Gender Swapped Fairy Tales

by Karrie Fransman, Jonathan Plackett

Overview

Imagine a world where kings prick their fingers as they sew, wolves wear heels, and princesses race to rescue sleeping princes...

People have been telling fairy tales to their children for hundreds of years. And for almost as long, people have been rewriting those fairy tales – to help their children imagine a world where they are the heroes. Karrie and Jon were reading their child these stories when they hit upon a dilemma, something previous versions of these stories were missing, and so they decided to make one vital change..

They haven’t rewritten the stories in this book. They haven’t reimagined endings, or reinvented characters. What they have done is switch all the genders.

It might not sound like that much of a change, but you’ll be dazzled by the world this swap creates – and amazed by the new characters you’re about to discover.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780571360185
Publisher:	Faber and Faber
Publication date:	10/19/2021
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	585,233
Product dimensions:	7.70(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Karrie Fransman writes and draws visual stories and comics that have been published in The Guardian, The Times, The BBC, Time Out, The Telegraph, The New Statesman, The Young Vic, Psychologies Magazine, The Arts Council and The Goethe Institute. She published two graphic novels with Penguin Random House, The House That Groaned, and the award winning Death of the Artist. She developed an award winning comic about a teenage refugee, for The British Red Cross, created a 2 storey installation for Southbank Centre and was commissioned to make a ‘Selves Portrait’ for an exhibition with Manchester Art Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. You can see more of her work at karriefransman.com

Jonathan Plackett is a Creative Technologist / Thinker / Maker / Coder / Game Designer / Author. He specialises in creating playful and shareable interactive experiences including apps, websites, filters, music videos, games and books. His work has been featured in worldwide press including The Wall Street Journal, Der Spiegel, The Times, The Telegraph and the BBC. He is the creator of Face Juggler, the first automatic face swap app, which hit #1 in the App Store with 6 million downloads. He created a live interactive music video for OKGO featuring the faces of all the fans sharing the live stream. He created the 'Draw and Fold Over' website and app for The Campaign for Drawing, which allows friends to play 'exquisite corpse' online. Hundreds of thousands of people have created drawings together. You can see more of his work at plackett.co.uk and get in touch via Twitter @jonplackett

Editorial Reviews

08/30/2021

Fransman (The House That Groaned) and debut author Plackett reflect a world in which gender roles are not so strictly defined in this charming collection of 12 lightly retold fairy tales. In “Handsome and the Beast,” it is the beautiful son of a female merchant who encounters a female Beast. A princess who’s out hunting wakes a sleeping prince in “The Sleeping Handsome in the Wood.” While some of the gender changes are more whimsical—it is a rooster who lays the golden eggs in “Jacqueline and the Beanstalk”—outside of the gender bending, the beats of the stories themselves remain exactly the same: Snowdrop’s vain evil stepfather still tries to kill him once with laces, once with a comb, and finally with a poisoned apple, and Thumbalina—now Thumbalin—still finds his home among the flowers. There’s nothing radical here, and though the authors discuss trans and nonbinary identities in their introduction, they’re not explicitly present in the tales themselves. But even these mild revisions breathe fresh air into well-known and loved tales, breaking up conventional dynamics and outdated ideologies. Coupled with vibrant illustrations from Fransman, this is sure to enchant adults and children alike. Agent: Sophie Lamber, C+W Agency. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"I only intended to look at it . . . but I’m completely drawn in. I love it. The language is fantastic. The gender swaps I hope will undo all my unconscious bias and I’ll find my inner power! Fabulous." — Philippa Perry

"Startling and refreshing, thought-provoking and unique, this book will stay with me. Its genius is that it feels like a timeless classic – beautifully illustrated, a joy to share – even as it shakes the gender stereotypes in our most beloved stories by their roots." — Jess Kidd

"We were both fed a strict diet of fairytales as children so we were instantly captivated by Karrie and Jonathan’s impressive reimaging of these age old tales. We were shocked that the simple premise of gender swapping the characters completely changed the way we connected to the stories. What would it have been like for Dev to grow up in a world where he was being read stories about vulnerable men who are praised for their emotional intelligence rather than their physical strength. Or for Tilda to have grown up play-acting the brave hero rather than the damsel in distress. If we are going to change the world we live in we need to inspire the next generation of changemakers to dream bigger. We believe this book is a part of this change." — Tilda Cobham-Hervey and Dev Patel

"I will share this book with my own family and take into school soon, but for now I am still reading, re-reading and poring over the illustrations for my own reading enjoyment. It is an incredible book and would make the best Christmas gift for young and old!" — MyShelvesAreFull

"It’s one thing to know that misogynistic stereotypes exist, another to peer into the machine that creates them . . . The illustrations also back up the aim of the book by disrupting stereotypes . . . an important reminder that the way we tell stories matters." — Independent

"Fransman and Plackett’s clever and revelatory revisions breathe fresh life into familiar stories as girls outsmart their foes and slay monsters while princes are allowed to express their anxieties and fears with a good, healthy cry." — Booklist 

"Sure to enchant adults and children alike." — Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

10/01/2021

Gr 7 Up—Fransman and Plackett alter the gender markers in classic fairy tales for this collection, including "Handsome and the Beast," "Gretel and Hansel," and "Thumbelin." Each story is accompanied by illustrations that are vibrant and inviting, which greatly assists the implementation of the authors' intention to present these tales as authentic alternatives to the originals. Although these changes are an interesting exercise in theory, the authors' decision to only change gender markers and leave the remainder of the text untouched creates situations that jar the continuity of the stories. The context-less inclusion of archaic language that has since changed in meaning is disruptive to the overall storytelling. VERDICT A candidate for inclusion in a collection catering to academic analysis, but unlikely to be a worthwhile selection for a less formal setting.—Austin Ferraro, Brambleton Lib./Loudoun County P.L., Brambleton, VA

School Library Journal