwin, author of the horror classic "Frankenstein," and her relationship with poet and freethinker Percy Shelley, who ran away to Europe to escape gossip and social ostracism in London, and who endured tragedy and terrible losses repeatedly in her life. | |
| Blackman, Malorie | |
| Naughts and Crosses 2005 | |
| Sephy is a Cross -- a member of the dark-skinned ruling class. Callum is a Naught -- a "colorless" member of the underclass who were once slaves to the Crosses. The two have been friends since early childhood, but that's as far as it can go. In their world, Naughts and Crosses simply don't mix. Includes the sequel Knife Edge. |
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| Block, Francesca Lia | |
| Psyche in a Dress 2006 | |
| A young woman, Psyche, searches for her lost love and questions her true self in a modern retelling of Greek myths. | |
| Bunce, Elizabeth | |
| A Curse as Dark as Gold. 2008 | |
| Upon the death of her father, seventeen-year-old Charlotte struggles to keep the family's woolen mill running in the face of an overwhelming mortgage and what the local villagers believe is a curse, but when a man capable of spinning straw into gold appears on the scene she must decide if his help is worth the price. | |
| Cabot, Meg | |
| Avalon High 2006 | |
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Having moved to Annapolis, Maryland, with her medievalist parents, high school junior Ellie enrolls at Avalon High School where several students may or may not be reincarnations of King Arthur and his court. |
| Cadnum, Michael | |
| Nightsong : The Legend of Orpheus and Eurydice - 2006 | |
| Expands on the myth of Orpheus, a young poet and musician who undertakes a terrifying journey to ask the rulers of the Underworld to return the princess Euridice, his beloved bride, after she is killed by a venomous serpent. | |
| Cooney, Caroline | |
| Enter Three Witches 2007 | |
| Lady Mary's life is forever changed when her father, Lord Cawdor, betrays the Scottish king and is hanged as a traitor. Now a ward of Lord and Lady Macbeth, she's trapped in a castle with a power-hungry couple who will do anything to get what they want in this retelling of Shakespeare's tragedy. | |
| Dokey, Cameron | |
| Before Midnight 2007 | |
| A retelling of the tale about a girl whose father remarries and the effects that her stepmother has on the family. Part of the 'Once Upon a Time' Series |
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| Dokey, Cameron | |
| Golden 2006 | |
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Rapunzel has only two nights and one day in which to free a girl from a curse. Part of the 'Once Upon a Time' Series |
| Dokey, Cameron | |
Sunlight and Shadow 2004 |
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| Mina, a child of the dark, marries a prince and before they can be happy they must endure deadly trials. Part of the 'Once Upon a Time' Series |
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| Durst, Sara Beth | |
| Into the Wild 2007 | |
| Having escaped from the Wild and the preordained fairy tale plots it imposes, Rapunzel, along with her daughter Julie Marchen, tries to live a fairly normal life, but when the Wild breaks free and takes over their town, it is Julie who has to prevent everyone from being trapped in the events of a story. | |
| Fiedler, Lisa | |
| Romeo's Ex : Rosaline's Story 2006 | |
| In a story based on the Shakespeare play, sixteen-year-old Roseline, who is studying to be a healer, becomes romantically entangled with the Montague family even as her beloved young cousin, Juliet Capulet, defies the family feud to secretly marry Romeo. | |
| Finn, Alex | |
Beastly 2007 |
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A modern retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" from the point of view of the Beast, a vain Manhattan private school student who is turned into a monster and must find true love before he can return to his human form. |
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| Friesner, Esther | |
Nobody's Princess 2007 |
