This was my first foray into the fairy tale world of Jane Yolen and it has definitely persuaded me to return to her again. This collection of re-tellings/fracturings throws sand in the face of some of the most well-known stories and has a strong feminist streak running through that I enjoyed. Some of the tales are funny, some are melancholic but all of them are well crafted and compelling. One of my favourites was 'Happy Dens or A Day in the Old Wolves' Home', which features a group of famous wolves, now in their old age, telling their stories from their own perspective. It was funny and heart warming and certainly poked a finger at the way in which we in the West treat our elderly citizens. Another favourite was 'Great-Grandfather Dragon's Tale', which shows how George really tackled the dragon. All in all, this is a great collection with a little something for everyone and I really liked the notes on each story included, giving an insight into the creative process behind the tales.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review,

Rating 4/5

ANY fairytale retelling I need in my hands yesterday so of course when I saw this I requested and ARC! This is a collection of short stories in which the author takes beloved classics and tears them down to reveal their darkest secrets and twists them into her own versions! I loved each and every retelling - it was such an eye opener to the different POVs here vs. what I've seen with other retellings and movies. Ms. Yolen captures your heart from the very beginning and far exceeds your expectations! I cannot wait for Volume 2 if she chooses to do one!

A major problem with fairy tales is they were written for a very different era. A time when science was barely known, and a woman’s only acceptable career choice was to be a wife. So I loved seeing Jane Yolen updated them in How to Fracture a Fairy Tale.

How to Fracture a Fairy Tale is more Brothers Grimm than Disney Princess. It’s dark and gruesome, and I couldn’t recommend them to small children. Not all the stories have a moral (not all traditional fairy tales have a moral either). Some reviews claim they are all re-writes of existing fairy tales, but I can’t name all the originals. That could be more my limited fairy tale knowledge though. There’s a behind the story section at the end, what I wish was with each fairy tale.

There are 28 tales over more than 300 pages. It drags in part, but with 28 different stories it makes sense I wouldn’t love them all. It opens with Snow in Summer, a Snow White retelling of what happens to the evil witch. Personally, I loved this for the accent it was written in. I heard a Southern US accent while I read, but the next story had a totally different voice. Happy Dens was a snippet of life in a retirement home for wolves. It seems the Big Bad Wolf didn’t get boiled in the pot after all.

My favorite fairy tale was Slipping Sideways Through Eternity. I don’t know what is the original story, but it’s a Jewish girl in New York who can see a spirit. The spirit takes her back to the WWII concentration camps where she saves her grandmother.

How to Fracture a Fairy Tale wasn’t really a how to (more a here are), and it’s not a binge read, but it is a good read.

I have to start with the forward (introduction). Meyers is a Queen in her own right, and reading her intro to the stories was a pleasant, easy read that made me even more eager to jump into the collection.
Over all, I really enjoyed the collection. Yolen's stories were well thought out. It was a collection of stories, most easily identifiable, with each story not exactly as it should be. I expected each story to be based on a different tale, much like a typical collection of fairy tales, but that is not the case. While there truly are about a thousand different ways you can spin the story of Cinderella, the repetitive nature of those types of stories did bog down the global feel of the book. Several times I felt like I was reading something I'd already read, simply because the basis was the same. This could be because I read them all in one sitting. Maybe if broken up over the course of a few days, it would not have seemed redundant.

ALL THAT ASIDE.... These stories. WOW. The original ideas were flowing, the metaphors were strong, and the puns -- yes I picked up on puns -- were spot on. Yolen took tales that we thought we knew and shed new light onto them. From a stepmother swallow up by the earth, to a Godmother that decided who lived and who died - there is literally something for everyone. The characters were well written and dynamic, even in such a short amount of characters. Each story created it's own world, a distinct place - different from the last. It was beautiful and heartbreaking all at once. Each story gave me a shred of hope, and many yanked that hope and drug it deep down into the belly of hell. I could not get enough of this collection, and I was telling people about specific stories (Particularly Godmother Death) for weeks afterwards.

