Interview With Popular Author Shannon Hale
Newberry Award Winner Explains Why She Creates New Fairy Tales
Aug 25, 2009
Readers get to see fairy tales in a different light when they’re written by Shannon Hale, author of the Newberry Award Honor book The Princess Academy. Her stories range from the popular Books of Bayern series, which flesh out new and classic characters from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale The Goose Girl, to Rapunzel’s Revenge, a graphic novel she co-wrote with her husband that re-imagines Rapunzel as a Western hero.
Suite 101 got Hale’s impressions of fairy tales via an August 22, 2009 email interview where she revealed her reasons for creating new versions of Brothers Grimm tales and shared her thoughts on allowing greater diversity in books for schools. The following is an edited version of the interview.
Creating New Fairy Tale Stories
S101: Your first young adult novel, The Goose Girl, and your fractured fairy tale Rapunzel’s Revenge are new versions of Grimm Brothers fairy tale stories. Why are you drawn to re-interpreting fairy tales?
SH: With The Goose Girl, my motivation was both a fondness for a story and a desire to understand it better. There were so many mysteries with the story (The horse! The prince! The wind!) I wanted to flesh it out and get to know it better.
With Rapunzel’s Revenge, my motivation was in part a complete frustration and annoyance with the original tale. So...she just sat in the tower? And waited? And when the prince kept coming back to visit, he couldn’t just bring a rope to get her out? I felt like I wanted to reclaim that story and give Rapunzel another chance.
S101: How challenging is it for you to turn these Grimm Brothers characters into empowered hero girls without taking them too far away from their fairy tale roots?
SH: I felt that Ani in Goose Girl kept the spirit of the original tale. She is not much of a girl in the beginning--sort of half formed, sheltered, shy, unsure. She holds back and waits and barely survives. It takes the danger and adventures she goes through for her to recognize and claim her own power.
But Rapunzel is a kind of parody of the original, so we didn’t hold back and had as much fun with it as we could. Honestly, I was so annoyed with the original Rapunzel tale I didn’t have any desire to pay homage to it.
S101: You also write new fairy tales that spotlight minor characters from The Goose Girl with Enna Burning, River Secrets, and Forest Born. Why did you want to write these fairy tales?
SH: It was the characters. Nothing but the characters. I never intended to write any sequels, but characters kept coming to me, demanding some attention--first Enna, then Razo, and now Razo’s sister Rin. They had stories to tell too, and their stories fascinated me.
Writing Fairy Tale Graphic Novels
S101: Having written prose novels with your Newberry Award winner The Princess Academy and graphic novels with Rapunzel’s Revenge, what would you say is different about the creative writing process for writing a book and writing a comic book script?
SH: Writing a graphic novel is a lot like writing a screenplay. While the form is different, the basics are the same--character, plot arc, words. I think both forms can be equally challenging. The biggest difference for me was the graphic novels were collaborative. It was tremendous fun to work with my husband on the writing and get to enjoy the art of Nathan Hale.
S101: What can you tell us about Calamity Jack, the sequel to Rapunzel’s Revenge?
SH: Calamity Jack will be out in January 2010! The art is even more incredible, and the story centers on Jack [from Jack and the Beanstalk], though Rapunzel’s a big part of it. It’s an urban tale, with Jack in the big city.
S101: Can we expect the three of you to write more graphic novels together?
SH: I think we’ll definitely go on for a third book, but we’re all so busy with other projects right now it’ll be a few years.
Books for Schools and Libraries
S101: You’ve written that we shouldn’t limit our cannon of “classics” to the usual realistic fiction books for schools. What do you consider the most stimulating and thought provoking books for libraries and schools?
SH: I do speak often on the need to diversify our high school literature curriculum. It’s not fair to the kids or the teachers to insist on the same old texts over and over again. I posted a sample reading list on my site. I don’t think it’s the one true list, but I think it pulls in different kinds of genres and styles that would be both instructive and stimulating to students.
Do you like reading author interviews? Then check out these behind-the-scenes talks with playwright Laurie Brooks, author of Selkie Girl, and sci fi author Alethea Eason, creator of Hungry.
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