Once Upon a Time Slot.

Ah, September is here once again and so is the Fall TV season.  Returning with it are TV shows that take inspiration from fairy tales.  The CW’s Beauty and the Beast seems to keep on going (not sure, I never got into that show).  NBC’s Grimm returns for another season.  ABC’s Once Upon a Time also returns.  With this season of Once Upon a Time taking inspiration from Disney’s new hit movie Frozen, it seems the show has essentially dropped all pretense of being anything more than a Disney soap opera.

However, this has gotten me thinking about the fairy tale derived TV shows of the past.  It especially got me thinking about old fairy tale cartoons.  We often hear fairy tale fans and fairy tale bloggers talk about how their love for fairy tales was kindled by some particular animated movie or other.  We’ve heard many people talk about how they learned to love fairy tales from books.  But how many of us can claim that our love of fairy tales started with television?

Well, I can, for one.

Don’t get me wrong.  I watched Disney animated movies too, just like everyone else.  However, the Disney fairy tale movies all seemed kind of, well, princess-y.  They often had more girl appeal than guy appeal.  The exception, I suppose, was Aladdin which I wasn’t sure was a fairy tale or not (Arabian Nights were a cloudy area for me at the time).  I gravitated more to non-fairy tale stuff like Hercules, Tarzan and The Jungle Book.  Also, as I’ve stated before, in our modern pop culture world, it’s awfully easy to take the Disney stuff for granted.  What I needed was a reason to give fairy tales a second look.

That’s where Grimm’s Fairy Tale Classics came in.

If you clicked on the link, I’m sorry but you may have that song in your head all day.  Anyway, Grimm’s Fairy Tale Classics was the American version of a Japanese anime series that adapted stories from the Brothers Grimm and aired on Nickelodeon in the ‘90s.  This was the show that showed me that there were tales out there beyond the ones I knew.  It showed me that Disney did not own the exclusive rights to the fairy tale.  Many stories I love like “How Six Men Got On in the World”, “Jorinda and Joringel” and “The Shoes that Were Danced to Pieces” were introduced to me on that show.  They also sometimes still kept in some of the controversial parts at least before they were edited out later.  I remember seeing an earlier cut of their adaptation of “Allerleirauh”, entitled “Coat of Many Colors” and remember that they still kept the part about the king wanting to marry his daughter.  They just played it as the king going mad from some sickness, though.  I still find myself thinking back to that show sometimes and wishing it was on DVD, though I have a feeling it wouldn’t hold up as well for me today without the nostalgia goggles on (and yes, I do have those titles linked to their respective videos, but the quality isn’t great and they’re a bit extralegal in this form).

 

However, that’s not all there is to it.  Back in the ‘90s, the world of TV animation was filled with all sorts of off-brand, often-imported TV shows that used fairy tales and children’s fantasy stories as their inspiration.

There was a Pinocchio show.  Reading comments about it from viewers online suggests that many people thought it was kind of depressing.  This is actually a good sign (compared to the Disney version, anything would seem depressing).  There was a Little Mermaid show. 

Heck, I just found out when researching this post that there was a Cinderella show.  Most of this renewed interest in fairy tale cartoons was probably a reaction to the rebirth of Disney's animation department following the release of their version of The Little Mermaid.  Now, I actually didn’t have the luck to watch all these cartoons.  However, I did get to see Fox’s Peter Pan and the Pirates.

Fox’s Peter Pan and the Pirates was a cartoon that aired on Fox and it may have been what made me into a Peter Pan fan.  The show didn’t really follow the story from the original play or novel.  It mostly dealt with Peter, the Darling children and the Lost Boys having new adventures in Neverland.  However, it did introduce me to aspects of the Peter Pan story that I didn’t know from the Disney animated version.  This show is what informed me that the pirates other than Hook and Smee and the Lost Boys actually had names (Nibs, Toodles, Slightly, etc).  Peter himself was one of the best parts.  The Peter Pan on Fox’s Peter Pan and the Pirates was cocky, arrogant, obnoxious, thoughtless and couldn’t take anything seriously.  He just had loads of personality.  A lot of his traits were negative, but he was still a very fun character.  In other words, he was much more like the young antihero that J.M. Barrie wrote about in his children’s pantomime than the impish scamp that Disney put on the big screen.  On top of all this, we got Tim Curry providing the voice of Captain Hook!

