#cinderellis and the glass hill

[fairytale-poll]

ROUND 2B, MATCH 1 OUT OF 8!

Propaganda Under the Cut:

Ella of Frell:

She's had a "gift" of obedience placed on her, and her quest is to figure out how to get rid of it. I love her

he's under a curse that makes her obey any order given to her. She met her Prince Charming (Char) when they kids, and they became friends. Her stepsisters found out about her curse while they were at boarding school, and because of that (and some things they made her do) she ran away to try and find the fairy that cursed her. When she does, the fairy says that she doesn't do magic anymore, because she realized her gifts were actually curses, and refuses to remove it. Ella goes back, and is eventually demoted from "lord's daughter" to "maid". She still writes letters to Char (currently in a foreign kingdom, but before that, when he came to try and talk to her, her sister forbid her from leaving her room so she would have all his attention), but eventually stops and even writes a fake letter from her sister to convince him that she never cared/doesn't care about him, because she realized it would be too dangerous for them to be together; with her curse, she could easily be made to hurt or kill him. Flash forward, and Char returns home. The king throws balls, and she goes, because even if she can't be with or let him know who she is, she just wants to see him again. Char is drawn to her, and for a lot of the three balls, they're together. At the end, her stepsister gets jealous, and right as Char proposes (because Ella, despite having to lie about her identity, is the most honest person at the ball and a friend already), she grabs her mask, revealing her identity. Char reaches her home before she can leave, and there's a whole scene where he finds out she's a scullery maid, that the letter was a lie, and says that she doesn't have to be Ella if she doesn't want to be, and she says she's not, and he asks if she loves him, and she does-- and then it's all ruined because he accidentally orders her to marry him, and then her stepmother tells her to, and all the while she's fighting the curse, because she doesn't want to endanger him and their nation, and doesn't want her step family to be rich and powerful, and finally-- she says no. She gets so excited to say no, to refuse, that she didn't even fully realize she broke the curse until Mandy (her fairy godmother) tells her. Anyway, they all lived happily ever after. Ella is one of my favorite Cinderellas ever and I really hope I did a good job of explaining her and what her story is about (it's been a while since I've read the book)

I was so enraptured with this book as a kid, it had such an impact on my young mind. Got me into fantasy.

BEST CINDERELLA!!! please use the picture from the book cover and not the movie 🙏

She breaks her curse spell in such a magnificent way. Like yes she embodies the whole “kindness” and “courageous” characteristics that Cinderellas are known for, but for her she’s been forced to be obedient as well. And while she thinks can rise above anything she soon learns she will just hurt so many more people that way. She chose to be self-sacrificing because it was the one way she could express her love that wouldn’t harm anyone (then). But! But! She also ends up getting to be selfish! And that is also a great kindness! To herself and to those whom love her and she loves in return.  All that after she breaks the curse.

She can mimic languages. :) She refused to marry the love of her life and thus broke her curse. :) She fell in love via letters. :) She lied to the royal family that orange carriages are very popular in a nearby city.

brave, smart, a linguist, a nerd, she evolves steadily and beautifully throughout the book, with a sharp voice that never stops being distinctive and fun to hang with.

complex character coool as fuck premise and also. the nostalgia of it all

Cinderellis:

I submit him more as early cannon fodder than anything else, though he is a very fun and interesting character to follow in the 150ish page book we find him in, where he fulfills both the Cinderella main points of mythic importance, as well as a Ukrainian fairy tale involving the rule of three and how it applies to precious metals, and the materials one may use on a quest. Also, both he, and the girl he eventually marries are just fun characters to see the viewpoints of.

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[hazel-janes-books-galore]

2000 editions of The Fairy’s Mistake and The Princess Test by Gail Carson Levine.

2001 editions of Cinderellis and the Glass Hill and Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep by Gail Carson Levine. 

[haveyoureadthismgyabook]

Series info:

Book 1 of The Princess Tales

Book 2: The Princess Test

Book 3: Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep

Book 4: Cinderellis and the Glass Hill

Book 5: For Biddle's Sake

Book 6: The Fairy's Return

[hermesserpent-stuff]

ye. i like this question.

