Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Fairy Tale Retellings

"Top Ten Tuesday" is a bookish meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

So, I was glancing through my Bloglovin feed this morning, mug of tea in hand and eyes blearily scanning for something of merit to read over breakfast, and wouldn't you know it, seeing today's TTT theme woke me up faster than true love's kiss woke Sleeping Beauty. I know it might be a little bit late in my usual Top Ten posting habits, but honestly, I wasn't really planning on tackling a post today, until I knew I had to get involved with today's topics!

So, without further ado, here's some of my absolute faves from one of my favorite subgenres, divvied up according to the age at which I read them for the first time!

Elementary School

Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine

Literally everything else by Gail Carson Levine that was in our school's library

Yeah, yeah, so Ella Enchanted is pretty much on everyone's lists today, but it's because it was a pretty universally loved book (and lead to a very hotly-debated movie among my bookish friends)! But what about Gail Carson Levine's other retellings? Does anyone remember those little novelette-type books, that came with adorable pastel-colored book jackets, and were eventually released in one big collection??? What were they called?

Middle School

Once Upon a Time YA series, especially the ones by Debbie Viguie (like Midnight Pearls and Scarlet Moon)

I am absolutely on the look-out for these, as our library has sold them to make room for all the shiny new paperbacks that have tromped out the old paperbacks I read all the time, including these two titles especially. The original covers are stunning...

The Book of Lost Things, John Connolly

This book was WAY too scary for chicken-like little me to be reading at that age, which makes me want to revisit it all the more now, just to check up on whether it's really as creepy as I remember.

Princess Ben, Catherine Gilbert Murdock

I ended up buying this one for my Kindle while it was on an Amazon sale a couple years ago. I think I've reread it a handful of times since then, and I enjoy it every time.

Sisters Grimm series, Michael Buckley

I'm a big fan of using your younger siblings as an excuse for your enjoyment of things you'd otherwise be too "old" for, like Disney Channel, and technically-too-young-for-your-reading-level series like this one, about two sisters who move to a town with their Grandmother, and find our they're heirs to the Grimm dynasty of fairy-tale detectives. 

High School  

Cinder, Marissa Meyer

I love that the Lunar Chronicles series has been on almost every list I've looked at today. Tacoma resident, fairy tale enthusiast, best seller? Marissa Meyer can do no wrong. 

Splintered, A. G. Howard

I get weirdly protective of the history of Alice in Wonderland sometimes - I did a 12-page research paper on Charles Dodgson my senior year of high school, and I've never quite let go - but I genuinely enjoyed this title. I should probably read the rest of the series. 

Beastly...and anything else by Alex Flinn

I am astounded and disappointed that Alex Flinn didn't show up on more lists today. From Beastly, to Towering, to Cloaked, to A Kiss in Time, I have genuinely had a great time with each title I've read.

Avalon High, Meg Cabot

Yeah, there's no way I could say "high school" without having the name Meg Cabot somewhere near it. I don't know if King Arthur counts as a fair tale, but I'm making it count, because I still love this book. 

Afterword 

I'm getting massive amounts of reading done this summer, which is great and everything, but it says a lot that just thinking about some of the titles on this list whipped me straight back to summers all the way back to elementary school. 

Taking the worn paperbacks down from the meager YA section (which wasn't really a thing back then; it was mostly Fear Street books and timeworn teen romance novels that look like they could have been ordered from the back of Tiger Beat in a past decade, all stuffed into a couple wire racks hooked into the wall), and carrying them home in the bag I won on a Summer Reading Challenge a couple of years before (and I still have that bag), was a weekly ritual for me.

Now, I'm going into my Senior Year in College, and it's nice to know that these titles still hold so much meaning for me, even this many years later. Tale as old as time, I guess. 

What was on your Top Ten today?