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(Small sample of my collection. You can click on the photo above to see it larger.) This is an edited repost from previous years for the weekend: Okay, so it's that time of year when we start thinking of pulling holiday decorations from their dark, almost forgotten storage areas. I have noticed that a few people are ordering the fairy tale themed ornaments on CafePress. They are finding them in the CafePress Marketplace for $14.99 each, sometimes able to use a coupon there to purchase. But for you loyal readers here, I'll let you in on a secret. They are available for $7.99 in the SurLaLune CafePress shop. You can't use a coupon there but this price still beats any coupon promotion in the Marketplace. Many Golden Age illustrations are available in the Ornaments shop I created years ago. And, yes, SurLaLune gets more than double the commission on the sale, too, despite the much lower price. Everyone wins! SurLaLune isn't getting rich but proceeds from CafePress help pa...

Ireland's Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth by Mark Williams is a new book released this week. If you are interested in Irish folklore, this is a must for you. This is a hefty tome of nearly 600 pages. I received a review copy but haven't had the time to read it closely yet. However, I have read some passages and the first impression I have is, "Wow, I didn't know that about ____." Fill in the blank to whatever I was reading on the page. The second impression is "This is surprisingly very readable for how scholarly and informational it is." Because, yes, I, too, struggle with twenty-five cent words in many academic texts. If I paused to consider a sentence while I was reading this, it wasn't to parse the meaning of the sentence but to contemplate that meaning. The tone is even conversational with first person perspective offered which may be off-putting to some but which I find refreshing since that is the way I approach much of what I ...

Fairy Tales for the Disillusioned: Enchanted Stories from the French Decadent Tradition (Oddly Modern Fairy Tales) edited by Gretchen Schultz and Lewis Seifert is officially released this week. So I admit that my studies of French literature have been limited. I have a French minor that didn't go too far beyond Antoine de Saint-Exup�ry and Moliere, to be quite honest. My own studies and research have focused on original fairy tales texts from the French Salons from Villeneuve to Perrault and many of the French folklore collectors of the 19th century, not so much the literary retellers. We won't get into the argument here that even those collectors were literary retellers--that's for somewhere else, not this book's review. So I am not very familiar with the French Decadent Tradition. Which is why this book is so much fun and intriguing at the same time! I get to learn about a literary movement and read some more relatively modern interpretations of fairy tales. The deca...

Charming (Pax Arcana Book 1) by Elliott James is on sale in ebook format today only for $2.99. This is the first book in a series. Book description: John Charming isn't your average Prince... He comes from a line of Charmings -- an illustrious family of dragon slayers, witch-finders and killers dating back to before the fall of Rome. Trained by a modern day version of the Knights Templar, monster hunters who have updated their methods from chain mail and crossbows to Kevlar and shotguns, John Charming was one of the best--until a curse made him one of the abominations the Knights were sworn to hunt. That was a lifetime ago. Now, John tends bar under an assumed name in rural Virginia and leads a peaceful, quiet life. That is, until a vampire and a blonde walked into his bar... CHARMING is the first novel in a new urban fantasy series which gives a new twist to the Prince Charming tale.

New Approaches to Teaching Folk and Fairy Tales edited by Christa Jones and Claudia Schwabe was released in August. First of all this is not a text book. It is a collection of articles about different methods of teaching folklore in the classroom. The contributors share their experiences in the classroom, sometimes including the syllabi for the classes they have designed. The articles are wide ranging in their approaches, including but not strictly limited to political, linguistic, and gender studies. They are valuable because they offer perspectives from real world experiences from professors who have used these approaches. One of the themes I found most fascinating was the discussion about choice of translations and adaptations to share in the classroom, including Christine A. Jones' course that studies the translation of French tales. In the end, the articles make you wish to be a student again--if you aren't now--with the ability to take all of these classes (since they ar...

  Below is my post from two years ago about Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree which is currently on sale in ebook edition for $1.99 . From 2014: The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury: I wanted to recommend it as a great book that shares Halloween traditions with readers young and old. The folkloric content is of interest to the usual SurLaLune reader which is why I am sharing here. A dear friend loves the book and has written a much better post about the book and how it has become an annual part of her Halloween celebration at this post: The Halloween Tree . I missed recommending it here last year because it was too late when I thought of it. Why torture you with what you couldn't order in time to use for the holiday? Book description: Special indeed are holiday stories with the right mix of high spirits and subtle mystery to please both adults and children--Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol," for example. Or Ray Bradbury's classic The Halloween Tree. Eight b...

