Rump: The (Fairly) True Tale of Rumpelstiltskin

My grandfather caught my mother smoking at age 12. He was pretty steamed (even though he smoked like a chimney and boozed like a pirate). But his outrage was a sparkler compared to the volcano that erupted when he caught her reading Rumpelstiltskin. 

He went full berserk — think Big Bad Wolf after too many litres of vodka.

It was nothing personal against Rumpelstiltskin. My grandfather despised fairy tales like I despise disco music. Rumpelstiltskin just happened to be the particular fairy tale he caught my mother reading.

Recently, my wife Ina cracked open a modern spin of Rumpelstiltskin and held our kids and me captive until she finished reading it aloud. It's a middle school-aged novel by Liesl Shurtliff called Rump: The (Fairly) True Tale of Rumpelstiltskin.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to hear this forbidden story until I read that Shurtliff graduated from Brigham Young University. Two of my favourite fantasy authors also hail from BYU: Orson Scott Card and Brandon Sanderson.

Her retelling ended up delivering a witty tale with a solid moral. The moral being: don't underestimate your own self-worth and agree to do more for less. A great lesson if your kids grow up to be freelancers.

Rump is a story of self-inflicted enslavement, which can be summed up in this line from the book:

“Maybe destiny isn't something that just happens. Maybe destiny is something you do. Maybe destiny is like a seed and it grows.”

The characters were delightful (including Red from Little Red Riding Hood) and the plot has enough unexpected twists to satisfy M. Night Shyamalan. I highly recommend it as a book adults will enjoy reading to their kids, with solid morals, a little magic and laughs that will have you cackling in the same way the witches in the tale did not.

Winner of the 2017 Arizona Grand Canyon Reader Award, you can purchase a copy or find out more about Liesl Shurtliff's (fairly) true fairy tale at LieslShurtliff.com.

John C.A. Manley

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.