Yolen's brilliant use of analog and world building left me breathless, and some times in awe of the investment I'd made in such a short time. While I have read some complaints of works going over reader's heads, I found that not as true for me. There were some that really made me think about what Yolen was saying, but over all - I felt like the stories connected solidly. I loved that there was an index of notes about each story in the back of the book. This was immensely helpful when sorting out my own feelings about each story.

I give this collection a 4/5 stars! I did not care for the repetition, and I do want to warn people that it is not sunshine and rainbows. Some of this is dark, and twisted. But, if this is your thing **It's totally mine!**, then dive in and enjoy!!

Here's the funny thing about fairy tales: they change their shape everytime they're told. Tell them a thousand times and you may not recognize them anymore. They could turn grim, or fantastical or fanciful. Fairy tales are what you make them, it seems. I found this especially true whilst reading Jane Yolen's How To Fracture A Fairy Tale.

As a lover of fairy tales and their various retellings, I was quite excited to start on this book and I was not disappointed. Jane Yolen spins beloved fairy tales into funny anecdotes, dark stories, and even not-so-fancy origin tales.

Each short story is delivered with a different style, which I enjoyed. This collection truly shows Ms. Yolen's versatility and knack for whimsical storytelling.

My only regret, really, is that most stories are way too short. I found myself wanting more.

I absolutely loved this book! I am in the process of writing a more detailed post for my blog later this week and will update it here as soon as it goes live. I wanted to make sure to get this feedback in as quickly as possible.

I really enjoyed this anthology of reworked fairytales.

While I could recognise the majority of tales within, each story is unique from the original. Dependant on the story in question, some make subtle nods while others tell the fairytales from a different point of view.

I feel like Happy Dens, Sliding Sideways Through Eternity and The Bridge's Complaint were my favourite but most others were enjoyable as well.

I found the explanations of how each was rewritten at the end of the book to be insightful as i find the whole process rather genius no matter the author. As an added bonus, the foreword is written by Marissa Meyer, a master of the twisted tale herself.

3.75- What an interesting take on fairy tales! This was an entertaining read with a different version of fairy tales,some I had heard of and some not. My favorite was the Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs story in which it is told from the wolves side of the story(see they weren’t as bad as you thought!).

A collection of 28 fractured fairy tales by the author as well as notes and poems related to each one. Some of the material is tied to other works by the author. There were several stories I enjoyed in the collection. Others were not my style. The notes could make this a good resource for writers and writing classrooms.

This collection of fairytale retellings had a common thread of 'fracturing' stories, and all of them have been published elsewhere earlier. Some of them are easily recognizable for sources in European fairytales, like Snow White, Cinderella, another a Snow White-Cinderella mash-up, a couple have been changed to make events allegorical while other have been changed to make the metaphorical into the literal. There is, however, the little problem that when you look at the book at a whole, it is disparate in terms of tone, settings, themes and even sources. Some stories have a middle grade like writing, other more suitable to adult fiction, some have silly and exaggerated stories, while others are darker in nature and fraught with hidden meanings; I know it is because each of them were written for some other themed anthology, but putting it all together here felt very distorted. You can go from a cute story about a fat Cinderella to a time travel one involving concentration camps, and as an anthology it feels hastily put together. Additionally, the author notes and poems for each story setting came at the end of the novel, when it would have been better to follow the story. Even on the most basic question of whether I enjoyed reading this anthology or not? I would say it mostly bored me; at one point, I just wanted it to end. That's not to say there aren't brilliant stories in there; there were more than a few that I felt were superb if I judged them as standalones, like the retelling of St George and the dragon, or the Rumpelstiltskin retelling (although, I feel Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik does it better), or the Proteus-inspired one, but there are also many that, well, sucked. A lot of them didn't really challenge the sources, and still kept a lot of the misogynistic tones of the stories in place (this may be me spoiled on recent anthologies that have featured diverse characters, feminist themes, and all) when there were good opportunities to subvert them. Also, and this is a very minor point, I was irked by the misspellings of nogitsune and Sidhe as nogitsone and Sithe respectively.

Overall - some individual stories stand out but the book as a whole feels chaotic and vague.

