Ink Tales reinvigorates fairy tales and myths from around the world, breaking barriers and challenging stereotypes throughout. Illustrated by Inkquisitive (Amandeep Singh) in his vibrant signature Indian inks, each story is accessible and visually inspiring.
Travel across oceans and discover the vengeful wrath of a River God in Kayo Chingonyi's West African tale. Soar too close to the sun with Inua Ellam's timely story of a young refugee girl. Fly to a mysterious castle inhabited by a cursed prince with Helen Mort's retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Uncover the truth of #Bluebeard with Joelle Taylor's modernised fairy tale. Look to the constellations with Will Harris' futuristic Greek tragedy, and never, ever answer to your name in Malika Booker's Trinidadian recreation of the Dwen.
Bedtime Stories for the End of the World is produced in partnership with the ground-breaking poetry podcast of the same name. The six featured poets draw on their own experience, adding a new dimension to an existing tale. 'Bedtime Stories for the End of the World' is a spoken word and poetry podcast about the power of myth and the politics of storytelling. The podcast asks some of the UK's top poets to re-imagine their favourite myths, fairy tales and legends - the stories they want to keep and protect for the future. It also involves an annual live event, creating a tangible and accessible experience for existing and new audiences.
Reimagined tales include Icarus, the legend of the Zambezi River God, East of the Sun West of the Moon, Bluebeard, Philoctetes and the Trinidadian folklore figure 'douen'.
An engineer by profession and a poet by heart, Amandeep Singh writes Poetry, Science Fiction and Children’s Literature in Punjab, Hindi, and English. He has published a pioneering book of Science Fiction short stories titled TutdayTarian di Dastaan (1989) - a new concept in Punjabi Literature at that time. His poems are about love, peace, light, sorrows, separation, and everlasting memories. He draws his inspiration from Gurbani and Sufi Poetry.
His website www.punjabikids.org is dedicated to Punjabi Children around the globe, where children can read poems, stories, and other articles in Punjabi.
I actually found this a bit disappointing. It was one of a few from book club this year that I was quite excited to read and get into. I'd had my copy for about a month and it looked very beautiful and wildly different for a book club choice.
It wasn't exactly the stories that disappointed me so but a few choices made in the presentation. Some stories are very rich and interesting and work well with the specific styles of the writers and the ones specifically about myths and legends from cultures I didn't know so well we're wondourous. Having never heard about them they made for interesting reading and I love that side of culture that came up with these ideas and interpretations of our reality. Specifically, I enjoyed the tales of The Dwen, The Bear Prince and Bluebeard.
Although Bluebeard I'd known before it was an interesting modernised take.
So on to my problems with it. The lofty idea of the creators that these should be the stories we keep when all the world crumbles. Are they, Really? Stories will always live on as long as someone is around to tell them and I love this idea but these specific versions I'm not entirely convinced about.
My other points of criticism are entirely personal and others would be fine with it. I really don't like art of any kind explained to me before hand. I like to view a piece and take my own meaning from it first before hearing what the artists intentions were. Having each poet explain themselves before the story really irked me. Sometimes I felt little of what they had said within the stories and often their ideas of what it was was a bit to lofty in comparison to what was actually presented. I didn't mind having these parts there, as they did spread light but personally I would have put them at the end of each story or even better at the end of the book as an optional read. I would have gotten a lot more out of each piece if that had been the case.
Secondly. Although the art was very beautiful it got pretty repetitive. Some stories like the bear prince the style really complimented and then others not so much. It felt like re-treading the same ground a lot of the time. To my mind it would have been more succesful if each story got a different artist matched up for it. It would have been a bit more varied and complimented each story with a specific style. The writers all had their own style and were often incredibly different from each other. Then having the same artist and same style just didn't seem appropriate.
There is a lot to like here though. I'm sure if you're a fan of the podcast it would be a treasured part of your library but personally I'm going to give it to someone else who might appreciate it more than I did.
I enjoyed the variety of stories from around the world and the spins each poet put on them. Each story had a little summary from the author regarding the plot and why they selected the story they did. I enjoyed these diversions.
The illustrations greatly enhanced my experience of this book. Without them, this collection would have received less stars from me.
I recommend getting a print copy either from your library or bookstore, I read the digital edition through my library and the formatting was not a great experience. The font was so small and zooming did not work well-either on my phone or Kindle. I tried both.