Niteblade

Review: Tapestry of Tales: Classic Fairy Tales Retold
Author: Sarah Deckard

Reviewer: Kari Wolfe, Imperfect Clarity

Did you ever wish you could change the ending of the fairy tales you read as a child?

In “Tapestry of Tales: Classic Fairy Tales Retold,” Sarah Deckard has taken a large dose of fairy dust and sprinkled it liberally on her keyboard.  Using fairy tales such as “Rapunzel,” “Rumpelstiltskin,” and “The Little Mermaid,” she has rewritten them, changing the narrator’s point of view, their ends and even the story themes themselves.

Ms. Deckard has done a great job of keeping the original spirit of each author alive in the stories she has chosen.  The themes chosen fit seemlessly into each setting as you might remember and add a surprising touch and modern twist to the stories.  For example, in “The Gilded Cage,” a spin on the story of Rapunzel and her long hair, we see a more independent Rapunzel who slowly realizes the world isn’t necessarily what her rescuing prince tells her to be.

The stories I enjoyed most were the ones I had read as a child such as “Little Red Riding Hood,” Ms. Deckard’s version entitled “Beware of Wolves.”  In this adaptation, we learn that sometimes it’s not the wild animals that you need to watch out for.

Being partial to books that draw upon my own reading experiences, it was fun to try and determine what the original fairy tale was and then to see how Ms. Deckard took the characters and made them her own.  Ms. Deckard has brought the childhood world of the fairy tale to adulthood.