Heidi Anne Heiner's Blog, page 87

New Book: Once Upon a Dream: From Perrault's Sleeping Beauty to Disney's Maleficent by Charles Solomon

Once Upon a Dream: From Perrault's Sleeping Beauty to Disney's Maleficent (Disney Editions Deluxe (Film)) by Charles Solomon (Author), Don Hahn (Introduction) is released tomorrow. This should be of interest to those of you who liked my post, Maleficent and Sleeping Beauty: Where Did She Come From? And if you liked Maleficent, of course.

This book will be focused on the Disney films with some history from what I can see. And commenting from my earlier post, yes, Carabosse in Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty ballet definitely influenced Disney's Maleficent, but Maleficent is certainly her own new level of villainy. Carabosse is important in the ballet, of course, but she isn't as relentless in her pursuit of revenge as Maleficent. We don't have a fight to the death. She insures the curse is fulfilled but doesn't really go further to insure Aurora's death like Maleficent does.

Book description:

With its themes of a beautiful princess, a dashing prince, and love triumphing over powerful magic, "Sleeping Beauty" remains one of the most beloved of all fairy tales. The story was first published by Charles Perrault in 1697. Perrault's vision of the ageless, enchanted princess slumbering in her vine-encrusted tower has fascinated readers and artists for more 300 years three times as long as the heroine slept. This heavily-illustrated book will trace the history of that fascination, which has manifested itself in literature, fine art, poetry, music, and film.

The most celebrated cinematic version of Sleeping Beauty is Walt Disney's, the glorious finale of the animated fairy tales he began in 1937 with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Although Briar Rose/Aurora was the most beautiful and beautifully animated of the Disney princesses, the film was dominated by Maleficent: Perrault's shriveled old fairy was transformed into the epitome of the lovely but terrible sorceress of fantasy literature.

The book will conclude with the development and creation of Maleficent, including interviews with Angelina Jolie, Imelda Staunton, Linda Woolverton, Sean Bailey, Joe Roth, Don Hahn, and director Robert Stromberg (Oscar-winning art director of Avatar and Alice in Wonderland); behind-the-scenes details and photography; costumes, props, and makeup; and plenty of movie magic!

Charles Solomon is an internationally respected critic and historian of animation. He has written on the subject for The New York Times, TV Guide, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times, Modern Maturity, Film Comment, and The Hollywood Reporter. His books include The Toy Story Films: An Animated Journey; Tale As Old As Time: The Art and Making of Beauty and the Beast; Disney Lost and Found; The Prince of Egypt: A New Vision in Animation; The Disney That Never Was; and Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and the first film book to be nominated for a National Book Critics' Circle Award.

Fantasy Ebooks in New Big Deal Sale

Amazon has a new The Big Deal: Kindle Books Up to 85% Off thru June 28th. I thought I'd share some titles. Some are discounted this low for the first time, some are repeats. Betsy Red Hoodie by Gail Carson Levine pictured above is $2.99.


The Extra-Ordinary Princess by Carolyn Q. Ebbitt is $1.99.


The Farwalker's Quest by Joni Sensel is $1.99.


The Amaranth Enchantment by Julie Berry is $1.99.


Queen of the Dark Things: A Novel by C. Robert Cargill is $1.99.

Fun With Vellum: Hansel and Gretel illustrated by Sybille Schenker

Hansel and Gretel by Brothers Grimm (Author), Sybille Schenker (Illustrator) was released last year and frankly stayed off my radar. That cover is not anything to get excited about, is it? Especially when the image is so small you can't see the flowers in the title font unless you look very carefully. Here is the Hansel & Gretel (UK link), too.


So the book uses vellum and clever illustration design to foreshadow story elements in picture. I tried to pick some images to show that that works, but this is a book that works best in person, not online, thanks to the magic of the materials used to make it.

And if you like this, another edition--one of Little Red Riding Hood--will be released this October.


Book description:

This tale of children in peril has timeless appeal, and the breathtaking illustrations will find a discriminating audience

This stunning edition of the classic fairy tale makes brilliant use of translucent paper and silhoutte-like illustrations to enliven every page. “Once upon a time, there lived a poor woodcutter with his wife and two children, Hansel and Gretel . . .” and so begins the thrilling story of two children relying on their wits to survive in a hostile world. Sybille Schenker’s evocative and exquisite illustrations bring a unique beauty and graphic excellence to a timeless favorite.

Skipping ahead several pages:

New Book: A Catfish Tale: A Bayou Story of the Fisherman and His Wife by Whitney Stewart

A Catfish Tale: A Bayou Story of the Fisherman and His Wife by Whitney Stewart (Author), Gerald Guerlais (Illustrator) is a new book, a Southern take on the Fisherman and His Wife fairy tale. As always, the illustrations say more than I can..