-

It is one of Peter's favorites. He has trouble choosing just one.

Ock: Thomas Hobbes the Leviathan. Dont ask. Electro: Black Beauty Vulture: Island of Doctor Moreau Rhino: doesn't really read Sandy: doesn't really read Tinkerer: Cinderellis and the Glass Hill Dan: Dave at Night Tombstone:The art of war Ox: Snow white and rose red Montana: The Black Stallion Quentin: The art of war/Cinderellis and the Glass Hill/Fairest

I only put books i read so that is a limiting factor.

[dotrousersmatter]

any good reads u'd recommend?

Cinderellis and the Glass Hill.

[whilereadingandwalking]

Signed Saturday

When I was young, I loved Gail Carson Levine, from the classic Ella Enchanted to one of my top ten childhood favorite books, Two Princesses of Bamarre, to the series of The Princess Tales, a really fantastic series of fairy tale retellings and mash-ups. So it was an absolute joy when my best friend gave me a surprise gift: a signed copy of Cinderellis and the Glass Hill. It’s signed “Climb every hill!” In this one, Levine tells the story of a young, downtrodden boy named Cinderellis, trying to earn the heart of princess Marigold.

Signed Saturdays is a weekly series at While Reading and Walking. I’m an avid book collector, and each Saturday, I’ll tell the story of one of my signed books. Feel free to join in at #SignedSaturdays.

[praise-the-lord-im-dead]

Reading Update: January 2017

I was on a bit of a Gail Carson Levine kick this month, it seems... • Cinderellis and the Glass Hill by Gail Carson Levine This was SO CUTE. I could read it a million times. (Come to think of it, I may have to buy it for my nieces when they're chapter-book age...) • The Fairy's Return by Gail Carson Levine Again. So adorable. • The Princess Test by Gail Carson Levine 💕 • The Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine I LOVED the dragon. Honestly, I think she was my favorite part. • The Penderwicks in Spring by Jeanne Birdsall I was able to not bawl for about 1/4 of this. Then I sobbed my way through the rest. (It's not a sad book! Just really, really heavy on the feelings and also relevant to personal experiences and...yeah. I cried a lot). • The Bhagavad Gita by Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa There was a lot of beautiful language and biblical parallels, but I'm still not entirely sure what was going on...it was very beautiful though. • Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett THANK YOU @septembersung for turning me on to the Discworld novels. This was the most epic slice of perfectness I've read in some time (Samuel Vimes is the best. So is Carrot. And Lady Ramkin. And EVERYBODY because this book is GLORIOUS). Oddly enough, most of my reading this month happened on January 1--I picked out a bunch of books and sat in bed all day churning through them. (And, as always, I'm halfway through about 20 various novels, so I've been slowly plugging away at those too) :)

[hotniatheron]

i was obsessed with her princess stories as a kid. it was cinderellis and the glass hill or nothing! 

[peter-pantomime]

Books

I’m sharing my favorite bits of entertainment (vids, podcasts, music, musicals, TV, stand-up, movies, fics, books, and arts and crafts) to try to help people keep their spirits up!

You can find everything here.

These are some of my favorite books. Enjoy!

Children’s

Picture Books

Dancing in the Wings, The Bunyans, Once Upon a Cloud, The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Going to Sleep on the Farm, Little Bear, Madeline, Eloise, Good Dog Carl, The Monster at the End of this Book

Chapter Books

Magic Tree House, The Secrets of Droon, A to Z Mysteries, Junie B. Jones

Other Media

Classical Kids, The Seal Maiden, Mathmagic, Between the Lions, Cyberchase, Arthur