How to Fracture a Fairy Tale is an absolutely astonishing collection from the mind of Jane Yolen. If you’re a fan of fairy tales, or reading twisted versions of them (not to say that the original versions aren’t exceptionally twisted to begin with…) then this is something you may want to look into. Yolen has mastered the art of looking at a story in a different light, breathing new life into a tale told thousands of times.
But this novel isn’t just a compilation of short stories (though I would have been very happy with that much) but also notes on the stories, and even some poetry. Not every story has an explanation or a poem, but most of them have one or the other. It really adds to the depth of the tales being told. Personally, I loved this touch as I wasn’t always able to identify the fairy tale her works were being based off (more than one of them I was not familiar with in the first place, as it turns out).
The stories and poems here vary from whimsical to disturbingly dark; leaving the reader feeling haunted or chilled. Being that these are fractured fairy tales, most of them have a darker undertone. Sometimes the elements used could be considered disturbing, but they’re all beautifully written despite that.

Snow in Summer
It’s fairly easy to guess which tale Snow in Summer is based off of. And yet Yolen still was able to make reading her tale an experience. While one would assume it’d go a certain direction (the one we’ve all become so used to) Jane Yolen put a slight spin on it, not altering the core of the tale…but making it hers and adding unexpected elements.

The Bridge’s Complaint
Warnings: Animal death
The Bridge’s Complaint is one of my favorites in this collection; if nothing else than for its utterly unique view on telling the story. Who would have ever expected to hear The Three Billy Goats Gruff told from the perspective of the bridge it was set upon? It certainly wasn’t something I expected, but I have to admit that it worked really well in this instance.

The Moon Ribbon
I was able to identify The Moon Ribbon as a retelling of Cinderella – you can see some obvious elements from it right away. But I missed the second story that was pulled into this tale, to create the unique telling. Jane Yolen mentions in the back that she also used George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin as inspiration. While elements of both have been woven together here, the work is purely Yolen’s doing. You can see what she added (even without my knowing much about The Princess and the Goblin). I loved this tale. It read like a poem, and very appropriately it gave Cinderella the poetic justice I also felt it deserved (and by that I’m obviously referring to the step-mother and step-sisters).

Godmother Death
I’ll confess that I’d never heard of the tale that this one is based off – at least I don’t remember it if so. It’s a folklore called Godfather Death. So you can already see how it’s been altered to suit our writer’s needs. This is another one of my favorites from the collection. I loved the nature of Godmother Death – from her agreement to be a godmother to the way she handled her duties. It was all brilliantly done. And it wouldn’t be a true fairy tale if there wasn’t punishment for any attempt at trickery.

Happy Dens or A Day in the Wold Wolves’ Home
This one is more a collection of short stories within itself, but I love that change as well. How often do you hear of all the wolf based fairy tales being merged into one telling? (Well, conversation in this case). Never! By this point in the collection I found myself thoroughly impressed by all the unexpected elements I’ve come across. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised though, this sort of writing is exactly the reason why I’m a fan of Jane Yolen.
Here we see references and retellings of the Big Bad Wolf, The Three Little Pigs, and The Boy Who Cried Wolf. The first was my favorite of the retellings, but I don’t want to explain the reason and spoil it for everyone. Let’s just say that I really enjoyed the little reference made there.

Granny Rumple
Where Happy Dens made me smile, Granny Rumple broke my heart. It’s a retelling of sorts, though it feels too rooted in real life to be able to really say that. Essentially the story explores the concept of Rumplestiltskin being Jewish. This one broke my heart because there are times in our history where this sort of event truly would have happened. I suppose it struck too close to home, but that made it feel more real and less whimsical…but at the save time it was a terrifyingly good perspective. After all, fairy tales are meant to teach a lesson, and I certainly learned one here.