Book description:

Deep in the bayou, a Cajun fisherman named Jack catches a magic fish that offers to grant wishes in exchange for being set free. Jack doesn't have a lot of wishes, but his wife Jolie sure does--for a mansion, a paddleboat, fame and fortune! With each wish, all the fish says is "Ah, tooloulou--if that ain't the easiest thing to do." But when Jolie wants to be crowned Mardi Gras queen, have things gone too far?

New Book: The Six Swans Illustrated by Gerda Raidt

The Six Swans by J & W Grimm (Author), Gerda Raidt (Illustrator) with a historical note by Jack Zipes was released last week.

I love Six Swans picture books for some reason. They always end up being some of my favorites. This is a worthy addition to the library of Six Swans titles, but I'll let the illustrations do most of the talking.


Book description:

A classic Grimm’s fairy tale about the power of sisterly love!

When six unfortunate brothers are turned into swans by an evil witch, their heart-broken sister vows to break the spell by sewing six shirts from starflowers and promising not to utter a word, or make a sound—not even a laugh—for six long years.

This beautiful story was popular long before Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm put it into print. The captivating illustrations by Gerda Raidt will make this beloved classic a story time favorite.

Farago's Fairy Tale and Book Lover Designs for B&N

One of my favorite things about Barnes and Noble has always been their designs for posters and bags and such for book lovers. They have recently hired Farago Design to create some chalkboard art--this is a fun recent trend in art mediums. Since one is using the classic Einstein quote, I thought I'd share them all. These are apparently for the Nook--perhaps screens?--but I hope they become t-shirts, too.

Maleficent and Sleeping Beauty: Where Did She Come From?

Other fairy tale bloggers are doing a much better job of covering Maleficent news. Film is part of Gypsy's passion at Once Upon a Blog, for example, so I am inclined to leave most of the news and discussion to her. My greater passion is for books and the old tales--not that Gypsy doesn't love those, too, and I love film, too--but time and desire don't always match, so I emphasize books more.

But Maleficent is out and I plan to see it sometime this month--I have a nephew and niece to take along--so I will probably share thoughts on it when I do.


For now, I am wanting to share some thoughts on the tale itself. It's no secret that one of my first volumes in the SurLaLune series is Sleeping Beauties: Sleeping Beauty and Snow White Tales From Around the World. So I've studied the tale a little. Or a lot, depending on your perspective. One of the fascinating facts about Sleeping Beauty is just how few variants there are for such a popular tale. Women and men under sleeping spells are fairly common in folklore, but not ones with the tropes found in Sleeping Beauty.

However, the tale, once you study it, is closely related to Snow White which has many, many more variants. Which makes me think of Maleficent, actually. Disney's Sleeping Beauty borrows from both the Perrault and Grimm's versions of Sleeping Beauty, removing the second part by Perrault and most closely resembling Grimm's Little Briar Rose, which reads to those in the know as a Reader's Digest version of the story. In none of these versions does the malicious fairy reappear to insure her spell is cast or to wreck havoc in Sleeping Beauty's life. Which is more accurate to those of us who know Faerie and its peculiarities. They don't care enough about humans to pursue a decades long vengeance.

So where does Maleficent come from? She's certainly not the ogre mother of the prince who tries to eat Sleeping Beauty's children as well as Sleeping Beauty. That's Perrault. Grimm's doesn't have a proper villain past the first act of the sleeping death curse at all.


We all know that Disney's first successful feature length fairy tale was Snow White. In that we have the evil stepmother who tries hard to kill Snow White--and her motivations are more valid when we consider them. Snow White is the fairest in the land, a threat to her royal status and potential children's status. Disney knew the evil queen was responsible for much of the success of the Snow White film and wanted--in what we now consider Disney-style today--to give us an over-the-top villain to hate in Sleeping Beauty. Not very easy considering the family-friendliness demands of the story. We certainly couldn't return to the rape themes of one of the earliest Sleeping Beauties, Italy's Sun, Moon, and Talia, perhaps one of the most shocking fairy tale variants of a popular fairy tale, perhaps the most. It is to me.

So we get Maleficent. Who, to me, owes more to Disney's Snow White than any actual fairy tale. We also owe Maleficent to the Snow White tale variants for the villain in those is unreservedly one of the scariest in fairy tales, ranking with Bluebeard, since both the stepmother and Bluebeard are supposed to care and nurture members of their family, but seek to outright murder them instead.

So at least the new Maleficent film offers us a better backstory and motivation for a villain that doesn't really have strong reasons to so actively pursue Aurora's destruction. Overall, in the original Disney animated, she is evil for evil's sake, a psychopath pursuing revenge beyond all reason on an innocent girl, up to her own destruction. Which isn't very satisfying, is it? Is she just bored out of her mind and seeking death by cop?

And I'm not offering that as a criticism. Sleeping Beauty is one of my favorites of the Disney canon with the Sleeping Beauty waltz scene as one of my favorites in all of the films.

