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juushikaTitle: A Wolf at the Door: and Other Retold Fairy Tales
Editors: Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
Published: New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2000
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 166
Total Page Count: 78,225
Text Number: 229
Read Because: I adored one of the selections, Gaiman's Instructions, when I read it in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fourteenth Annual Collection.
Short Review: Cinderella is plus-sized, Jack's giant's wife tells the bigger side of the story, Hansel and Gretel stumble upon video game store, and Neil Gaiman provides instructions for surviving in a fairy tale: many of the selections from A Wolf at the Door are transparent fairy tale retellings with a single twist or a new setting, be it an ice age or aliens. They may catch the eye, but most of are empty and gimmicky with immature writing styles. There are some exceptions, and Gaiman's poem in particular is a gem, but on the whole A Wolf at the Door is a waste of time. I don't recommend it.
Many of the selections in this anthology get two things wrong: retold fairy tales and young adult literature. By fleshing out the tale with realistic characters and detail, and/or by taking a new and meaningful twist on an old story, retold fairy tales can be magical, thoughtful, altogether wonderful to read—but they often must have that something new, or compelling, or meaningful, in order to justify rereading a familiar story. But in A Wolf at the Door, the retellings are sometimes as bare-bones as the original tales and often take gimmicky twists on the stories which are either hollow or more attention-catching than meaningful. It's not enough to stick aliens into the story of Ali Baba, or to insist that "Moral: If you love a waist, you waste a love." These retellings may catch the eye, but few of them leave lasting impressions. To compound the problem, many feel not only like they're written for twelve year olds, but by twelve year olds. Most YA literature has an easy-reading writing style which makes it accessible to young audiences, but writers needn't talk down to their audience to achieve that accessability. Here, the writing styles exaccerabates bare-bones writing and gimicky twists, so most of these selections are cutesy and immature.
Not all of the stories fall victims of these weaknesses: Gaiman's "Instructions" is a brilliant and magical meta-fairy tale and my favorite in the collection, Cadnum's "Mrs. Big" feels empty but nonetheless has a clever voice and fresh take on the subject matter, Vaz's "The Kingdom of Melting Glances" is based on Portuguese legends which may be new for many readers, and Koja's "Becoming Charise" is an empowering story for black sheep despite hammering home its meaning and fairy tale aspects. As this collection is such a swift read, there's no harm in picking it up to read the better selections. But on the whole, A Wolf at the Door is a waste of time. There's potential in the collection's premise, but the selections are lackluster and some (like Sherman's clichéd "The Months of Manhattan" and Webb's gimmicky "Ali Baba and the Forty Aliens") are downright bad. Spend your time on other, better retellings. I don't recommend A Wolf at the Door.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
Editors: Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
Published: New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2000
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 166
Total Page Count: 78,225
Text Number: 229
Read Because: I adored one of the selections, Gaiman's Instructions, when I read it in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fourteenth Annual Collection.
Short Review: Cinderella is plus-sized, Jack's giant's wife tells the bigger side of the story, Hansel and Gretel stumble upon video game store, and Neil Gaiman provides instructions for surviving in a fairy tale: many of the selections from A Wolf at the Door are transparent fairy tale retellings with a single twist or a new setting, be it an ice age or aliens. They may catch the eye, but most of are empty and gimmicky with immature writing styles. There are some exceptions, and Gaiman's poem in particular is a gem, but on the whole A Wolf at the Door is a waste of time. I don't recommend it.
Many of the selections in this anthology get two things wrong: retold fairy tales and young adult literature. By fleshing out the tale with realistic characters and detail, and/or by taking a new and meaningful twist on an old story, retold fairy tales can be magical, thoughtful, altogether wonderful to read—but they often must have that something new, or compelling, or meaningful, in order to justify rereading a familiar story. But in A Wolf at the Door, the retellings are sometimes as bare-bones as the original tales and often take gimmicky twists on the stories which are either hollow or more attention-catching than meaningful. It's not enough to stick aliens into the story of Ali Baba, or to insist that "Moral: If you love a waist, you waste a love." These retellings may catch the eye, but few of them leave lasting impressions. To compound the problem, many feel not only like they're written for twelve year olds, but by twelve year olds. Most YA literature has an easy-reading writing style which makes it accessible to young audiences, but writers needn't talk down to their audience to achieve that accessability. Here, the writing styles exaccerabates bare-bones writing and gimicky twists, so most of these selections are cutesy and immature.
Not all of the stories fall victims of these weaknesses: Gaiman's "Instructions" is a brilliant and magical meta-fairy tale and my favorite in the collection, Cadnum's "Mrs. Big" feels empty but nonetheless has a clever voice and fresh take on the subject matter, Vaz's "The Kingdom of Melting Glances" is based on Portuguese legends which may be new for many readers, and Koja's "Becoming Charise" is an empowering story for black sheep despite hammering home its meaning and fairy tale aspects. As this collection is such a swift read, there's no harm in picking it up to read the better selections. But on the whole, A Wolf at the Door is a waste of time. There's potential in the collection's premise, but the selections are lackluster and some (like Sherman's clichéd "The Months of Manhattan" and Webb's gimmicky "Ali Baba and the Forty Aliens") are downright bad. Spend your time on other, better retellings. I don't recommend A Wolf at the Door.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