One Ox, Two Ox, Three Ox, and the Dragon King
This was another tale that I didn’t recognize, but I was okay with that. This one is based off of Chinese folklore – pulling bits and pieces from several different tales (I couldn’t tell you which ones specifically – I’m going to have to add a few compilations of folklore to my TBR pile after this).
It’s a longer story, with lots of repetition and buildup…but I like the point that’s being made here. On the whole it’s much more positive than many of the others included in this collection, and I’m sure that was intentional (in the description at the end Jane Yolen mentioned that she considers Eastern folklore to be much more positive with their dragon lore).

Brother Hart
Brother Hart is based on another Grimm tale, which I think so far have all been my favorites by Yolen. I’ve noticed that she has come back a couple of times to the Hart/stag theme, and both times I’ve loved it.
The tale is based off of Little Brother, Little Sister. Though really it shows the events that follow the original story. That makes it unique among the others so far, in that it twists the fairy tale but also carries it forward.

Sun/Flight
Right away I could tell that this one was a variation on the tale of Icarus. It is more sea based than the original (or at least it felt that way to me) but in a way it also made it feel so much more…human. So I’m happy with every change that was made here.
I think this tale might actually continue after the tale of Icarus…but I don’t want to say that for sure. In this case I feel like knowing that as a fact may change the story. At least for me I think it would have.

Slipping Sideways Through Eternity
This is another sad tale, but again it’s because it’s so heavily rooted in the real world. It’s another tale by Jane Yolen where the main character is a little Jewish girl. Here she also travels through time, but for a different reason. It’s a retelling of Elijah, though I’m not an expert in that tale either. Still, it is breathtaking and heart wrenching and absolutely worth reading.

The Foxwife
This story is focused on the legend of kitsune, and it’s one of the lores that I personally can’t get enough of. Apparently this short story had originally been printed in Year’s Best Fantasy (from 1984), something I didn’t know before (I really should start reading those yearly collections!).
I love the take of the kitsune here. Even though she isn’t the main perspective, you can almost feel her emotions and see what she’s thinking. It was beautifully written, all the more so by having an unknowing human be the main perspective.

The Faery Flag
The Faery Flag is based on a real item – it’s a flag hanging up on Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye (Soctland). It isn’t much to base a tale off of, but it’s no surprise that Jane Yolen succeeded in doing just that. It’s a tale of bargaining, faery deals, lore and rules, and oddly enough, of love. This is one that is better off read than described.

One Old Man, with Seals
According to Jane Yolen, One Old Man, with Seals is based off of Proteus, the Greek shapeshifter. It’s the tale of getting older, accepting the time one has left, and enjoying it. But it feels so much richer than the way I described it. It’s beautifully written, with a slightly eerie and ethereal tone to it.

Sleeping Ugly
Just by the title you can clearly tell that this is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Ever since I learned the much more disturbing original tale of this one I’ve had trouble enjoying it, so it was nice to see a new perspective take the reins.
Here the princess is quite beautiful on the outside, but very ugly on the inside. Then there’s the young maiden in the woods, who is the exact opposite. Now I’ll ask you, which one of those two would you say deserves the happily ever after of her dreams?

The Undine
This one is mostly based off the original Hals Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid, but it also has some influence in other French stories about mermaids (aka the undine). I’m using the terms mermaid and undine interchangeably here, which some people may argue with. However I believe that they have the same intent and connotation, especially in this story, so it’s okay.
It certainly has the more somber and despondent tones of the original tale; a sort of romanticized view on doomed love and the pain it can cause. However, it is from the undine’s perspective, and the prince feels like he would fit in with today’s time.

Great-Grandfather Dragon’s Tale
Great-Grandfather Dragon’s Tale is told as two stories in one. One is past tense, it’s the story the Great-Grandfather Dragon is telling, and the other is of the reaction to the little ones he’s telling it to. It’s an interesting tale, and oddly relaxing to read.
The tale itself is based off of St. George’s Dragon, and was inspired when Jane Yolen was compiling her dragon stories into a collection titled Here There Be Dragons.

Green Plague
Green Plague is a more modernized retelling of The Pied Piper of Hamelin. It’s satirical and doesn’t really look all that kindly on the townspeople, though I suppose that isn’t terribly new, is it? Here the people of Hamelin prosper from their past and the lore that they carry, only to let themselves fall into the very same mistakes all over again.