Now, not all cartoons with fairy tale names did all that much to give people a second look at fairy tales.  I also remember watching The Fantastic Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor.  It was a fun show, but it did pretty much the same thing that every other Sinbad show or movie has done.  Essentially, it showed the adventures of a generic Arabian seafarer named Sinbad (ever notice just how many Sinbad shows and movies there are that don’t really have much to do with the actual story of “Sinbad the Sailor”?).  Also, the show had a strange tendency of drawing on Greek mythology more than Arabic folklore.

There are still fairy tale derived cartoons on TV, but most of the ones I see coming out are mash-ups.  There’s an Ever After High show coming to Netflix and The Hub has Teenage Fairy Tale Dropouts (which, sadly, I have a hard time seeing for review purposes).

I suppose this might be one of the reasons I’m so hard on shows like Once Upon a Time.  I had hoped that we might get something that would introduce adults to new fairy tales the way Grimm’s Fairy Tale Classics did for me as a child.  Still, sometimes you can find obscure fairy tales in unexpected places.  A while ago I turned on the TV and was surprised to find that the preschool show Super Why was airing a “Momotaro” episode.  I guess hope really does lie with the younger generation.

Anyway, that’s my two cents.  If you have anything to say about fairy tale cartoons or fond TV fairy tale memories, post them in the comments.

Fairy Tale Media Fix: Tom Thumb

It’s ClassicFlix time again! 

And what fairy tale film from the days of yesteryear do we have to show for it? 

It’s Tom Thumb from 1958.

Now, before we get started on the review, let’s think about this for a second.  There’s a Tom Thumb movie.  An actual Tom Thumb movie.  Hey fairy tale fans, when’s the last time you heard about anything Tom Thumb based?  Was Tom Thumb in any of the Shrek movies?  Not that I remember.  Has Tom Thumb been on Once Upon a Time?  Nope.  Is the daughter of Tom Thumb attending Ever After High?  A quick check of their website says “no”.  So, this is kind of a rare thing.  He’s not exactly from an obscure fairy tale, but he’s still kind of on the edges of our fairy tale consciousness.  My inner comic book fan tells me that Tom Thumb’s situation is not all that dissimilar to the more diminutive superhero characters like Ant-Man and the Atom.  They’re memorable for being a unique creation within their greater world or genre but limited in appeal and popularity (though, we are supposedly getting an Ant-Man movie soon).

Now, the movie opens up with a credit that says “from a story by the Brothers Grimm”, which I actually find a bit troubling.  You see, the story of “Tom Thumb” is really much more English than anything.  The Grimms' tales were German.  In fact, I recall reading somewhere that it was one of the first English fairy tales ever written down.  Oh, sure, there is a German equivalent.  In fact, there are two.  There’s “Thumbling” and “Thumbling’s Travels”. Heck, looking across cultures for similar motifs, you can even claim Japan’s “Issun-Boshi”.  But the title “Tom Thumb” is distinctly English. 

Anyway, the movie starts off like, well, a completely different fairy tale.  Specifically, it starts off like England’s tale of “The Three Wishes” (which, incidentally, is also not Grimm).  A woodcutter (Bernard Miles), is in the forest attempting to cut down a big oak tree when he’s interrupted by The Queen of the Forest (June Thorburn) who pleads with him not to cut down the tree.  The woodcutter agrees and is given three wishes.  He goes home to his wife, who is making cabbage for supper.  He tries to tell her about what happened but gets distracted and wishes for a sausage, which appears in front of him.  His wife then gets upset with him and wishes the sausage was on the end of his nose.  It, of course, appears there.  Then, with no other options, they wish the sausage gone.  Having wasted these wishes, the woodcutter suggests that maybe the Forest Queen will give them one more “little wish”.  So, they wish for a child.  Later that night, a tiny person (Russ Tamblyn) comes to their door dressed in leaves.  He claims to be their son, Tom.

