On the eve of her wedding, a young queen sets out to rescue a princess from an enchantment. She casts aside her fine wedding clothes, takes her chain mail and her sword and follows her brave dwarf retainers into the tunnels under the mountain towards the sleeping kingdom. The queen will decide her own future – and the princess who needs rescuing is not quite what she seems.

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman - review

I waited to give this book a rating because if I'd rated it as soon as I finished it would have only got two or three stars - that's how annoyed I was with it. However, I am bumping it up to four because for starters, nothing Neil Gaiman writes is ever BAD, Chris Riddell's illustrations are beautiful as usual and the production quality of the book is flawless. It is a VERY attractive book and the story itself is whimsical and lovely and filled with lots of amusing side characters, like all good fairy tales. Finally, I'm giving it four stars because there is a truly EPIC twist that I would have absolutely loved if I hadn't been so thirsty for proper lesbian representation. Twisting together the familiar and the new, this delicious, captivating and darkly funny tale shows its creators at the peak of their talents and was the winner of the 2016 CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal. Not the ideal bedtime story for a toddler, perhaps, but a richly nuanced tale with a contemporary slant that will fire your imagination - and haunt your dreams. Weaving together a sort-of Snow White and an almost Sleeping Beauty with a thread of dark magic, which will hold readers spellbound from start to finish. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-09-06 02:11:16 Associated-names Riddell, Chris, ill Boxid IA40229807 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifierAnd we can't forget the one thing which made me adore this book the most! THE GIRL POWER. Who needs a Prince to wake you up with a kiss whilst he parades around in his clinking armour, riding on his mighty pale steed? Why can't a Queen, a beautiful and incredibly courageous young woman (one you might have seen somewhere else before!) save the day? If you've ever wished that Prince had stayed home and let his fiancée be the hero instead, this book IS FOR YOU. Go and buy this book today. Be that Queen and go and wake up that Princess yourself! Gaiman was the creator/writer of monthly cult DC Comics horror-weird series, Sandman, which won nine Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. Norman Mailer said of Sandman: "Along with all else, Sandman is a comic strip for intellectuals, and I say it's about time." We find out all is not as it seems as the Beauty wakes up. There is evilness afoot!! But alas, things are set to rights and the Queen and her dwarfs set out on their way... but the Queen is unsure of what she wants... Although no one in the story is ever named outright, the protagonist of the story is very clearly Snow White. After the deaths of her evil stepmother and her father, she is now Queen of the Kingdom of Kanelaire. Following custom, she has decided to marry Prince Charming – and when we meet her, her country is preparing for the celebration that will take place in a week.

the queen kissed the princess: fairytales get a And then the queen kissed the princess: fairytales get a

Usually a man is saving the day, saving the princess or town from DANGER. No, not this story. In fact, there is very little talk about men, besides the three dwarfs. In this story as you read you find that there was a spell cast on this small town, because of Sleeping Beauty. The people as well as the sleeping beauty have been asleep for some time now. Many have tried to save them, but all have failed. I liked the way the illustrator drew the pictures with no colours, but included tints. I liked the cross-hatching instead of bright neat colours, the illustrator had used some incredible drawing skills. I admired how the author thought about the inscrutable, magical and deep forest. Furthermore, I think the characters are stunning and amazing, and the queen was able to save the sleeper and travel through all of those terribly sharp thorns that tried to get in her way. I went out on a limb recommending this to Kelly (and the Book Boar) for her fairy tale retellings project when I was only halfway done with this, but I'm relieved to say I still liked it when I finally finished it last night.

Things You Find in a Poet's Beard

The Sleeper and the Spindle isn’t the first retelling to stray away from the ”boy-kisses-girl” bias of traditional fairytales. Although Gaiman’s book features a big, central illustration of the queen kissing the princess, it’s not a gay love story. But Malinda Lo’s Ash, an evocative and compelling take on Cinderella, is one. Ash, short for Aisling, grieves for her mother’s death and her enforced exile from her beloved childhood home as she works for her stepmother, paying off her father’s inherited debts. To win the freedom to ride with the King’s hunt, she pledges herself to Sidhean, a cruel but besotted fairy – but it’s not him Ash really wants, it’s the King’s Huntress … The strong female main character, the queen, was brave and a perfect role model for young children. Enormous peaks of mountains separate the kingdoms of Dorimar and kanselaire. Kanelaire is rowdy as the wedding of their queen approaches. But Dormiar is silent as it mourns the spell that has put its princess to sleep.