The Unicorn and the Pool
The Unicorn and the Pool blends an older unicorn and Jesus into the same character. The wise unicorn is willing to sacrifice himself to save others, even though it’s one amongst them that caused the problem to begin with.
It’s a short tale, and it is utterly heartbreaking as well. You can tell right away where the tale will lead, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

The Golden Balls
The Golden Balls is a retelling of The Princess and the Frog. I never read the original tale (well, either of the originals, as it turns out) so I can’t speak directly to the changes made. I will say that this one unsettled me the most. There’s implied rape, which to be fair not only fits in with the time (it could be an allegory to the arranged marriages many princesses faced) but also the brother’s cruelty for allowing (encouraging more like) it to happen.

Sister Death
Sister Death is a blend of Lilith and the Angel of Death. This is one of those stories that starts out interesting, even as you know it’s bound to break your heart. And it certainly does. Based heavily in Jewish lore, the Sister Death has to carry away countless dead children – especially during the time of the Holocaust. It’ll break your heart, I promise you that. But it is still worth reading. Sometimes the hardest tales to read are the ones that we must read.

Sule Skerry
Sule Skerry is a tale of selchies. If you’ve read any selchie lore, then you’ll know that they’re fairly famous (infamous) for finding and impregnating young maidens. Apparently they can even do so when they’re at deaths doors. Truth be told, I’m not surprised by that revelation. What made this tale fractured was the time Jane Yolen chose to base it in, and how it all played out.

Once a Good Man
Once a Good Man is based off of Jewish and Chinese tales. Here the main character, and older and quite wonderful man, has asked to see both heaven and hell so that he may be happy knowing it. The differences between two are surprisingly slight, but incredibly important to make note of.

Allerleirauh
Allerleirauh is another retelling of Cinderella. I think that makes two (so far) in this collection. However, it is very very different from others, even the first one included here. I’ll be honest with you here – I didn’t realize it was a Cinderella variant when I was reading it. I can see it now though. It’s based off of one of the three original versions of the tale (all very dark, of course). This one is fairly disturbing, and incestuous (as was the original it’s based off), so consider yourself warned.

The Gwynhfar
This one is a retelling of Arthurian legend, while also very much being commentary on the practice to marry off (aka sell off) princesses to dukes and other esteemed men. There’s no doubt left on how Jane Yolen feels of the practice, not after you’ve read this tale.

Cinder Elephant
Cinder Elephant is the third Cinderella retelling in this collection. It’s also the last Cinderella retelling included, in case you were curious. With this tale we have all three of the original versions in one fractured form or another. This was probably my second favorite of the three, and there are many reasons for that. It feels like the happy medium you’d expect between the original and the Disney version, but of course with a twist or two. The only thing that wasn’t changed was how dull the prince was (who needs a shoe to identify the woman he supposedly loves?).

Mama Gone
This one is a vampire story. It’s very straightforward, but the emotions and turmoil in it will keep you reading until the very end. You never really see a tale quite like this one. The vampire is not a wealthy count, nor do they really appear to be capable of rational thought. It’s brilliantly written, and that’s coming from a vampire snob.

The Woman Who Loved a Bear
According to Jane Yolen, The Woman Who Loved a Bear is based on Native American lore. I love that Jane Yolen pointed out that she isn’t Native American, and that she hopes she did justice to the original tale. It’s not every day you see somebody that sensitive to the original material. It’s easy to read the title and assume that the bear is an actual bear, as opposed to a person (and member of a specific tribe). This one was really well written, though I really can’t comment on the original lore and the differences between the two.

Wrestling with Angels
This one is a modern retelling of Jacob and the time he wrested an angel. I honestly never would have expected to see this tale based in New York, and yet here we are! It adds an interesting perspective to the well known tale.

I've said it before I love me a good fairy tale re-telling but........... this was not at all what I expected to be honest. These didn't even feel like fairy tales, some of them sure but the rest not so much. I had a very hard time finishing this book. Meh.

