Lisa Harkrader has generously chosen two commenters for her giveaway! Thank you, Lisa! And hearty congratulations to Donnell Ann Bell and Connie Berry!
Happy Wednesday! Patricia here. Today, we’re welcoming Lisa Harkrader to the blog. And Lisa has generously offered to gift one copy of Crumbled!, the first book in her Misadventures of Nobbin Swill series, to one lucky commenter.
Lisa, take us away!
Once Upon a Time, I Was Confused
I have a confession to make: I’ve never understood fairy tales.
When I was little, my parents read to me each night before bed. Often they read fairy tales, and I liked some of them. (I was especially fond of “The Shoemaker and the Elves.” Who wouldn’t want clever elves doing their work for them at night? I’d love to wake up and find stories finished and waiting on my computer.)
But these tales confused me. I thought people who lived back in fairy tale times must not have been, well, the sharpest axes in the forest. I mean, if you saw a wolf wearing your grandmother’s nightie, would you think he was your grandmother? Me, neither. My preschool self couldn’t figure out what was up with Little Red Riding Hood.
Despite this—or maybe because of it—fairy tales have left a big mark on my writing career.
It started with a story I wrote for a fractured fairy tale anthology. As confused as I am about fairy tales, I’ve always loved fractured fairy tales. They take those bits of traditional tales that don’t make sense and twist them into something funny. So I started rereading fairy tales to see which one I wanted to fracture. I kept running into Prince Charming, who swoops in and rescues the princess, and I thought, Is that the same guy? Is one prince going around saving princesses?
So in my story, “Rudy and the Prince,” that’s what happens. Prince Charming is trying to mind his own business, but he keeps running into princesses with problems. Being a nice guy, he helps them out, and when he gets home, he finds them all in the castle with his parents, waiting to live happily ever after.
“Rudy” left me itching to fracture another tale. I decided “The Emperor’s New Clothes” should happen to a middle school boys basketball team—and my first novel, Airball: My Life in Briefs, was born. In it, the team’s coach gives his uncoordinated players Stealth Uniforms, guaranteed to make them run faster, jump higher, be the athletes they were
always meant to be. Yes, the boys end up playing basketball in their underwear.
The three books in my Misadventures of Nobbin Swill series—Crumbled!, Croaked!, and Clocked!—are mystery/fairy tale mash-ups. When Nobbin, the son of a dung farmer, finds a ring in the dung, he thinks it’s his ticket out of the family business. Alas, the ring belongs to the king, and Nobbin’s no thief. When he returns the ring, he ends up helping the hapless Prince Charming (that guy is everywhere) solve mysteries: Where are Hansel and Gretel? Why is a frog suddenly bullying Princess Angelica? Did that masked girl at the ball swipe Charming’s lucky handkerchief?
People often tell writers: Write what you know. I think better advice might be: Write what you don’t understand. The process of trying to figure it out can lead stories to enchanted places.
Readers, for a chance to receive a copy of Crumbled!, the first book in the Misadventures of Nobbin Swill series, please answer this question in the comments: What fairy tales do you like—or dislike? Which one do you think needs a good fracture?
About Lisa Harkrader
Lisa Harkrader grew up in a small town that, to her disappointment, was not magical, enchanted, or populated by trolls. Luckily, she found the town library and its magical books. Luckier still, she grew up to be a writer and creates enchanted worlds for other readers. Lisa is the author of more than 40 books for children. She lives with her family in Kansas.
Website: www.lisaharkrader.com
Chicks on the Case 
I always found The Red Shoes terrifying!
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Oh, my gosh! Me, too, Eileen.
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Congrats, Lisa! What I found horrifying, when I grew older, was that the clean Disney-fied version of the fairy tales (most of them) were not the real story. Those Grimm brothers were, well, pretty grim sometimes.
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Yes, they were, Liz! A lot of these stories didn’t start out as stories for children, and many were cautionary tales, warning of the dire consequences of our evil behavior. A lot more terrifying than Snow White’s singing bluebirds. 🙂
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Lisa, thank you so much for visiting with us. I love your post! I’ve also often wondered why Little Red Riding Hood would think her grandmother looked like a wolf. Incomprehensible. And like Liz, I was shocked to learn how dark the original fairy tales were.
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Thanks for having me here today, Patricia, and thank you for the kind words. Yes, the original tales sometimes read more like slasher stories than the Little Golden Book versions I grew up with. 🙂
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Rapunzel, really, locked in a tower and still somewhat normal? HAH! Doesn’t sound like she even had a library in that tower!
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I agree—the lack of a library was the true evil in that story.
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Oh, Lisa–this is wonderful! I love Fractured Fairy Tales, and your imagination is perfect for those funny twists. My mom read fairytales and nursey rhymes to me as well. One that never made sense to me was Jack Spratt. “Why eat no lean?” It wasn’t logical. And I felt sooo sorry for the tigers who turned into buttermilk and the king who couldn’t get a little bit of butter for his bread. Some of those fairy tales were frightening. I remember seeing a nursery in Cardiff Castle. The worst possible fairytale images had been painted on the walls. How those children ever got a good night’s sleep I’ll never know.
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So true, Connie. I thought the same thing about Jack Spratt—he just chewed on the nasty old bits of fat we usually cut off? What was wrong with him? 🙂
And now it’s clear I must go to Cardiff Castle.
