Top Ten Tuesday: Beauty and the Beast Retellings
I know, Beauty and the Beast is far from the feminine ideology of the 21st century, but I love it. Maybe it’s because Belle is a girl that gives everything for her family and a bookworm to boot, maybe it’s because the Beast gives Belle an entire library as a gift – either way, it’s my favorite Disney animated film and I thoroughly enjoyed the live-action adaptation that was recently released. And I know, beyond the fact that the story is lacking in the feminism department, it’s also fairly lacking in the diversity department – if anyone knows of a retelling of Beauty and the Beast that is also diverse, please let me know!
For this week, I created a list of ten Beauty and the Beast retellings that I want to read someday, I love fairy tale retellings and as this is my favorite tale, I’m sure to enjoy these as well! And just to cover my blog, the above poster is copyrighted to The Walt Disney Company and I’m using it solely to promote this blog post (plus I love the details!)
- Beauty and the Beast: The Only One Who Didn’t Run Away by Wendy Mass
- The Beast Within by Serena Valentino
- Beastkeeper by Cat Hellisen
- As Old As Time: A Twisted Tale by Liz Braswell
- A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Mass
- Beastly by Alex Finn
- Beast by Donna Jo Napoli
- Beauty by Robin McKinley
- Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
- Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay
Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Book
6 Comments
Katy Goodwin-Bates
I am amazed that there are so many retellings of the same story! And surely everyone reads them with the Disney soundtrack in their heads, which must be very distracting…
Jackie L
Hunted by Meagan Spooner, which just came out this year, is a retelling of it that is much darker and makes great use of Slavic folklore. Beauty, or Yeva in this novel, is a way stronger female lead. She learned how to hunt from her father and is a fit and skilled young woman.
literacious
Awesome! I’ll definitely have to check that one out!
FranL
Check out Heart’s Blood by Juliet Marillier. It’s one of my favorites. The Fire Rose by Mercedes Lackey is also enjoyable!
literacious
I’ll definitely add those titles to my TBR list!
classroomandkitchen
Beauty and the Beast is my favorite fairy tale. I too love The Fire Rose. I have taught McKinley’s Beauty to my 7th grade for years. She has another retelling called Rose Daughter that is pretty wonderful too (like everything else by her!).