Hubby John shared this with me several weeks ago and I kept forgetting to post it, cause LIFE. I've seen a lot of advertising for mattresses using Goldilocks over the years--funny how it's almost always mattresses, never chairs, and rarely food--and this is one of my favorites to date. No, not the egg test but the fun references to the fairy tale make it charming for me. Mallory Everton, or Goldilocks here, is a favorite, too. There is also a behind the scenes video:

During this busy time, I've really missed the Fairy Tales in Advertising posts I enjoy sharing so much. Rank commercialism using fairy tales always fascinates me. This Geico commercial is one of the newest to use Sleeping Beauty. Commercial description: What if Prince Charming's kiss never woke Sleeping Beauty? What if Sleeping Beauty was never actually "asleep" at all? This latest 'It's What You Do' campaign commercial turns a classic fairy tale on its head with one of the oldest tricks in the book. I'll also share the behind the scenes, making of the commercial video:

Looking for a not scary, lighthearted fairy tale book for Halloween for the youngest people in your life? Then check out Fairy Tale Frankie and the Tricky Witch by Greg Gormley (Author) and Steven Lenton (Illustrator) . The fairy tale connection is generic characters from fairy tales--princess, king, knight, etc.--not specific fairy tales. Now I am trying to think if there are any Halloween related books with specific fairy tale characters in them. None are coming to mind. Anyway, this one will amuse the toddler set and is definitely not scary with lots of purple and pink to spare. I like that Frankie takes charge in the crisis and saves the day. And this doesn't have to be for Halloween, but it is a great book for the holiday, too. As always, clicking on an image will open a larger image of it to view and read the text. Book description: A little girl finds her house overrun with fairy tale characters all looking for somewhere to hide from the witch in this fast-paced and funny pi...

Bluebeard Illustration by Aaron McMillian So I am concerned that everyone thinks that SurLaLune is being neglected. The truth is, that is anything but true. Yes, it's been a horrendously busy year for me in all other areas of my life, but SurLaLune is always on my mind. A day doesn't pass when I don't think of it or do something with it at least behind the scenes. That said, most of the SurLaLune work is behind the scenes right now. But it will be rising again to public visibility soon. On the near horizon: 1. A NEW SurLaLune Fairy Tales site design is coming in the next few months! It's past time and this is what is taking a lot of focus from things like my blogging time but I have a team on this one this time. The new site will be modernized to fit mobile responsive needs, but we are aiming to keep the content as much the same as possible. 2. Three new SurLaLune Tales From Around the World books! Well, two new ones and a second edition on an older title. First up will...

The Witch: And Other Tales Re-Told by Jean Thompson is on sale in ebook edition for $1.99. Book description: A National Book Award finalist and bestselling author, Jean Thompson�s new collection of �bewitching improvisations on fairy tales� are �spellbinding� (Booklist, starred review). Jean Thompson�author of the National Book Award finalist Who Do You Love and the New York Times bestseller The Year We Left Home�is a writer at the height of her powers. Capturing the magic and horror in everyday life, Thompson revisits beloved fables that represent our deepest, most primeval fears and satisfy our longings for good to triumph over evil (preferably in the most gruesome way possible). From the wolf in �Little Red Riding Hood� to the beauty asleep in her castle, The Witch and Other Tales Retold triumphantly brings the fairy tale into the modern age.

(US and UK Links) It's the Disney Version!: Popular Cinema and Literary Classics by Douglas Brode (Editor) and Shea T. Brode (Editor)  was released over the summer and I'm playing catch up this week. I haven't read this one yet, but the brief skim of the intro leads me to believe it is more Disney apologist in tone than some might like, but I appreciated the arguments that were more pro-Disney--namely that Disney didn't create its fairy tale films out of a vacuum, but drew from other contemporary adaptations from stage and elsewhere, too. Examples and footnotes are provided, too, so this one intrigues me for the fairy tale adaptation discussions especially. Book description: In 1937, the first full-length animated film produced by Walt Disney was released. Based on a fairy tale written by the Brothers Grimm, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was an instant success and set the stage for more film adaptations over the next several decades. From animated features like and B...