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| Determined to fend for herself in a world where only men have real freedom, headstrong Helen, who will be called queen of Sparta and Helen of Troy one day, learns to fight, hunt, and ride horses while disguised as a boy, and goes on an adventure throughout the Mediterranean world. Includes sequel Nobody's Prize |
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| Gardner, John | |
Grendel 1971 |
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| Geras, Adele | |
| Ithaka 2006 | |
| The island of Ithaka is overrun with uncouth suitors demanding that Penelope choose a new husband, as she patiently awaits the return of Odysseus from the Trojan War. | |
| Geras, Adele | |
| Troy 2001 | |
| Told from the point of view of the women of Troy, portrays the last weeks of the Trojan War, when women are sick of tending the wounded, men are tired of fighting, and bored gods and goddesses find ways to stir things up. | |
| Gruber, Michael | |
| The Witch's Boy 2005 | |
| A grotesque foundling turns against the witch who sacrificed almost everything to raise him when he becomes consumed by the desire for money and revenge against those who have hurt him, but he eventually finds his true heart's desire. | |
| Hale, Shannon | |
| Book of a Thousand Days 2007 | |
| Fifteen-year-old Dashti, sworn to obey her sixteen-year-old mistress, the Lady Saren, shares Saren's years of punishment locked in a tower, then brings her safely to the lands of her true love, where both must hide who they are as they work as kitchen maids. | |
| Harrison, Mette Ivie | |
| The Princess and the Hound 2007 | |
| George has always felt burdened by his princely duties, and even more by the need to hide the magic through which he speaks with animals, but when he is betrothed to the strange princess of a neighboring kingdom, his secret, and the persecution of people like himself, must come to an end. | |
| Kerr, M.E. | |
| Someone Like Summer 2007 | |
| An upper-middle-class white girl from Long Island and an immigrant worker from Colombia fall in love despite objections from both their families and their community. | |
| Klein, Lisa M. | |
| Ophelia 2006 | |
| In a story based on Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia tells of her life in the court at Elsinore, her love for Prince Hamlet, and her escape from the violence in Denmark. | |
| Korman, Gordon | |
| Son of the Mob 2002 | |
| Seventeen-year-old Vince's life is constantly complicated by the fact that he is the son of a powerful Mafia boss, a relationship that threatens to destroy his romance with the daughter of an FBI agent. | |
| Lester, Julius | |
| Cupid : A Tale of Love and Desire 2007 | |
| Cupid, the spoiled and mischievous god of love, is attracted to and marries the beautiful mortal, Psyche, and both learn many lessons about the nature of love. | |
| Levithan, David | |
| Marly's Ghost 2005 | |
| The spirit of Ben's girlfriend Marly returns with three other ghosts to haunt him with a painful journey though Valentine's Days past, present, and future. | |
| McCaughrean, Geraldine | |
| Cyrano 2006 | |
| Ashamed of his ugliness, long-nosed Cyrano de Bergerac, a brilliant seventeenth-century poet and expert swordsman in the French army, helps a rival woo and win Roxane, the beautiful cousin Cyrano loves in silence. | |
| McCaughrean, Geraldine | |
| Not the End of the World 2005 | |
| Noah's daughter, daughters-in-law, sons, wife, and the animals describe what it was like to be aboard the ark while they watched everyone around them drown. What was it really like when the heavens opened and the world drowned? | |
| McKinley, Robin | |
| Rose Daughter 1997 | |
| Beauty grows to love the Beast at whose castle she is compelled to stay, and through her love he is released from the curse that had turned him from man to beast. | |
| McKinley, Robin | |
| Spindle's End 2001 | |
| The infant princess Briar Rose is cursed on her name day by Pernicia, an evil fairy, and then whisked away by a young fairy to be raised in a remote part of a magical country, unaware of her real identity and hidden from Pernicia's vengeful powers. | |
| Maguire, Gregory | |
| What-the-Dickens 2007 | |
