Let’s play a game!
A bookish tag of musical chairs, retold, and reimagined.
Myths, fairy tales, classics, movies, games, poems.. anything and everything is fair game to the brilliant minds of authors everywhere. All kinds of different cultures, beliefs, histories, and traditions are now being blended into these beautiful stories that can be appreciated by everyone.
How can we not take advantage of that?
There are so many books that have now been rewritten or reimagined in new and incredible ways that it almost beggars belief.. and most I’ve only learned about through other bloggers.
I’m hoping this tag will be a way for us to share some of our favorites with one another.
Rules:
- Remember to link back with my blog @ ReadBetwixtWords, I would love to see what you come up with!
- One bookish response per question, please.
- Don’t use the same retelling as the person before you.
- All are welcome to join!
- (If you have never come across, read, or been interested in one or more of these stories.. Just replace it in your own post with one that you have. Example: Change Peter Pan to The Little Mermaid and so on..)
I chose to mostly use books on my TBR but feel free to use what is best for you.
Now.. Let’s see just how many are out there!
Click on the image or link to see more about these books on Amazon!
(Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. Any purchases made through my links may earn me a small commission at no additional cost to you.)
Peter Pan:
Darling by K. Ancrum
On Wendy Darling’s first night in Chicago, a boy called Peter appears at her window. He’s dizzying, captivating, beautiful—so she agrees to join him for a night on the town.
Wendy thinks they’re heading to a party, but instead they’re soon running in the city’s underground. She makes friends—a punk girl named Tinkerbelle and the lost boys Peter watches over. And she makes enemies—the terrifying Detective Hook, and maybe Peter himself, as his sinister secrets start coming to light. Can Wendy find the courage to survive this night—and make sure everyone else does, too?
The Secret Garden:
The Humming Room by Ellen Potter
Hiding is Roo Fanshaw’s special skill. Living in a frighteningly unstable family, she often needs to disappear at a moment’s notice. When her parents are murdered, it’s her special hiding place under the trailer that saves her life.
As it turns out, Roo, much to her surprise, has a wealthy if eccentric uncle, who has agreed to take her into his home on Cough Rock Island. Once a tuberculosis sanitarium for children of the rich, the strange house is teeming with ghost stories and secrets. Roo doesn’t believe in ghosts or fairy stories, but what are those eerie noises she keeps hearing? And who is that strange wild boy who lives on the river? People are lying to her, and Roo becomes determined to find the truth.
Despite the best efforts of her uncle’s assistants, Roo discovers the house’s hidden room–a garden with a tragic secret.
Red Riding Hood:
The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid
In her forest-veiled pagan village, Évike is the only woman without power, making her an outcast clearly abandoned by the gods. The villagers blame her corrupted bloodline—her father was a Yehuli man, one of the much-loathed servants of the fanatical king. When soldiers arrive from the Holy Order of Woodsmen to claim a pagan girl for the king’s blood sacrifice, Évike is betrayed by her fellow villagers and surrendered.
But when monsters attack the Woodsmen and their captive en route, slaughtering everyone but Évike and the cold, one-eyed captain, they have no choice but to rely on each other. Except he’s no ordinary Woodsman—he’s the disgraced prince, Gáspár Bárány, whose father needs pagan magic to consolidate his power. Gáspár fears that his cruelly zealous brother plans to seize the throne and instigate a violent reign that would damn the pagans and the Yehuli alike. As the son of a reviled foreign queen, Gáspár understands what it’s like to be an outcast, and he and Évike make a tenuous pact to stop his brother.
As their mission takes them from the bitter northern tundra to the smog-choked capital, their mutual loathing slowly turns to affection, bound by a shared history of alienation and oppression. However, trust can easily turn to betrayal, and as Évike reconnects with her estranged father and discovers her own hidden magic, she and Gáspár need to decide whose side they’re on, and what they’re willing to give up for a nation that never cared for them at all.
Alice in Wonderland:
❤ Pandora Hearts by Jun Mochizuki
The air of celebration surrounding fifteen-year-old Oz Vessalius’s coming-of-age ceremony quickly turns to horror when he is condemned for a sin about which he knows nothing. He is thrown into an eternal, inescapable prison known as the Abyss from which there is no escape. There, he meets a young girl named Alice, who is not what she seems. Now that the relentless cogs of fate have begun to turn, do they lead only to crushing despair for Oz, or is there some shred of hope for him to grasp on to?
Pride and Prejudice:
Unmarriagable by Soniah Kamal
Alys Binat has sworn never to marry—until an encounter with one Mr. Darsee at a wedding makes her reconsider.
A scandal and vicious rumor concerning the Binat family have destroyed their fortune and prospects for desirable marriages, but Alys, the second and most practical of the five Binat daughters, has found happiness teaching English literature to schoolgirls. Knowing that many of her students won’t make it to graduation before dropping out to marry and have children, Alys teaches them about Jane Austen and her other literary heroes and hopes to inspire the girls to dream of more.
