("Tastes just like chicken," scoffs his brother-in-law.)
In one story, the miller's daughter is an obnoxious groupie pursuing the polite and gentle king in another, Rumpelstiltskin is female and in a third, the dwarf appears as a troll with a yen to eat human baby who sets up the whole scenario as an attempt to get his hands on a toothsome infant. Sticking closely to the spirit and setting of the original, she changes only one or two building blocks in the plot structure and comes up with some surprising results. The skeptical author sets out to remedy these flaws in six different imaginative retellings full of sassy humor that teens will relish. For instance, why was the dwarf was willing to accept the girl's ring as a bribe when he already knew how to spin unlimited quantities of gold? And why did he want a baby at all? Not to mention the very peculiar ending in which he stamps on the floor, catches his foot in a crack, and in a fit of rage tears himself in two. (Apr.Why did the miller tell the king his daughter could spin straw into gold in the first place? The story of Rumpelstiltskin is full of holes, says young adult fantasy writer Vivian Vande Velde in the author's note to this delightful group of tales. There’s enough light humor throughout to keep readers hooked.
Baker’s The Frog Princess, and while the cast is fairly one-dimensional, Imogene’s misadventures as an amphibian are entertaining. Too kind to use that sort of deceit on someone else, Imogene searches for another solution, tracking down the none-too-sympathetic witch who cast the original spell, getting captured by a boy-crazy runaway named Luella and her know-it-all actor boyfriend (who use Imogene as a gimmick to attract an audience for their theater troupe’s lousy plays), and trying to find a way home. He returns to his human form, but she is transformed into a frog as a result worse, he was just the lowly son of a wagon maker. The real trouble begins when a (rather pushy) frog, who tells Imogene he’s a prince beset by a witch’s spell, tricks her into kissing him.
Vande Velde previously reworked classic fairy tales in The Rumpelstiltskin Problem and Tales from the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird, and she now turns to the “The Frog Prince.” Princess Imogene, who is 12 and “gawky,” is tired of falling short in her family’s eyes.
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