From here, Tom’s adventures take off.  Most of it seems to involve dealing with a pair of bumbling thieves played by Terry-Thomas and Peter Sellers.  Tom inadvertently helps them steal some money, which his parents are then accused of stealing.  There are also a few musical numbers which generally involve a room full of toys that come to life when Tom is alone with them (note, this movie actually won the Academy Award for special effects).  All the while, there is also a subplot about an improbable romance between the Queen of the Forest and a musician played by this man:

That’s right, it’s Alan Young, also known as Wilbur from Mister Ed (I know he's been in other things but I really can't look at this guy and not think "Mister Ed").

It’s really not a bad little film.  However, it really only has a little bit to do with the original story of “Tom Thumb”.  There’s a whole bunch of stuff added to the story and other stuff taken out.  It’s cute.  The effects were excellent for their time.  The music is decent.  I actually did like that they included the story of “The Three Wishes” in there (if you’re going to add to a semi-obscure fairy tale, why not choose stuff from another obscure fairy tale).  It just didn’t really light any sort of fairy fire in my heart.  I’d be okay with never watching this again.

Anyway, I’ll include a link to the original “Tom Thumb” story (click the title).  It’s probably been a while since anyone has read it and who knows when the little guy will get another chance at stardom.

Fairy Tale Fandom Book Report Special Edition!: Twelve Dancing Unicorns

So far, writing for this blog has been quite the experience.  I’ve made contacts with all sorts of fairy tale fans and learned and done so many things.  I’ve learned how to promote my blog.  I’ve learned to enjoy the ballet.  And, of course, I’ve read lots and lots of fairy tales.  However, a few weeks ago, I got an offer that’s been a high point of my blogging career.  I was contacted by Sterling Publishing and asked to participate in the official blog tour for the new picture book Twelve Dancing Unicorns by Alissa Heyman and Justin Gerard.

Reprinted with permission from Twelve Dancing Unicorns © 2014 by Alissa Heyman, Sterling Children’s Books, an imprint of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. Illustrations by Justin Gerard.

Naturally, I agreed.  I mean, I so rarely get to review brand new books and picture books even less so.  However, Fairy Tale Fandom isn’t really a children’s blog.  It’s a fan blog.  I’m a bit out of the loop when it comes to stuff for this demographic.  I am library trained, though.  I could check my textbooks and the other literature and refresh my reviewing and evaluating skills, and I did.  However, I still felt the need to call on some reinforcements.

So, I called on the assistance of my 5-year old niece.

The story is based on “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” aka “The Shoes that Were Danced to Pieces” from the collection by the Brothers Grimm.  In this case though, it is twelve unicorns who escape their chains each night.  Also, instead of being followed by a soldier, a little girl takes the role of hero.  So, with review copy in hand, I headed over to my sister’s place for story time.  At the end, I asked my niece a few questions.

Q: So, did you like the story?

A: Yes.

Q: What was your favorite part?

A: I liked the part where they were all sleeping. (Reference to illustration on page 4)

Q: Did you like the little girl?

A: Yes.

Q: How about the king?  Because he started out as kind of a mean guy who kept the unicorns locked up.

A: But now he gets to dance with the unicorns.

Q: Would you want to hear this story again?

A: Yes.

Q: Is there anything else you want to say about the story?

A: I want that one! [points at illustration of unicorn]  No, that one! [points at different unicorn] No, I want the littlest one!

Okay, I’ll admit that my interviewing skills could use a little work.  However, she sat through the entire story, which I find to be a good sign when dealing with any book and any five-year old.  Also, she verbally interjected a couple times during the story (“invisible!?”), which I take as a sign that she was getting into it.  Now, on to my own part of the review.

Reprinted with permission from Twelve Dancing Unicorns © 2014 by Alissa Heyman, Sterling Children’s Books, an imprint of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. Illustrations by Justin Gerard.

