About Feminist Fairy Tales

My stories are both 'feminist' and 'fairy tales.' They keep all the traditional fairy tale elements, using strong, smart girls and women as the 'heros.' Often instead of the 'good king' there is a 'good queen,' and other helpers are 'good witches' and female animals. Most are re-tellings of old stories with the genders reversed; some are original with all good characters being strong females, and some feminist motifs such as maiden/mother/crone. Many feature non-traditional families. Though most villains are male, most male characters are good, and I show healthy male/female friendships and romances. Rather than a gender-switch which would have an active female rescuing a passive male, I make both characters smart and active, and show them cooperating. (In my one passive-rescuee tale, I had to shut him up in a golden keg through most of the story. But when the keg was opened, he jumped out with his sword drawn ready to fight! However "The Prince in the Ivy Tower" did prefer to stay home playing his flute, and that was okay too.)

Aside from those gender/plot changes (and some modernizing of the style and pace of storytelling, and some comic animals) I have tried to keep my tales as traditional as possible! (Well, I can't resist a few anachronisms for the fun of it.) Like Tolkien, Chesterton, Lewis, and Luthi, I love the fairytale world [ie, the world of 'Faerie'] where talking animals and magic are taken for granted. Events seem to happen almost randomly -- except that all adds up to everyone getting their just deserts, so it is really by the Law of Karma, or possibly what Myers called 'Delian Law' in his wonderful book Silverlock. Or what some call 'poetic justice.' And of course there's a sort of Law of Symbolism, that Maria von Franz and Bruno Bettelheim have described (though I do wish Bettelheim had read Alice Miller instead of Freud!).

In my tales I have tried to continue this sort of feeling, this sort of world -- what Luthi describes as a 'glass bead game.' Of course it varies; there's a lot of it in the middle of "Sir Marzipan", rather less in "The Well at the World's End," and hardly any in "The Little Brother who Cried 'Wolf!' ".

Feminist fairy tales with plots like mine can be found in collections such as Not One Damsel in Distress: World Folktales for Strong Girls by Jane Yolen, and Clever Gretchen (Amazon misspelled it :-) edited by Alison Lurie.

The following books at Amazon may also be worth checking:
Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World
The Woman in the Moon: And Other Tales of Forgotten Heroines
The Serpent Slayer and Other Stories of Strong Women
Folktales of Strong Women (Audio Cassette)
Tatterhood and Other Tales: Stories of Magic and Adventure
Cut from the Same Cloth: American Women of Myth, Legend and Tall Tale
Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales (Coretta Scott King Author)

The first volume of Bruce Lansky's Girls to the Rescue #1 has tales which omit  the magic and magical helpers, as well as the romance, but keep much of the form of the folktale/fairytale. Barbara G. Walker's book Feminist Fairy Tales has revised versions of many old tales, but much more is changed, and they seem more for adults than for children -- parental discretion advised on some.

See also New Fairy Tale Resources and Other Links

Large Print Edition?

I wonder how many people would be interested in a Large Print edition of Once Upon A Time When The Princess Rescued The Prince? It would be another "trade paperback", slightly taller, in 18 point type, over 200 pages. Probably priced about $15-20 (like the current Large Print  edition of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe).  Email and let me know?

Reviews

From "Fairy Tale Resource Page" at Wesleyan University,
http://mennis.web.wesleyan.edu/fist255s.mle.ftresources.html#Best Feminist Fairy Tales site

The Best Feminist Fairy Tales site is at.....
• http://www.rosemarylake.com
The interesting thing about these feminist fairy tales is that the story stays essentially the same but it has a new ending with the women saving themselves along with new feminist morals. -K Pasley... This site was the best because it was the only one I could find that centered around feminist fairy tales specifically, rather than feminist authors in general.  -J Ostrow... This is a sizable collection of e-texts of various feminist fairy tales, some of which are quite humourous.  -C Wade... Great selection of humorous and innovative tales.  -S Tassev... This site has an entire collection of fairy stories told through a more feminist perspective.  They are classified by subject and there are quite a few of them.  In my opinion, this is definitely one of the most interesting sites I visited.  -L Grappo...  This is a page of links to various stories written from a feminist perspective, like "When the Princess Rescued the Prince." -L Goldstein; also cited by L Pao...  I like the fact that this site is actually geared toward children, and has many different stories for them to read. -J Kopecky ...This is the best feminist fairy tale site simply for the sheer number of fairy tales represented.  None of the other feminist sites, although some offered more analysis, offered more tales. -B Kinney

To write a review of Once Upon a Time When the Princess Rescued the Prince at amazon.com, click here

Availability

I'm self-publishing these. Retailers please email me. The first volume is ready in paperback now: $12.95, 40% discount to retailers, COD.

Note To Children

I love to get letters! If you feel like writing me, please do.

I'd like to know which stories you like best, and why, and what you'd like in future stories.

(Hope this doesn't sound rude, but my lawyer says I should add this: All ideas sent to me become property of the management, ie Rosemary Lake. If that's ok, please go ahead and write.)

Happy reading!

Rosemary

Note To Educators and Homeschoolers

Please feel free to use these stories in non-digital, casual, small-scale, non-profit ways, just so you include my copyright information and URL and don't change or cut anything. If you want to distribute a lot of copies or reach a big audience or charge money, then  you need my permission by email. Do not repackage as ebooks or redistribute or post elsewhere in digital form, etc.

If you like my stories, I would appreciate some comments for my scrapbook.  I'd especially like feedback from homeschoolers. What else would you like to see on this site, or in future books?

All these stories are suitable for elementary reading level, also called "middle grade" (USA grades around 4-6). The shorter ones may also work for 1-3, the longer ones for 7-9. See below for grade level for each story and help in  choosing stories for special purposes.

email to webmaster:
june2005@rosemarylake.com

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