When an invitation arrives to the biggest wedding their small town has seen in years, Mrs. Binat, certain that their luck is about to change, excitedly sets to work preparing her daughters to fish for rich, eligible bachelors. On the first night of the festivities, Alys’s lovely older sister, Jena, catches the eye of Fahad “Bungles” Bingla, the wildly successful—and single—entrepreneur. But Bungles’s friend Valentine Darsee is clearly unimpressed by the Binat family. Alys accidentally overhears his unflattering assessment of her and quickly dismisses him and his snobbish ways. As the days of lavish wedding parties unfold, the Binats wait breathlessly to see if Jena will land a proposal—and Alys begins to realize that Darsee’s brusque manner may be hiding a very different man from the one she saw at first glance.
Baba Yaga:
The House With the Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson
All 12-year-old Marinka wants is a friend. A real friend. Not like her house with chicken legs. Sure, the house can play games like tag and hide-and-seek, but Marinka longs for a human companion. Someone she can talk to and share secrets with.
But that’s tough when your grandmother is a Yaga, a guardian who guides the dead into the afterlife. It’s even harder when you live in a house that wanders all over the world . . . carrying you with it. Even worse, Marinka is being trained to be a Yaga. That means no school, no parties — and no playmates that stick around for more than a day.
So when Marinka stumbles across the chance to make a real friend, she breaks all the rules . . . with devastating consequences. Her beloved grandmother mysteriously disappears, and it’s up to Marinka to find her — even if it means making a dangerous journey to the afterlife.
Lord of the Flies:
Damselfly by Chandra Prasad
In the wake of crash-landing on a deserted tropical island, a group of private-school teens must rely on their wits and one another to survive.
Their survival is in their own hands…Samantha Mishra opens her eyes and discovers she’s alone and injured in the thick of a jungle. She has no idea where she is, or what happened to the plane taking her and the rest of the Drake Rosemont fencing team across the Pacific for a tournament.
Once Sam connects with her best friend, Mel, and they find the others, they set up shelter and hope for rescue. But as the days pass, the teens realize they’re on their own, stranded on an island with a mysterious presence that taunts and threatens them. Soon Sam and her companions discover they need to survive more than the jungle… they need to survive each other.
Beauty and the Beast:
Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
Betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom, Nyx has always known that her fate was to marry him, kill him, and free her people from his tyranny. But on her seventeenth birthday when she moves into his castle high on the kingdom’s mountaintop, nothing is what she expected—particularly her charming and beguiling new husband. Nyx knows she must save her homeland at all costs, yet she can’t resist the pull of her sworn enemy—who’s gotten in her way by stealing her heart.
Mulan:
The Warrior Maiden by Melanie Dickerson
When Mulan takes her father’s place in battle against the besieging Teutonic Knights, she realizes she has been preparing for this journey her whole life—and that her life, and her mother’s, depends on her success. As the adopted daughter of poor parents, Mulan has little power in the world. If she can’t prove herself on the battlefield, she could face death—or, perhaps worse, marriage to the village butcher.
Disguised as a young man, Mulan meets the German duke’s son, Wolfgang, who is determined to save his people even if it means fighting against his own brother. Wolfgang is exasperated by the new soldier who always seems to be one step away from disaster—or showing him up in embarrassing ways.
From rivals to reluctant friends, Mulan and Wolfgang begin to share secrets. But war is an uncertain time and dreams can die as quickly as they are born. When Mulan receives word of danger back home, she must make the ultimate choice. Can she be the son her bitter father never had? Or will she become the strong young woman she was created to be? This fresh twist on the classic tale takes us to fifteenth-century Lithuania where both love and war challenge the strongest of heroes.
The Jungle Book:
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Bod is an unusual boy who inhabits an unusual place—he’s the only living resident of a graveyard. Raised from infancy by the ghosts, werewolves, and other cemetery denizens, Bod has learned the antiquated customs of his guardians’ time as well as their ghostly teachings—such as the ability to Fade so mere mortals cannot see him.
Can a boy raised by ghosts face the wonders and terrors of the worlds of both the living and the dead?
Sleepy Hollow:
Crane by Stacey Rourke
The Horseman is unending,
his presence shan’t lessen.
If you break the curse,
you become the legend.
Washington Irving and Rip Van Winkle had no choice but to cover up the deadly truth behind Ichabod Crane’s disappearance. Centuries later, a Crane returns to Sleepy Hollow awakening macabre secrets once believed to be buried deep.
What if the monster that spawned the legend lived within you?
Now, Ireland Crane, reeling from a break-up and seeking a fresh start, must rely on the newly awakened Rip Van Winkle to discover the key to channeling the darkness swirling within her. Bodies are piling high and Ireland is the only one that can save Sleepy Hollow by embracing her own damning curse.
But is anyone truly safe when the Horseman rides?
Snow White:
❤ Akagami no Shirayukihime (Snow White with the Red Hair) by Sorata Akizuki
Shirayuki is famous for her naturally bright-red hair, and the prince of Tanbarun wants her all to himself! But when she escapes into the woods of the neighboring kingdom, a young man named Zen and his two friends come to her aid. But who is Zen really…?