First of all, this is a beautiful picture book.  The illustrations by Justin Gerard are fantastic.  I’m not sure what medium the illustrator used.  However, there’s a certain luminescent quality to the artwork.  It’s as if there’s a soft glow coming from some of the pictures.  This does a terrific job of conveying the type of magic typically associated with unicorns.  The pictures complement the story by Alissa Heyman very well.  One thing to be noted is that this is a picture book aimed at the older end of the picture book audience.  A quick search shows that this book is directed towards children ages 4-7.  So, that’s more of an early school age audience than a pre-school age one.  So, the text seems far more focused on simply telling a story straight out than using the many conventions picture book text uses for the pre-school set like rhyming and repetition.  In fact, some of the vocabulary like “iridescent” might even seem a bit challenging at first glance.  However, my niece seemed to follow along just fine.  So, if you’ve got a child in your life who is about kindergarten age, this book might be just right for them (especially if they’re crazy about unicorns).  If the child in your life is only about two or three years old, then you may want to wait on this one.

Something that will interest fairy tale fans is comparing this version of the story to the more well-known versions.  By changing the story’s moving parts, it becomes a new story with its own message.  The original “Twelve Dancing Princesses” was essentially a story about twelve rebellious teenage girls escaping from where they’re supposed to be to someplace that is both wondrous but with an undertone of the sinister.  The soldier who follows them is a man who’s set on solving the mystery in hopes that he may gain the reward and make a life for himself now that his military service has ended.  However, in Twelve Dancing Unicorns, with the shift from princesses to unicorns, you now have twelve animals that are not where they’re meant to be and escape to a magical place that is where they’re meant to be.  The little girl, as opposed to the soldier, is acting more out of empathy towards the unicorns than in expectation of a reward.  So, what was once a story about a king trying to get his family in line becomes a story about empathy and the folly of trying to hold captive animals that the king does not fully understand.

So, what we have is a beautiful picture book for early school-age kids that reframes a classic tale and turns it into something all its own while still keeping the structure of the plot the same.  I liked it and my niece liked it and would listen to it again.  I’d say that’s a pretty good endorsement.  If you’re in the market for picture books either as a picture book collector or because you have a child in your life to read them to, give this one a try.  It’s an especially good buy for those who are fans of fairy tales or unicorns.  I think it’s safe to say that Twelve Dancing Unicorns by Alissa Heyman and Justin Gerard has won the Fairy Tale Fandom stamp of approval.

Follow the Twelve Dancing Unicorns blog tour tomorrow on Inspired by Savannah: http://www.inspiredbysavannah.com/

Folk Tale Secret Stash: The Ebony Horse.

Ah, The Arabian Nights!  The book that showed the people of Europe that dusky-skinned people had fairy tales too (this may sound unfair to Europeans, but let’s be honest.  We’ve all thought it). 

 

 However, what do most people know about The Arabian Nights aka 1001 Nights?  Well, they know there’s Aladdin and Ali Baba and genies and a guy named Sinbad who had seven voyages (some of which were made into movies by special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen).  Also, something with a magic carpet.  Not sure which story it is, but there is definitely a magic carpet in there somewhere (no, seriously, I don’t know which story it is.  Someone leave me a link if you have it).  The truth is that 1001 Nights is an anonymous collection of stories that have existed in some form since at least some time in the tenth century, maybe earlier.  It has been translated by any number of scholars and authors, one of the most famous translations being by Richard F. Burton. The whole thing is tied together by the story of a woman named Scheherazade who tells these stories to her husband the king in order to forestall her own execution.  Along the way, characters in the stories would sometimes stop and make points by telling other stories to other characters (it’s sort of story-ception).  How long is 1001 Nights?  Well, my abridged version is two rather thick paperback volumes.  I thought that was pretty long.  Well, according to other sources, the full collection of 1001 Nights is sixteen volumes long!  Now, the question is: were the Arabian Nights folk tales?  Short answer: maybe.  I’ve been looking through Robert Irwin’s The Arabian Nights: A Companion and find that since the book is so old and anonymous it’s really hard to pin down where these stories come from.  However, many scholars seem to think these stories have a folk root, so we’ll treat it as such.