| As a terrible storm rages, ten-year-old Dinah and her brother and sister listen to their cousin Gage's tale of a newly-hatched, orphaned, skibberee, or tooth fairy, called What-the-Dickens, who hopes to find a home among the skibbereen tribe, if only he can stay out of trouble. | |
| Mourlevat, Jean-Claude | |
| The Pull of the Ocean 2006 | |
| Loosely based on Charles Perrault's "Tom Thumb," seven brothers in modern-day France flee their poor parents' farm, led by the youngest who, although mute and unusually small, is exceptionally wise. | |
| Napoli, Donna Jo | |
| Bound 2004 | |
| In a novel based on Chinese Cinderella tales, fourteen-year-old stepchild Xing-Xing endures a life of neglect and servitude, as her stepmother cruelly mutilates her own child's feet so that she alone might marry well. | |
| Napoli, Donna Jo | |
| Breath 2003 | |
| Elaborates on the tale of "The Pied Piper," told from the point of view of a boy who is too ill to keep up when a piper spirits away the healthy children of a plague-ridden town after being cheated out of full payment for ridding Hameln of rats. | |
| Nichol, Barbara | |
| Tales of Don Quixote 2004 | |
| A retelling of the exploits of an idealistic Spanish country gentleman and his shrewd squire who set out, as knights of old, to search for adventure, right wrongs, and punish evil. | |
| Pattou, Edith | |
| East 2003 | |
| A young woman journeys to a distant castle on the back of a great white bear who is the victim of a cruel enchantment. A retelling of the classic tale "East of the sun and west of the moon." | |
| Provoost, Anne | |
| In the Shadow of the Ark 2004 | |
| Randulfo | |
| Joker 2006 | |
| A modern retelling of Hamlet, in which fifteen-year-old Matt begins questioning everything he believes in after the death of his best friend and his parents' divorce. | |
| Rhys, Jean | |
| Wide Sargasso Sea 1966 | |
| Story of a young woman in the Caribbean whose family's past will be used against her by her cold-hearted and prideful husband, Rochester. | |
| Stanley, Diane | |
| Bella at Midnight 2006 | |
| Raised by peasants, Bella discovers that she is actually the daughter of a knight and finds herself caught up in a terrible plot that will change her life and the kingdom forever. | |
| Shusterman, Neil | |
| Dread Locks 2005 | |
| Accustomed to a carefree existence, fourteen-year-old Parker Baer meets the girl next door and finds his life taking a menacing turn as he begins to absorb some of her terrible powers. | |
| Shusterman, Neil | |
| Duckling Ugly 2006 | |
| When sixteen-year-old Cara, a girl ugly enough to break mirrors, is drawn to a place where everyone can be beautiful, her deepest desire is to return home to say goodbye--and get revenge. | |
| Spinner, Stephanie | |
| Quicksilver 2005 | |
| Hermes, Prince of Thieves and son of Zeus, relates why the seasonal change, the history of the Trojan War, his friendship with Pegasus, and many more adventures. Hermes-also known as Mercury, Wayfinder, and Prince of Thieves-has many talents. Wearing his famed winged sandals, he does the bidding of his father Zeus, leads the dead down to Hades, and practices his favorite arts of trickery and theft. | |
| Vande Velde, Vivian | |
| The Book of Mordred 2005 | |
| As the peaceful King Arthur reigns, the five-year-old daughter of Lady Alayna, newly widowed of the village-wizard Toland, is abducted by knights who leave their barn burning and their only servant dead. | |
| Yolen, Jane | |
| Briar Rose 2002 | |
| Rebecca has always loved listening to her grandmother's stories about Briar Rose. However, the old woman's astonishing and hard-to-believe admission that she "is" Briar Rose sets Rebecca on an unforgettable path of self-discovery that will change her life forever. | |
| Yolen, Jane | |
| Sword of the Rightful King 2003 | |
| Merlinnus the magician devises a way for King Arthur to prove himself the rightful king of England--pulling a sword from a stone--but trouble arises when someone else removes the sword first. | |
| Yolen, Jane | |
| Troll Bridge 2006 | |
| Sixteen-year-old harpist prodigy Moira is transported to a strange and mystical wilderness, where she finds herself in the middle of a deadly struggle between a magical fox and a monstrous troll. | |