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Great post, Lisa! Classic fairy tales always confused me too. Still, I kept rereading them, mostly for the giants.
I loved what you did with The Emperor’s New Clothes in Airball. It’s one of my grandkids’ favorites.
The tale I’d like to see fractured is “The Brave Little Tailor.”
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Oooo, Ang! “The Brave Little Tailor” is ripe for fracturing. I can easily see it happening in an elementary school.
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oh my gosh, hysterical. That handsome prince has to be exhausted, either that old and decrepit after having to star in so many fairy tales:) great blog, Lisa
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Thanks, Donnell! Yes, Prince Charming has a lot on his plate. 🙂
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These sound delightful, Lisa. I think the Princess and the Pea would be a good one to fracture.
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Thanks, Mary! And yes, the Princess in the Pea is a great one. ❤️
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Welcome to Chicks today, Lisa–from Chicks Lisa! Very nice to meet you. What a fabulous post. I really, really need to read that Prince Charming story so I can find out how he handled all those waiting princesses, ha. My favorite is Cinderella. Loved the original musical and my fave “fractured” version: The Muppet’s hilarious Hey, Cinderella! (Oh, and kudos to Drew Barrymore’s Ever After.) But in general, no matter how beautifully illustrated, the original fairy tales (still) terrify me. As a child, I had horrible nightmares about being cooked in an oven after reading Hansel and Gretel. I was also traumatized by a live children’s play of Peter and the Wolf when the chicken was horribly mutilated and murdered and real gun sounds went off. The darkest story of all? The Little Match Girl. There’s no fracturing that one. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.
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I also had a horrible time after reading about Hansel and Gretel!
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Thanks, Chicks Lisa! I’m delighted to be here. And yes, The Little Match Girl is terrifying. Hans Christian Andersen went to some very dark places. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Muppets’ Hey, Cinderella!, but now I must.
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It was shocking when I first encountered Grimm’s fairy tales, how many of the characters did NOT get to live happily ever after!
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No, they don’t! Thanks for dropping by to read my post, GP!
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Thanks for being here, Lisa! Love the post & all your creative spins on fairy tales! I never quite understood Jack and the Beanstalk–why he’d want to climb that huge beanstalk…and his greed.
My fave fractured (YA) fairy tale series is The Lunar Chronicles, starting with Cinder.
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Thank you for the kind words, Jennifer. Yeah, “Jack and the Beanstalk” is a head scratcher. Even when I was little, I couldn’t help thinking, but he’s breaking into the giant’s house to steal things! I’ll look for The Lunar Chronicles. Thanks for the recommendation.
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Lisa, what a charming post! I totally agree with you.
I still have the Good Housekeeping’s Book of Fairy Tales (I think that’s the title) from my childhood. My favorites were not the traditional. One was about a prince who found princesses in three oranges – I don’t remember why, I have to re-read it – and chose one of them. The other was King Lear-ish. A king asks his daughters how much they love him and banishes the one who says she loves him more than salt. She wanders until she hooks up with a prince. The king happens to show up at the castle and she serves him a salt-less feast. When he complains, she says, “You see?!”
I used to think this fairy tale was made up in the salt-happy 1950s or 1960s, but I was in the Lorraine region of France this fall and went to two salt museums because it was a huge product for them in the 1700s. So maybe the fairy tale is older than I thought!
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Thanks, Ellen! That’s so interesting about the salt museums. I don’t think I’ve heard the two fairy tales you mentioned, but I will definitely look them up.
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It’s funny; when I was a kid I didn’t think anything about it, but you make an excellent case! I kind of can’t believe they ever let us read these stories. Thanks for joining us on the blog today! Your series sounds like so much fun!
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I know, Marla! But I read anything I could get my hands on, including spy thrillers and mysteries on my mom’s bookshelf. I remember doing a book report in 6th grade and writing about the agent’s courier being garroted in a hot tub. It caused quite the raised eyebrows from my teacher. 😄
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Such a marvelous post, Lisa! My favorite fractured fairy tale (besides the cartoon of that name that used to run during “Rocky and Bullwinkle” narrated by the marvelous Edward Everett Horton) is “Once Upon a Mattress,” with Carol Burnett in the starring role. I’m not a good sleeper, so that story really touches me. 🙂
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Yes, yes, yes, Leslie! I love “Once Upon a Mattress” starring Carol Burnett.
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That’s on my to-watch list!
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This sounds absolutely delightful. I’m going to have to give these books a try.
I’m a huge Disnerd, and my favorite of their versions is Belle. A woman who loves to read? I think I’m in love.
(If I’m not too late, please enter me in the giveaway.)
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I’m a complete Disnerd, too, Mark. I love that term—I’m going to use it all the time now. Thanks for reading my blog post.
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What a delight! Thank you for this! I love fairy tales and really enjoy how authors use them to create new and different stories. And I’ve done a re-telling of Jack & the Beanstalk, told from his mother’s point of view and, like you said, the greed was a bothersome theme in the original. So in my version, the story is about love. Anyway, thanks for a great post!
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Your retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk sounds fabulous. Love > greed always. 🙂
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Your retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk sounds fabulous. Love > greed always. 🙂
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