Anyway, it seems to me that it’s a darn shame that a book 16 volumes long should best be remembered for three stories, so I’m here to shed a spotlight on another.  I give you “The Ebony Horse”.

The story starts with a king of Persia.  This king was good and kind and loved science and mathematics.  Also, he had three beautiful daughters.  One day, three inventors came to him and offered him gifts.  One offered him a golden statue of a little man that could strike enemies dead by blowing on a trumpet.  The second offered the king a basin with a golden statue of a peacock and 24 chicks that would peck the head of a different chick on every hour.  The last offered him a horse made of ebony wood that could carry a man anywhere he wanted through the air.   The king was so amazed by these gifts that he gave the inventors anything they wanted.  What they wanted was to marry the king’s three daughters.

The youngest daughter was less than pleased with this.

Apparently, the inventor of the ebony horse was something like a hundred years old and not much to look at.  So, the princess complains to her big brother who then goes off to have a few words with his father and her erstwhile suitor.  Now, the king tries to explain how a way cool flying horse is a worthwhile reason to marry his daughter off to an elderly man.  The prince actually does seem to like the horse and gets on it, but can’t make it fly.  So, the inventor is called for.  The inventor isn’t happy that the prince is opposed to him marrying a hot, young princess and then tells the prince to push a button so that soon the prince and the horse are flying through the stratosphere.  The king is now the one who is not pleased and has the inventor whipped and tossed in jail.

This isn’t the end of the prince, though.  He figures out the controls and has his own adventure.  He falls in love with a sleeping princess (shades of “Sleeping Beauty”), nearly gets killed by an entire army, essentially makes a royal kidnapping and once again runs afoul of the villainous old inventor.  It’s actually a pretty long tale and should be read so that you can get the full version.  I’ll put a link right HERE.

I like this story because I’ve always had a bit of a fascination with the various magical gadgets and items in fairy tales.  For once, the gadget is the result of invention rather than sorcery.  Also, you must admit that a flying wooden carousel horse is pretty unique.  It’s no magic carpet, but not everything can be a flying carpet.

Pertinent Fairy Tale Questions.

A week or two ago I was watching PBS Idea Channel.  What’s Idea Channel?  Well, it’s a YouTube show where the host, Mike Rugnetta, analyzes popular culture from all sorts of different intellectual angles.  Anyway, Rugnetta suggested an interesting concept: the reason that people went so absolutely ga-ga over Disney's Frozen was because it was a critique of fairy tales.  The idea is that Frozen deconstructs the fairy tale by having all the parts of a fairy tale (princess, animal sidekicks, handsome prince, witch/magically-empowered queen, act of true love, etc.) and presents them in ways that would be traditionally perceived as “out-of-place”.

Now, I find this argument a bit flawed.  If it’s true, then it means that fairy tales have been critiquing themselves for a couple of centuries now.  Take my favorite fairy tale from Grimm, “How Six Men Got On in the World”, for example.  The heroes are essentially a group of conmen.  The king and princess are both evil.  Also, magic stems not from some fairy or witch but five men who each have one specific magic power.  That’s not all, though.  Throughout my reading, I’ve encountered more than my share of princesses who were petty and spiteful and princes who were neither good nor charming.  The truth is that what Frozen seems to critique is our popular conception of the fairy tale.  Essentially, it overturns all the stereotypes we expect to see in Disney movies (actually, one of my own criticisms of Frozen is that it simply tries too hard to do this to the extent that the story doesn’t feel organic but instead feels like a story strung onto a series of deconstructed elements).  The truth is that many of the things that people think are in the “fairy tale rule book” aren’t necessarily there.  If my high school teachers and college  professors are to be believed, the only hard and fast rule is that the good guys win despite having to endure a number of difficult trials and that bad guys get punished for having put the hero or heroine through said trials.  Even these “rules” are suspect.  Some fairy tales don’t have villains, just difficult situations (“Beauty and the Beast”, for example).  Anyway, this is why I can’t really call Frozen or Shrek anything counter to a regular fairy tale.  No one ever said an ogre can’t be a hero or that a handsome prince can’t be a villain.

