Fierce Fairytales: Poems and Stories to Stir Your Soul

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This is filled with poetic retellings and short stories of fairy tales, as well as a few original tales. The first few poems were soo overdone — at first I thought I was reading my own poetry from when I was sixteen because I wrote about the exact same topic in the exact same way. Maybe the old woman in Hansel and Gretel was misaligned and wasn't the one who tried to eat the children but instead rescued them when their father abandoned them. Complete with beautifully hand-drawn illustrations by Gill herself, Fierce Fairytales is an empowering collection of poems and stories for a new generation. The language is great, all the self-love poems are fabulous, and I found so many good nuggets to remember for later.

A bit too much feminism (for my humble taste) but a lot of it was actually nice and mostly well-balanced.Right from that captivating cover, this book has had my attention and when I finally had the opportunity to participate in Read-India-Thon this week, I decided it was finally time to read it.

This book struck so many chords with me that I never expected going in, and as cliche as it sounds, I found things I never realised I was looking for within these pages. Reimagining traditional tales, this empowering collection of stories, poems and beautiful hand-drawn illustrations gives Once Upon a Time a much-needed modern makeover. It was wonderful to read this beautiful and creative writing, as they are a different angle on my favourite stories from childhood. However, the basic message of the poems, that girls and women have power and strength in themselves and do not need a man to rescue them, is a message all young girls need to hear. The only way to true equality is to work together to level the playing field; not to get revenge and one-up anyone over anyone else.Even when Gill uses her own voice, she takes that same attitude of both cautionary tale and sage advice. What if I told you, Cinderella's step mother was protecting her and preparing her to face the world?

Menuda preciosidad de libro y de poemas; desde la primera página, quedé absolutamente cautivada por la forma en que tiene la autora de transmitir tanto sentimiento, a través de sus relatos, tanto los originales como aquellos que reinterpretan los cuentos de hadas que todos conocemos, como el de Caperucita Roja, Hansel y Gretel, o Peter Pan. It’s just a bad line and I’m shocked it was given the green light to include in this final published version, because it’s just not good at all. I hardly ever read poetry, but sometimes some books just seem so interesting that they don’t leave you until you pick them up.You will meet fearless princesses, a new kind of wolf lurking in the concrete jungle, and an independent Gretel who can bring down monsters on her own. I know it might sound a bit deranged, but I would make sure that I would read some of the poems and stories in this book to my children to make them understand that stories, even though beautiful and magical, can be told in so many different ways. If you are a fan of fairytale retellings, especially ones which explore the classics in a more feminist perspective, then this collection is just perfect for you. Her mother told her she could grow up to be anything she wanted to be, so she grew up to become the strongest of the strong, the strangest of the strange, the wildest of the wild, the wolf leading the wolves.