This volume also features a special one-shot, “Colorful Seasons of August”!
Little Women:
The Spring Girls by Anna Todd
The Spring Girls—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—are a force of nature on the New Orleans military base where they live. As different as they are, with their father on tour in Iraq and their mother hiding something, their fears are very much the same. Struggling to build lives they can be proud of and that will lift them out of their humble station in life, one year will determine all that their futures can become.
The oldest, Meg, will be an officer’s wife and enter military society like so many of the women she admires. If her passion—and her reputation—don’t derail her.
Beth, the workhorse of the family, is afraid to leave the house, is afraid she’ll never figure out who she really is.
Jo just wants out. Wishing she could skip to graduation, she dreams of a life in New York City and a career in journalism where she can impact the world. Nothing can stop her—not even love.
And Amy, the youngest, is watching all her sisters, learning from how they handle themselves. For better or worse.
Sleeping Beauty:
A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan
Rosalinda Fitzroy has been asleep for sixty-two years when she is woken by a kiss. Locked away in the chemically induced slumber of a stasis tube in a forgotten subbasement, sixteen-year-old Rose slept straight through the Dark Times that killed millions and utterly changed the world she knew. Now, her parents and her first love are long gone, and Rose– hailed upon her awakening as the long-lost heir to an interplanetary empire– is thrust alone into a future in which she is viewed as either a freak or a threat. Desperate to put the past behind her and adapt to her new world, Rose finds herself drawn to the boy who kissed her awake, hoping that he can help her to start fresh. But when a deadly danger jeopardizes her fragile new existence, Rose must face the ghosts of her past with open eyes– or be left without any future at all.
Alladin:
The Stolen Kingdom by Bethany Atazadeth
Princess Arie never expects to manifest a forbidden Jinni’s Gift. When she begins to hear the thoughts of those around her, she hides it to the best of her ability.
But to her dismay, the Gift is growing out of control. When a neighboring king tries to force her hand in marriage and steal her kingdom, discovery becomes imminent. Just one slip could cost her throne. And her life.
A lamp, a heist, and a Jinni hunter’s crew of thieves are her only hope for removing this Gift–and she must remove it before she’s exposed. Or die trying.
One Thousand and One Nights:
A Thousand Nights by E.K. Johnston
Lo-Melkhiin killed three hundred girls before he came to her village, looking for a wife. When she sees the dust cloud on the horizon, she knows he has arrived. She knows he will want the loveliest girl: her sister. She vows she will not let her be next. And so she is taken in her sister’s place. Night after night, Lo-Melkhiin comes to her and listens to the stories she tells, and day after day she is awoken by the sunrise. Exploring the palace, she begins to unlock years of fear that have tormented and silenced a kingdom. Lo-Melkhiin was not always a cruel ruler. Something went wrong.
Far away, back in their village, her sister is mourning. Through her pain, she calls upon the desert winds, conjuring a subtle unseen magic, and something besides death stirs the air. Then at the palace, the words she speaks to Lo-Melkhiin every night are given a strange life of their own. Little things, at first: a dress from home, a vision of her sister. With each tale she spins, her power grows. Soon she dreams of bigger, more terrible magic: power enough to save a king, if she can put an end to the rule of a monster.
And that’s a wrap!
I hope you enjoyed this post and found a few new (to you) books that caught your eye.
I know there are a lot more out there than this post covered but I’m excited to see what’s out there so.. Jump in, share the retellings you’ve enjoyed, and let’s see how many we can come up with!
Did you enjoy this post?
What has been your favorite retelling so far?
Wow that’s a cool list… I don’t even know most of them. Definitely gonna checkout a few of these 😊😊
Hey, that’s great! I hope you find something you like.. I know I’m looking forward to quite a few of them!
You are so cruel, Sheri. My kindle is stuffed with books and every one of these sounds marvelous! Ha ha. For the longest time, I steered clear of retellings. Why read a story I already know? That short-sightedness is no longer a problem. Thanks for sharing your list.
I’m on book 3 of Katherine Arden’s Winternight Trilogy which is a retelling of a Russian Folk tale. Loving it. 🙂
Lol, I’m sorry! I had the same issue in the beginning.. I couldn’t figure out why they were so popular but, wow, are some of them creative.
So glad you enjoyed it and thank you for taking the time!
And that’s fantastic to hear.. I really need to read those books. I loved her ‘Small Spaces’ series and the Winternight trilogy sounds just as promising. Her writing is beautiful. Enjoy!
I loved the Russian folklore, Sheri. And I wasn’t familiar with the tale. The series was wonderful. I was entranced.
I’m so glad you enjoyed them! Russian folklore is a favorite of mine so I get the feeling I’ll adore the series.. I just need to find some time to squeeze them in.
Stay safe and have a beautiful week!
Ahh this such a cool tag! Adding these to my TBR now!
Thank you! I’m so glad and I hope you enjoy them! 😁🌹