Now, I’m going to try to do like Idea Channel and ask a lot of questions for this post.  This is in contrast to too many of my opinion pieces which, unfortunately sometimes just change into angry rants (sometimes, it’s hard for a fairy tale geek to avoid the perilous claws of “nerd rage”).

So, here’s the question: Why, as a culture, do we grab hold of these popular tropes?

Why do we see these specific popular conceptions as quintessentially “fairy tale”?  Why are princes and princesses good and witches and monsters bad?  Why does love save the day? 

It would be easy to blame this on Disney and other media types, but maybe there’s more to it.  After all, big businesses like Disney often just give the public what it wants.

The reverence for princes and princesses is an interesting one.  It seems to stem back to the days of old systems of rule when there were not only royals but also nobility and landed gentry.  Royalty is about as high as you can go.  Now, naturally, no one’s going to believe that royalty are always good people.  There have been enough rebellions and uprisings in history to refute that.  However, fairy tales often carry the notion of attaining royalty.  Cinderella, for example, becomes a princess by marrying a prince.  For the peasant class, the idea of becoming as well-off as royalty has a certain appeal compared to the hardscrabble life they’re used to.  From there, it all seems to fall into place like dominoes.  If becoming royalty is good, then royals themselves must be good.  It all seems rather pro-authority, as compared to something like “How Six Men Got On in the World”.  However, you should also wonder “Why not kings and queens?”  I’ve read stories where full-fledged kings were the protagonists, but they rarely seem to make it into the world of well-known fairy tales.  Princes and princesses are royalty, but they’re not the people in charge yet.  The titles do suggest youth, to an extent.  However, they also suggest status without added responsibility.  They’re rich and powerful and should be respected, but they are not yet “chained to the throne” in terms of responsibility.  They’ll become kings and queens someday, but that’s after the story ends.

So maybe, in our common conception of fairy tales, regard for princes and princesses stems from some kind of desire for youth, wealth and status but without the added burden of responsibility.

As for witches and monsters, they are “the other”.  Traditionally, the unfamiliar is something to be cautious of.  They also rarely fit into Judeo-Christian belief except as some kind of demon or evil creature.  These creatures and people are probably depicted as ugly because it’s a way of making their badness obvious, like they wear their evil on their face.  And yet, fairies are generally depicted as “good”.  Also, I should note that I know of at least one story wear the protagonist learns sorcery, which is pretty close to being a witch.

It’s that “true love’s kiss” bit that really stumps me.  I really want to blame this one on Disney.  However, then there’s “The Frog Prince”.  Most people think there’s a spell-breaking kiss in “The Frog Prince” but there isn’t.  Disney didn’t make The Princess and the Frog until well after that misconception took root.

Anyway, I’m just spit-balling these ideas.  I really don’t know the answers.  If anyone else has any ideas about why people have latched onto certain fairy tale tropes or stereotypes, please post in the comments.  And if you’d like to watch more of PBS’s Idea Channel, check out their YouTube channel right HERE.

On Robin Williams.

 

 

Okay, so this one might be tough to write.

 

I know I've done my fair share of poking fun at Disney and how they influence our view of fairy tales.  However, for everyone out there, even old-school written page fairy tale geeks like me, there is that one Disney animated movie.  The one that you ate up like candy when your were a kid.  The one you remember going to see in theaters no matter how long ago it was.  The one where your parents thought you might end up wearing out the VHS tape.  For some folks I know, it was Beauty and the Beast.  For my sister, it was The Little Mermaid.  For me, it will always be Aladdin.  I loved that movie.  I loved the songs.  I loved the animation.  I loved how clever Aladdin was.  I loved how feisty Jasmine was.  And I really, really loved that hilarious Genie.  Looking back now, I know that the Disney movie wasn't that much like the original tale from the Arabian Nights.  But I still loved that movie.