This is a stunning collection of fairytales that are slightly or sometimes monstrously twisted. fractured totally changed in intent and content to the brilliant pen of Jane Yolen. A chapter at the end features an author's note and poem for each tale often explaining how the tale was fractured.The book is full of tales from around the world some familiar others not so much but all enchanting. A fun read!!!! Great as bedtime stories for adults.

Exactly one year ago, I reviewed Jane Yolen’s The Emerald Circus (bit.ly/2NMznQd), which I liked, but the stories were hit or miss with me. Now she has a new collection, How to Fracture a Fairy Tale, which I immediately gobbled up because I happen to be a sucker for fairy tale retellings.

Read the rest of the review at the link below.

First of all, I'm a complete sucker for fairy tale retellings. All the more when they aren't your typical, prince-rescues-princess-and-they-live-happily-ever-after type stories. I love a good twist and a dark underside to fairy tales (which, if you read a lot of the ORIGINALS...was often the case!). When I saw this book was a collection of short retellings I immediately requested it and was absolutely delighted to receive it just a few days before it came out! It's now available and totally worth checking out. :) Also, apparently Jane Yolen is something of a MG/YA fantasy scion...and I had never heard of her. Ever. Never read any of her books, didn't have any of them on my TBR.

The Stories

How to Fracture a Fairy Tale contains tales from many different countries. Some of them I recognized, some of them I did not. They were all interesting and most of them entertaining! Some of them were funny, like one of the two Cinderella shorts. A couple raised the hairs on the back of my neck (most specifically the very last one in the book, "Wrestling With Angels." My favorite of all the tales though, was "Great-Grandfather Dragon's Tale," which is a cute and funny remake of Saint George and the Dragon.

A few of the tales are most definitely only suited to a YA or older audience, as they contain heavy implications of sexual assault or rape if they don't state it outright. I was a bit startled by these, to be honest, as they don't really seem to fit in with the overall tone of the book...but then, the collection is very random. The author has included, in the last section of the book, an explanation for why she told each tale the way she did, as well as given a poem for each. It is extremely fascinating, but I think due to the randomness as well as the content of this particular section, a lot of younger readers will lose interest and probably only read the stories - which are the important part, anyway!

Review will be posted at the link below on 10 November 2018.

This is a collection of Ms. Yolen’s stories, all having to do with fairy tales or legends. They span the gamut from the traditional European Cinderella tale, to China, to the Cheyenne plains, to a concentration camp, to Ninety-Sixth near Central Park. All of the stories were published previously, though the notes and some of the poems at the end of the book are new. There are quite a few of them, some only a few pages and a few near novella length, so I’ve written a quick sentence review for each.

Miss Nancy’s stories had always ended happy-ever-after. But she used to add every time: “Still you must make your own happiness, Summer dear.”


“Snow in Summer” – four stars. This read a little bit like Little House on a Prairie Snow White.

“The Bridge’s Complaint” – three stars. Three Billy Goat’s Gruff from the POV of the bridge.

“The Moon Ribbon” – four stars. If someone takes something from you, are you giving it?

“Godmother Death” – four stars. Can you trick death?

“Happy Dens or A Day in the Old Wolves’ Home” – three stars. Retellings of various wolf fairy tales (Peter and the Wolf, Three Little pigs, Little Red Riding Hood) as told rom the the wolves’ point of view, as they’re waiting for dinner in a retirement home. An interesting view of “spinning” stories, but a bit much for me.

“Granny Rumple” – four stars. Rumpelstiltskin, but as a Jewish pogrom. This was.. difficult to read, but it was thought provoking as to how family stories handed down through time start to resemble fairy tales.

“How can I choose between my dear sons?” she always answered. “I love you each the best.” And with that answer, they had to be content.”


“One Ox, Two Ox, Three Ox, and the Dragon King” – 5 stars. I loved this one. I had an old book of Chinese fairy tales, and this particular tale reminds me of them. I loved how the brothers worked together to save their mother.

“Brother Hart” – 3 stars. I’m not familiar with the source material, and I’m not quite sure what to make of this one.

“Sun/Flight” – 3 stars. A sort of Icarus tale, but with more some parts made more fantastical and some made less.

