Tales from the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird

by Vivian Vande Velde

Book Overview

Welcome to the fairy-tale world where Hansel and Gretel are horrible children who deserve to be baked and where Beauty is dismayed when her beloved Beast turns human. In the realm of the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird, when the sky really does fall, Chicken Little becomes the leader of a religious movement, gets her own TV show, collects millions of dollars to build a theme park, and then makes off with the money. These tongue-in-cheek interpretations of more than a dozen favorite fairy tales will have readers in stitches.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 015205572X
• ISBN13: 9780152055721
• Release Date: August 2005
• Publisher: Clarion Books
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 7.5"
• Age Range: 10 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 5 to 7

Customer Reviews

Fun twists to fairy tales

I really enjoyed this book. The stories were unexpected and yet still were respectful of fairytales. The atmosphere was just fun. I liked the in between stories a lot. They are on just one page and just tell a little tale. The stories are well written and make me think and sometimes grin.

Positively Warped...and Wonderful!

I do believe that I may wind up with a shelf full of Vivian Vande Velde books! This is our second from this author and we are positively smitten! I love this just as much as the Girl does! They are clever, sly, and just the right amount of twisted to honor the originals but provide the reader with something entirely different in the end (and just as satisfying)! As one reviewer noted, Vande Velde really does challenge our notion of how the character's are, turning good into bad and ugly into beautiful and more, you get little snippets (like ads and commercials built in, so that nearly every classic children's tale is addressed here in come fashion...and each with the Vande Velde twist). The best stories in the bunch are the Rumplestiltskin retelling (the best in the book) and the Jack and the Bean Stalk one! I enjoyed the truly hideous (and clearly sociopath) Hansel and Gretel retelling...nicely done!! I'll be adding this to my growing collection! I give it a B+, it's good, twisted reading...but some of the stories felt more like first drafts than full fledged retellings, but still well worth the read despite this! Kids 8-12 will LOVE this book!

Fun fractured fairy tales

Vivian Vande Velde neatly skewers some traditional fairy tales in this collection of stories; most are moderately good-- entertaining, but not terribly deep. This anthology would have joined the ranks of the mediocre if not for one absolutely clever and wonderful retelling of Rumpelstiltskin called "Straw into Gold." This one story makes the whole book worth getting. The others are good, but "Straw into Gold" outshines them by far. There are many fairy tale retellings; those of Robin McKinley (Beauty, Rose Daughter), Donna Jo Napoli (Spinners, Zel, The Magic Circle) Mercedes Lackey (The Fire Rose, The Firebird) and Patricia Wrede (Snow White and Rose Red) are particularly worth checking out.

Wonderfully twisted tales!

This was a wonderful book! I especially liked STRAW INTO GOLD. It was really good with a bit of a surprise ending. It had just enough magic, not too much like other fairy tales.

Unexpected twists!

This is a delightful book of traditional fairy tales with characters that no longer seem quite so heroic. In these tales, it shows us how we would act if we had magic in our world and were threatened with beheading. Realistic fiction that will make you laugh or think, as the author commands