 

Now I go into my Twitter feed and find out that the man who voiced that big, blue, lovable, hilarious Genie has died.  Not only that but from suicide that may have been brought on by depression.

 

Dammit.  Just dammit.

 

Sorry, I usually don't get so upset when celebrities die, but this is kind of a big one for me.  It's up there with when I was a kid and Jim Henson died.  (I seem to be drawn to celebrities who do lots of funny voices.  It may explain why I do so many voices in my storytelling).

 

Aladdin wasn't Williams's only foray into the world of fairy tale and children's literature characters, either.  He played the Frog Prince on an episode of Shelly Duvall's Fairy Tale Theatre and was a grown-up Peter Pan in Hook.

 

It is such an awful shame that the world has lost such a terrific actor and comedian to suicide.  Depression is a very serious mental disorder, but there is help for those who seek it out.  It may not have been able to help Robin Williams, but there are many that it can help.

 

[sigh]

 

To echo one of Aladdin's last lines in the movie, "Bye Genie, we're gonna miss you."

Four Color Fairy Tales: Brick Fairy Tales.

            [singing] Everything is awesome.  Everything is cool when you’re part of a team . . . . [stops singing]

Oh, hey!  You might not hear from me for a little while.  But I thought I’d try to give you one of my soon-to-be-classic review columns before I go (classic-ness based on personal tastes.  Not my fault if someone disagrees).  So, I’m going to give you my review of this:

Now, before I go any further, who knows what a fumetti book is?  I see one, maybe two hands in the back.  Well, in Italian it means “little puffs of smoke” as a reference to the way thought bubbles look.  It’s an Italian word for comic books.  Here in the United States though, we use the word to describe a comic book that uses photos instead of drawings.  Brick Fairy Tales is essentially a fumetti book.

What the creators of this book (John McCann, Monica Sweeney and Becky Thomas) have essentially done is recreated and retold thirteen fairy tales by our old pals the Brothers Grimm

Completely out of Lego bricks.

You have to admire all the work they put into this.  The introduction makes this abundantly clear.  I quote: “Each tale is told in its original form and remains unabridged, and each of the photographs has been crafted with special dedication to the humor, gore and peculiarities of the folklore itself.”

Whew.  I’m getting tired just thinking about it.

Now, while the work and attention to detail are admirable, I find it hard to reward their choice of stories.  At least, I find it hard until the end of the book.  The first eight stories are ones I’ve heard over and over.  I won’t list them. You could probably guess which ones they are.  Anyway, other than being portrayed in Lego form, they’re not really that different from what you’d expect.  It’s once you get to story number nine, “Clever Hans” that things got interesting for me.  I thought they did a very funny “Clever Hans” and “Sweet Porridge” and admirable takes on “Godfather Death” and “King Thrushbeard”.  Their “Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces” was so-so.

Looking through the book, I find it amusing to see what great lengths they went to in order to get pieces and figures to build these stories.  You can tell they had to raid a number of different Lego sets to get what they wanted, including Lord of the Rings and Star Wars sets.  Priests are often clearly wearing Jedi robes and their Devil from “Godfather Death” is obviously Darth Maul with a bigger set of horns.

Lego is a brand that is respected by both kids and geeks everywhere, much like the Brothers Grimm are.  It’s nice to see someone put so much work to bring the two together.  Especially since Lego proper has gotten into the fairy tale business but with a license you could probably expect.  Am I going to say this is a must-read.  Not really.  If you know the stories of “Cinderella”, “Snow White”, “Little Red Riding Hood”, etc by Grimm, then the stories won’t offer you too much.  However, it’s still an altogether admirable piece of work and if it’s the kind of thing you like (fumetti or Lego or popular fairy tales) then go ahead and give it a read.

Now if only I could get this song out of my head . . . [singing] Everything is awesome when we’re living our dream . . .