“Why are we here?” I trembled as I spoke.
“Ah, Rebecca—that is always the most important question.” His r’s rattled like a teakettle left too long on the stove. “The question we all need to ask of the universe.” He smiled at me. “You are here because I need you.”


“Slipping Sideways Through Eternity” – 5 stars. Oof, this story. Absolutely heart wrenching, but it is amazing the insight Ms. Yolen has into the mind of a teenage girl. It felt like being fifteen again.

“The Foxwife” – 3 stars. There is something here, I think, about angry men and the changing love of fatherhood, but I think I missed the point.

“The Faery Flag” – 3 stars. Love between partners, and love between a mother and child.

“One Old Man, with Seals” – 4 stars. A fairytale for a voracious news-consuming retired librarian? Why not?

“Sleeping Ugly” – 4 stars. Cute and funny, felt a bit like a children’s book.

“The Undine” – 3 stars. Little mermaid, but more focused on the prince than the mermaid.

“Great-Grandfather Dragon’s Tale” – 5 stars. St. George and the Dragon, as told by an elderly dragon to his grandkids. One of my favorites!

“Green Plague” – 4 stars. A modern day Pied Piper, but with frogs and rock bands. Amusing, and a bit of small town political commentary, as well.

“The Unicorn and the Pool” – 2 stars. Honestly, I have absolutely no idea about this one. It feels like a parable about Jesus.

“The Golden Balls” – 3 stars. I loved the Frog Prince as a child, but did always wonder how the princess would get along with the frog, and if the frog would actually be happy with a princess who keeps losing her dang balls.

“Sister Death” – 4 stars. Unsettling story about Death becoming a mother.

“Sule Skerry” – 4 stars. A Selkie tale, set during World War II. Another one that’s from the POV of a semi-modern girl.

“Once a Good Man” – 4 stars. A short parable about heaven and hell, almost Biblical in nature.

“Allerleirauh” – 3 stars. Unexpected incest.

“The Gwynfahr” – 3 stars. Arthur and Guinevere, if Guinevere was an albino and Merlin was, well, a merciless conman intent on reunifying the clans.

“Cinder Elephant” – 4 stars. Ridiculous and hilarious, with three! morals to boot.

“Mama Gone” – 5 stars. Probably tied with the dragon tale for my favorite. A vampire tale set in an rural area, but most of all, how a teen girl says goodbye to her dead mother.

“The Woman Who Loved a Bear” – 4 stars. A Cheyenne tale. I loved the interjections from the grandson an the grandfather’s response to him saying it couldn’t be “real.”

“Wrestling with Angels” – 3 stars. An interesting end to the book.

The rest of the book is notes on each tale, each with an accompanying poem, some of them written especially for the book.

Overall, this was quite an eclectic collection, and it was wonderful “catching up” with Ms. Yolen again. Highly recommended for fans of fairy tale retellings!

I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

*I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*

Fairy tales!
I absolutely love fairy tales and reading how people retell them or "fracture" them into different versions. I actually picked this book up because I recognized the author's name from picture books (that's just my life as a Children's Librarian), and wanted to see which tales she would pick and how they would be fractured.

I will say I was surprised at how many tales are featured! The last fairy tale type book I read was Language of Thorns which has longer tales, but just a few. This book has a different take with them being more fairy tale-like than full stories. Some make sense, some almost prompt an immediate re-read to more fully understand, and others were just a bit too out there for me.

These are not your children's fairy tales. Some of them are pretty intense. Others you might be able to read to your children but they might not understand the morals or what actually happened in the stories.

Ones I really liked:
Snow in Summer
The Bridge's Complaint
The Moon Ribbon
Happy Dens
One Ox, Two Ox, Three Ox, and the Dragon King
Brother Hart
One Old Man, with Seals
Sleeping Ugly
Great-Grandfather Dragon’s Tale
Cinder Elephant
--These tended to be longer ones because that is the style I like.

