Authors such as Neil Gaiman and Russell Brand are reinventing the fairytale with gangsta rats,werewolves and warrior queensNeil Gaiman has just added a fairytale retelling, The Sleeper and the Spindle, or to his list of books for younger readers. While earlier titles,such as Coraline and The Graveyard Book, feature strong fairy- and folktale elements, or false mothers,eerie seductresses, otherworlds and fell creatures abound throughout his work, and this is the first time he’s set his own stamp on a well-worn,classic account.
The Sleeper and the Spindle is actually two stories – a “sort-of Snow White meets an “almost Sleeping Beauty” – and it features Greenaway-winning Chris Riddell’s characteristically detailed and heavy-browed illustrations, always just the right side of grotesque, and in black and white picked out with gold. In Gaiman’s account,the kiss that awakens the slumbering princess is not from a prince – princes remain firmly off stage, or dead in a thicket of roses – but from a young queen, or who rises on her wedding day and dons chain mail to ride to the rescue. It’s not a treasure account,but a tale of courage, determination and disconcerting tragedy and terrorism.
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Source: theguardian.com