New Book: Blood Red (Elemental Masters) by Mercedes Lackey

Blood Red (Elemental Masters) by Mercedes Lackey is released today. This is the newest in her Elemental Masters series that draws from fairy tales, number nine I believe, following last year's Steadfast: (Elemental Masters #8), which is now available for a lower price in ebook thanks to the paperback release. There are also two short story collections for this universe but I'm not including them in the count because the publisher hasn't. And technically all of these should be upped a number since The Fire Rose (Elemental Masters Series) really started the series but with a different publisher so it's not counted by the current one. Since The Fire Rose is a Beauty and the Beast retelling, I prefer not to forget it.

And when I saw the cover, I thought, "DUH!" There hasn't been a Red Riding Hood in this series yet. Surprising actually but Lackey has been refreshingly offering other tales like Steadfast Tin Soldier and Puss in Boots instead. But I think it is time LRRH got her screen time in the series. I enjoyed some of the earliest books in this series but haven't kept up well with recent releases.

Book description:

Rosamund is an Earth Master in the Schwarzwald, the ancient Black Forest of Germany. Since the age of ten, she has lived with her teacher, the Hunt Master and Earth Magician of the Schwarzwald Foresters, a man she calls “Papa.” Her adoptive Papa rescued her after her original Earth Master teacher, an old woman who lived alone in a small cottage in the forest, was brutally murdered by werewolves. Rosa herself barely escaped, and this terrifying incident molded the course of her future.

For like her fellow Earth Masters of the Schwarzwald Lodge, Rosa is not a healer. Instead, her talents lead her on the more violent path of protection and defense— “cleansing” the Earth and protecting its gentle fae creatures from those evil beings who seek to do them harm.

And so Rosa becomes the first woman Hunt Master and the scourge of evil creatures, with a deadly specialty in werewolves and all shape­shifters.

While visiting with a Fire Master—a friend of her mentor from the Schwarzwald Lodge— Rosa meets a pair of Elemental Magicians from Hungary who have come looking for help. They suspect that there is a dark power responsible for a string of murders happening in the remote countryside of Transylvania, but they have no proof. Rosa agrees to help them, but there is a catch: one of the two men asking for aid is a hereditary werewolf.

Rosa has been taught that there are three kinds of werewolves. There are those, like the one that had murdered her teacher, who transform themselves by use of dark magic, and also those who have been infected by the bite of these magical werewolves—these poor victims have no control over their transforma­tive powers. Yet, there is a third kind: those who have been born with the ability to trans­form at will. Some insist that certain of these hereditary werewolves are benign. But Rosa has never encountered a benign werewolf!

Can she trust this Hungarian werewolf? Or is the Hunter destined to become the Hunted?

New Print Release: Beauty and The Beast: Act One (Volume 1) by Megan Kearney

Beauty and The Beast: Act One (Megan Kearney's Beauty and The Beast) (Volume 1) by Megan Kearney has been released in print.

If you are not familiar with Kearney's work, she has a web comic series of Beauty and the Beast. I wrote about it originally on the blog at Meagan Kearney's Beauty and the Beast. She has also shared a guest post with us in the past at A BEAUTIFUL BEAST: A Discussion of Panna A Netvor by Megan Kearney which shows her passion for Beauty and the Beast tales. A passion, I share, of course since this is my favorite tale, too.

Well, Act 1 of her Beauty and the Beast has wrapped up and is now available in print for those of us who prefer to read their graphic novels on paper. Or just want to keep a version of this tale for their personal libraries. You can keep up with Act II on her site or visit Kearney's main site at The Quietly to learn more about her. You can see her drawing style by looking inside the book at Amazon or at the comic's home site.

I also have this trailer to share:



Book description:

When her father returns from a journey bearing strange stories and stranger gifts, Beauty takes it upon herself to fulfill his debt to a mysterious creature called only “The Beast”. But neither the soft-spoken Beast or the uncanny Castle where he makes his home are what Beauty expects. Both harbour more secrets than she could have anticipated, and neither will give them up easily...

Fairy Tale Salt and Pepper Shakers

Westland Giftware Mwah Magnetic Princess and Frog Salt and Pepper Shaker Set, 3-1/2-Inch
I came across the salt and pepper shaker set above which led to finding a collection of these to share. Thank goodness I don't collect salt and pepper shakers or I would be in trouble now. There are lots of Disney Fairy Tale Salt & Pepper Shakers, too, but I decided to stick with the nonlicensed characters here. The Red Riding Hood below is my favorite.

Little Red Riding Hood And Wolf Magnetized Salt and Pepper Shaker Set
Appletree Design Frog Prince and Princess Salt and Pepper Set, 2-1/8-Inch
Fairy Tales - Salt and Pepper Shakers Cinderella apparently!
Present Time Silly Magic Wand Salt and Pepper Set, Pink and Blue I shared the black and white version of these after receiving them for Christmas. Now they are in pink and blue, too!