Young Adult

Series

Once Upon a Time (The Storyteller’s Daughter, Sunlight and Shadow, Midnight Pearls, Golden, Before Midnight), Biddle (The Fairy’s Mistake, Cinderellis and the Glass Hill, For Biddle’s Sake, The Fairy’s Return, The Princess Test), The Royal Diaries (Cleopatra, Eleanor, Kaiulani, Jahanara, Mary, Anastasia), The Ranger’s Apprentice, The Princess Diaries (1-3), Island, Everest, Wayside School, Half Magic, The Children of Green Knowe, A Wrinkle in Time, Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Standalone

The Inquisitor’s Tale, The Two Princesses of Bamarre, Ella Enchanted, Just Ella, Fever 1793, Running out of Time, The Witches, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, The Secret of Platform 13, Which Witch, Dial-a-Ghost, The View from Saturday, A Proud Taste of Scarlet and Miniver, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, The Wish, Holes, Dogs Don’t Tell Jokes, The Boy Who Lost His Face, Who Put that Hair on my Toothbrush, Leap Year, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, The Phantom Tollbooth, Because of Winn-Dixie, The School Story

Comics and Graphic Novels

Star Wars (Princess Leia, Shattered Empire), Paper Girls, Saga, Funhome, Maus, The Prince and the Dressmaker

Fiction

Too Like the Lightning, Priory of the Orange Tree, His Dark Materials, The Sparrow, Bel Canto, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Mists of Avalon, The Last Unicorn, Harry Potter, The Raven Cycle, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, Carrie, IT, Death in Venice, Breakfast of Champions, Cat’s Cradle, Candide, Pride and Prejudice, The Grapes of Wrath, Frankenstein, Little Women, The Great Gatsby, The DaVinci Code, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Beloved

Classics and Poets

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Odyssey, The Iliad, Euripides Plays, Aeschylus The Oresteia, Sophocles Theban Plays, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, The Penelopiad, A.E. Housman, Mary Oliver, Richard Siken

Ethnographies

The Wordy Shipmates, On Looking, A Rumor of War, The Things They Carried, Mad Dogs, Englishmen, and the Errant Anthropologist, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

Academic Texts

Gender, Race, and Class in the Media, Cartoon Vision, Understanding Comics, Film Genre Reader IV, Story, Race, Class, and Gender in the United States, Dude, You’re a Fag, Interaction Ritual Chains, Nonviolent Communication, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Textual Poachers, Fandom (ed. Gray), Defining Magic, From Disgust to Humanity, The Sacred and the Profane, Nine Theories of Religion, Theories of Mythology (ed. Csapo)

[fairytale-poll]

ROUND 1B, MATCH 2 OUT OF 16!

Propaganda Under the Cut:

Cinderellis:

I submit him more as early cannon fodder than anything else, though he is a very fun and interesting character to follow in the 150ish page book we find him in, where he fulfills both the Cinderella main points of mythic importance, as well as a Ukrainian fairy tale involving the rule of three and how it applies to precious metals, and the materials one may use on a quest. Also, both he, and the girl he eventually marries are just fun characters to see the viewpoints of.

Danielle:

This series begins after the HEA and Danielle doesn't realize how much magic is really out there in the world. She is a wonderfully complex character who isn't afraid to say what she doesn't know. Really keeps the embodiment of Cinderella as a kind person

[the-knights-who-say-book]

Book Review: The Fairy's Return And Other Princess Tales by Gail Carson Levine

I was incredibly nostalgic about finishing this collection. If you enjoy fairytales but have never read Gail Carson Levine's retellings, I strongly suggest you do so right now. They're all clever, genuinely sweet tales that freshen up classics, and are just as enjoyable upon rereading as they were when I was a kid. Here are the titles of each short book, which can be found on their own, if you can’t locate a bind-up (the bind-up is available on hoopla if your library offers hoopla access!):

The Fairy's Mistake — One of my favorites as a kid, still really great! A fairy gives one sister a good spell and gives the other a curse... but the spells have opposite effects

The Princess Test — My other childhood favorite! All those tests that prove who a true princess is? Turns out they might also all apply to a very finicky village girl.

Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep — This is the only one I didn’t read as a kid, and I so enjoyed reading it now. Knowing she’s cursed to sleep for a hundred years when she grows up, a clever princess resists wasting any time sleeping in the meantime.

