Once Upon a Time

What can I say, I’m a sucker for Carl’s (of Stainless Steel Droppings) challenges. He always puts on a good one and I love his topics, so here’s another one I’m doing. This one only runs for a couple of months, and it’s fairly easy, so I’m not worried about it.

The Once Upon a Time challenge is the celebration of the transformative power of literature, specifically those books which can be categorized under the headings of fantasy, fairy tale, folklore, and mythology.  That’s a mouthful, but I’m taking it to mean we get to read novels involving fairy tales, mythology or any other form of the many legends/stories that our society has.  Since this challenge runs between March 21st and June 20th, the details are not that convoluted, so anyone can join in.  It’s one of the great aspects of Carl’s challenges, there are various levels of participation, depending on what you want to do, so no one has to feel pressured or frantic to get some reading down.  For me, I’m choosing the Quest the First level:

Read at least 5 books that fit somewhere within the Once Upon a Time III criteria. They might all be fantasy, or folklore, or fairy tales, or mythology…or your five books might be a combination from the four genres.

I won’t say which 5 books I’m going to do, because quite honestly, they could change, but I know there are 2 books I want to read.  The first is Robin McKinley’s Beauty: A Retelling of the story of Beauty and the Beast and the second is Donna Jo Napoli’s Zel, both of which are part of my Theme Reading Challenge.  I loved Sunshine by Robin McKinley, so this will give me a chance to read another novel by McKinley and I’ve heard great things about Zel. So that’s all I’m saying at the moment, but if anyone knows of some great novels to include in this challenge, let me know.  I’m always looking for new authors/novels.