Most of the stories featured are bittersweet, you've got to realize that going in. There are also fairy tales fractures from outside the Western world, as well as some Jewish ones or takes of tales, which gives it a nice diversity. Honestly, I found myself thinking "wow, why so religious??" then realized how religious some stories are and I just never thought about it before because of my own privilege! Learn something new every day...

After the tales, there is a section with explanations about the tales--either how they came about and/or why they were included. This section includes poems that go along with the tale's theme or as a companion piece. I'm not big on poetry, but some were pretty nice. Just... by the time I hit the poems I was already feeling melancholy. Life is cruel...

Do I recommend this? If you like fairy tales and seeing different versions of them, you should really check this out. I'd also recommend this one to people looking for fairy tale inspired poems.

"How to Fracture a Fairy Tale" is a microcosm of the numerous folktales the author, Jane Yolen, has written throughout her career. Everyone has heard and/or read at least one of her folktales without realizing they were written by her. Jane Yolen's variants of folktales are just as enjoyable as the "classic variants" such as "Cinderella," "Sleeping Beauty," "Hansel & Gretel," "The Little Mermaid," "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," etc.

Fairy tales are one of the original methods of storytelling. Since people began telling each other stories, some parts of each story were kept for substance and the rest were changed in favor of both the storyteller and the audience. Think of how each country/region has its variant of "Cinderella." And, how many cartoons had "fractured" fairy tales within an episode for the audience's entertainment?

"How to Fracture a Fairy Tale" consists of "fractured" folktales you may or may not have heard or read as a child by Jane Yolen. Reading different variants of the familiar, but altered tales rekindled my enjoyment for folktales and reminded me as to why I continue to enjoy them. For me, reading "Sleeping Ugly" as an adult brought back memories of when I first heard the tale as a child. The "explanation" of how the author has been able to write so many new tales from the older ones, which is after the Introduction and before the selection of tales, is worth reading as well because it provides insight as to how others such as Robin McKinley, Rick Riordan, and Disney fracture and retell these older tales. This collection of tales can be enjoyed by readers of all ages due to its familiarity.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Prior to reading a few of the stories in Fracture I honestly didn’t realize that the entire anthology was written by one person. I also didn’t realize that all of the stories had been published previously in other anthologies over the past few decades. As a result, there was some duplication of efforts. There are 3 different variations on the Cinderella story, for example. While that is interesting from a perspective of literary analysis, I found it a bit tiring to simply read for enjoyment. There were a few other stories that felt very similar to each other, so I found myself skimming because I felt like I already read it.

Again, many of these stories were originally published in the 1980s and some address difficult topics like incest, body dysmorphia, and anti-semitism. The author is herself Jewish, so I found many of the fairy tales that dipped into the Holocaust interesting. There were times when I felt these topics were not handled in the most graceful manner, however. In the notes at the back of the book, Yolen even apologizes to “skinny” people for their demonization in the story Cinder Elephant. That story tried to celebrate a thick Cinderella, and in the process, it painted anyone who was not overweight as evil. If Yolen found it important to include this apology in her author notes, I wonder if it might have been better to rewrite this story, and perhaps a few others as well.

There were a lot of tales in this collection I really loved. I found myself smiling and laughing throughout The Bridge’s Complaint & Happy Dens especially. They both centralize the villains in classic tales and personify animals and inanimate objects. I thought these stories were some of the most humorous.

Other stories in the book turned toward the darker side of the fairy tale. One Ox, Two Ox, Three Ox, and the Dragon King (one title) was perhaps my favorite of the book. It painted a rich environment steeped in Chinese mythology without using obvious or borderline insulting identifiers to inform the reader where the story was set. This was done so artfully. The story then focuses on the importance of family, and the ways magic and monsters play into Chinese myth. I just loved this one and if you don’t pick up the anthology, I would encourage you to find this story in another publication.

Overall, I don’t think I would recommend this story collection. It would be great for someone who is working on writing their own fairy tale retellings as an educational source of what works and what doesn’t. How to Fracture a Fairy Tale is on sale now!

Jane Yolen is the Queen of fairy tales, and this collection is proof! She manages to find new and different ways to make the stories fresh while keeping them recognizable.