Cinderellis and the Glass Hill — My dad would read this to me as a kid. It’s still hilarious! Cinderellis can invent anything except a way to earn his brothers’ respect, until he finds a kindred spirit in a disguised princess.

For Biddle's Sake — OH MAN I also loved this one! A girl with green teeth enchants fairies and princes with her dazzling smile and kindness.

The Fairy's Return — This story INVENTED fantasy stories where characters have hilariously specific interests. A baker who specializes in inventing jokes attempts to reunite with his true love.

[commander-ralyle]

Reading "Writing Magic" by Gail Carson Levine, one of my favorite authors. She wrote Ella Enchanted and Fairest, but the stories I know her by are "The Princess Test", "The Fairy's Mistake", "Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep", "Cinderellis and the Glass Hill", "For Biddle's Sake", and "The Fairy's Return". As you can probably guess, they're rewritings of various well known fairy tales or even her originals. Though rewrites like these are brand new originals to me. They're so funny and easy to read! I suggest trying them sometime. She also wrote "Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg" which is a Disney Tinkerbell story and something I read after reading the fairy tales. I've read her other stories too and I love them all which is rare for me to love everything one person has written.

I didn't connect all of these stories to her until I found "Writing Magic". If you are going to chose a book on how to write, pick this one. Her writing is amazing and her advice even better. To give some examples, write even five minutes a day, don't let the negative voice get you down, and never ever delete or throw away anything you write until at least 15 years have gone by and even then do not throw it away lightly.

Her advice and stories on how to quiet and make that negative voice helpful really got to me and makes me want to try writing again. I think I really might this time. :) I think I might pull down the stories I wrote and posted and never finished long ago and work on them again.

Oh! Another piece of advice she had was work on 1-3 ideas at a time and only write down the ideas you get during that time with maybe a page of writing before returning to the ideas you have decided to work on. That's another thing that always gets me. X'D

Seriously, get this book. Read it. It's pretty easy to read and is a small book. And hopefully it helps you. :)

[codazura]

“Ellis was always lonely.” - Cinderellis and the Glass Hill, Gail Carson Levine

[dotrousersmatter]

Callout post for Cinderellis who was fucking shit at naming horses.

[archiveacademics]

Spotlight: Some retellings

Guys, I have a confession to make. I read...a lot.

Like, so much. Just...books, everywhere, all the time.

So it’s safe to say I’ve read a lot of retellings in my day and after last week’s discussion about what I deemed “literary fanfic” I’d like to share some of those wonderful retellings with you. For the sake of not making this blog post a mile long, I’m sticking solely to fairy tale retellings and even then, there’s a lot of them. Many of them are YA, but don’t let that distract you, these are well written and well loved books.

Series Retellings

I’d like to start off with a series called “Once Upon a Time is Timeless Once Again” put out by Simon and Schuster. It’s a wonderful set of books written by a few different authors covering a number of different fairy tales. There’s a Sleeping Beauty who defies her fate and goes on an adventure, a Cinderella who grows pumpkins on her mother’s grave, the Frog Prince set during WWII, and other retellings of tales you might not know as well like Shahrazad from the 1001 Nights and story of The Magic Flute.

What I love about these books is the creativity that goes into the retellings. I guess that’s kind of what I love about all retellings, but it’s hard to pinpoint just one thing over the course of so many books, so I’ll leave my praise a bit generic. 

Next is The Frog Princess by E. D. Baker. First in a series of books about an adventurous, clumsy, magic using princess who breaks all the rules her mother sets about what it means to be a princess. This book came before the Disney movie, but has a similar beginning: Princess kisses frog and turns into a frog herself. From there, it takes a very different turn from the movie. The two hapless frogs journey from the swamp back to the castle and along the way make lots of new friends, including a dragon and a talking bat. It’s cute and fun and there’s numerous sequels, though they’re not really retellings themselves, just continued adventures. 

