Today has been a long, long day. Computer problems. Printer problems. Volunteer issues. Customer complaints. And the usual allotment of too little staff for too much task. So how lucky am I to discover today's schedule for The Fairy Tale Fortnight? Because what makes a bad day better than drinking a tall glass of very cold water whilst counting down my top ten favorite faery tale retellings? Lists, order-from-chaos, favorite things, faery tales---bliss! So....

My Top Ten Favorite Faery Tale Retellings:

10. Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Cinderella meets cyborgs, plague, and a nasty, highly evolved lunar Queen. It's not necessarily the perfect Cinderella retelling, but it's fresh and original and I can't wait to read the next three in the series!

9. Golden by Cameron Dokey
A bald Rapunzel? Already that's an interesting premise, one Dokey follows up with a not-so-evil evil witch and one of the best faery tale love matches I've encountered.

8. The Rose Bride by Nancy Holder
I'd not read the original faery tale behind this retelling, so The Rose Bride was a completely new story for me. Its portrayal of the power and strength of love in all its grieving depths and healing heights left me awed at the end.

7. The Seventh Swan by Nicholas Stuart Gray
In "The Seven Swans" faery tale, six brothers regain their human forms, but the seventh is left with one swan wing in place of an arm. The Seventh Swan is the story of how that seventh brother dealt, or failed to deal, with his fate. This was one of the first more poignant faery tale retellings I read as a young teen, but when I reread it last year, I found it to be just as touching and honest as I remembered.

6. Fables by Bill Willingham, et al
Perhaps not technically a faery tale retelling, but characters from all kinds of faery tales, and even some better-known children's books, appear in these graphic novels. Removed from their familiar folklore Homelands, they're free to develop quirks of behavior and form new alliances, and I love to see where those characteristics take them!

5. Entwined by Heather Dixon
"The Twelve Dancing Princesses" is one of my favorite faery tales, so I'm pretty picky about the retellings I read. (Wildwood Dancing is one of the more deeply disappointing examples I've encountered.) But this retelling is playful, a spun-sugar confection with a dark licorice heart, and I *love* the relationships between the sisters.

4. A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce
This book does the miraculous: it makes "Rumpelstiltskin" make sense. The pacing is slow, which I know isn't everyone's cuppa, but if you can stick it out, the suspense and sense of menace builds beautifully to a truly wondrous---and, dare I say, perfect---ending.

3. Beauty by Robin McKinley
The first faery tale retelling I ever read. What can I say? It may not be perfect---certainly, McKinley satisfied her need for a more mature retelling of her retelling in Rose Daughter---but I love every innocent, earnest, Honorable moment of it.

2. Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede
I'm a blonde and my closest sister is a redhead, so I may have been predisposed to love this book. Still, there's something about the combination of Elizabethan England, a prince enchanted into bear form, Faerie, manipulative sorcerers, and Robin Goodfellow that makes for a fantastic retelling.

1. Deerskin by Robin McKinley
I read this book twice within two years when I was a teen. The first time, I finished it thinking what a weird book it was. The second time, it immediately became one of my favorites. Perrault's "Donkeyskin" is a controversial faery tale to begin with, and McKinley doesn't shy away from its incest and rape, but she does write about them with compassion and sensitivity and, best of all, she shows us how her heroine heals.

So there you have it! And now, of course, I am ever-so-curious to know which faery tale retellings are *your* favorites. Bwahahahaha....