The Wide-Awake Princess by E. D. Baker, however, does continue its fairy tale retelling theme through the rest of the series. The main character is Sleeping Beauty’s younger sister, on whom magic does not work. When her sister is pricked by a spindle it’s up to Annie to gather together a bunch of princes and bring them to her sister, in the hopes that one is her sister’s true love. Each successive book sees Annie taking on adventures in the realm of fairy tales from Snow White to Rose Red.

Jessica Day George has written many wonderful books, including Princess of the Midnight Ball, a retelling of the 12 Dancing Princesses. There are three books in the series about the twelve daughters of a widowed king who fight against the goblins and witches that want to destroy their happiness and take over their world.

If you’re a fan of Ella Enchanted (which I’ll get to later) then you know that Gail Carson Levine is a talented author. She also wrote a series of short books called The Princess Tales and they are simply delightful. From a fairy who gives a blessing that turns into a curse and vice versa, to a girl so obsessed with parsley she eats it until her teeth turn green, the characters in the Princess Tales are not what you expect out of a fairy tale, and yet they are just what they need to be. (My personal favorite is Cinderellis and the Glass Hill.)

Last but by no means least there’s The Lunar Chronicles, begun by the Cinderella retelling, Cinder. The Lunar Chronicles are a futuristic sci-fi masterpiece that bring us a cyborg Cinderella, freedom fighter Red Riding Hood, computer hacker Rapunzel, and alien princess Snow White. I honestly cannot recommend this series enough, it is so well done and quite fun to read.

Cinderella retellings

Ella Enchanted might have been one of the first times I ever read a book and realized it was a retelling of a fairy tale. I was absolutely delighted and perhaps a bit obsessed. But this book still holds a special place in my heart and if you’ve never read I insist you must (even if you’ve seen the movie because, well, there’s just no comparison!)

Do you like choose your own adventure stories? Do you like fairy tales? Then boy howdy are you going to love Maureen McGowan. Cinderella: Ninja Warrior is the choose your own adventure you never knew you needed in your life! It does exactly what it says on the tin, and it is so much fun to go through all the different options and see what happens.

And finally, if you want a little bit more LGBT in your life, I’d suggest Ash by Malinda Lo. It’s a beautiful tale and well worth a read. 

Sleeping Beauty retellings

If you want a more modern retelling, A Kiss in Time by Alex Flinn is great. Sleeping Beauty wakes up alright, right into the modern era. It’s told, at least partially, from the point of view of the hapless teen who managed to kiss her awake, only to end up having to take care of her and teach her the modern world.

Princess of Thorns, by Stacey Jay is based more on the original Italian version of Sleeping Beauty than the one you might be used to. There’s an Ogre and twin children, and lots of adventures.

Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert is a great coming of age story about a princess struggling to find her place when everything she’s known is suddenly ripped away.

Adult retellings

So all of these books are YA, but I wanted to include a few more adult retellings.

Enchantment by Orson Scott Card is a fascinating retelling of Sleeping Beauty that span continents and centuries. There’s time travel and Russia and Baba Yaga and a bear...I could go on and on about the delights of this book.

The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines is the first book of series that, according to Goodreads is apparently just called “Princess”? Either way, its a great mish-mash of different fairy tales and wonderful adventures. When Prince Charming goes missing, who better to find him than his beloved Cinderella?

And finally we’ve got the 500 Kingdoms series by Mercedes Lackey, one of my all time favorites. The first book is called The Fairy Godmother and tells the story of a Cinderella whose prince was too young. Magic has a way of forcing things to go it’s way, though, so who better to take the poor girl in as her apprentice than her very own fairy godmother?

And with that, I’ll stop throwing books at you.

So...that was just a really long list of books that I think are cool. I could list so many more. I really just adore fairy tale retellings. But this could have been a list of mythology retellings as well...

Speaking of which...I’ve actually written a couple retellings myself. It feels a bit self-important to link to them here, but...

Witches and Wolves

Cassandra

One is a fairy tale retelling, and one a mythology retelling, based on the Trojan War. 

You get bonus points if you can tell me which fairy tale the other story is based on.