Magic mirror on the wall, is a classic tale really better after all?
Whether it’s a childhood fairytale or a beloved Jane Austen novel, some classic stories not only beg to be reread but also retold and sometimes reinvented. In this category, authors add a refreshing twist to the tales we know and love.
The Amazing Book Challenge encourages adult and teen readers to broaden their reading interests by discovering new subjects, series, or authors — something they may not have read on their own.
For the full list of recommendations and to see the rest of the monthly themes, go to www.naperville-lib.org/ABC.
“Lore Olympus” by Rachel Smythe (Retelling of Hades & Persephone)
Scandalous gossip, wild parties and forbidden love — witness what the gods do after dark in this stylish and contemporary reimagining of one of mythology’s most well-known stories. Smythe’s original Eisner-nominated web-comic “Lore Olympus” brings the Greek Pantheon into the modern age with this sharply perceptive and romantic graphic novel.
“The Bear and the Nightingale” by Katherine Arden (Inspired by Russian folklore)
At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn’t mind — she spends the winter nights listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife who forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. As misfortune stalks the village and danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse’s most frightening tales.
“The Chosen and the Beautiful” by Nghi Vo (Retelling of “The Great Gatsby”)
Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society — she has money, education and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She’s also queer, Asian, adopted and treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her. But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how.
“Frankenstein in Baghdad” by Aḥmad Saʻdāwī (Retelling of “Frankenstein”)
More Top Picks Electric Grill
From the rubble-strewn streets of U.S.-occupied Baghdad, Hadi — a scavenger and an oddball fixture at a local café — collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and to give them a proper burial. But when the corpse goes missing and a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, Hadi soon realizes he’s created a monster, one that needs human flesh to survive — first from the guilty, and then from anyone in its path.
“Unmarriageable” by Soniah Kamal (Retelling of “Pride & Prejudice”)
A scandal and a 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 Jane Austen and other literary heroes to schoolgirls. During a party, Alys’s older sister catches the eye of the wildly successful entrepreneur Fahad “Bungles” Bingla. But Bungles’ friend Valentine Darsee is unimpressed by the Binat family. As the days of lavish wedding parties unfold, Alys and her family wait breathlessly to see if Jena will land a proposal — and she begins to realize that Darsee’s brusque manner may be hiding a very different man from the one she judged at first glance.
“Legendborn” by Tracy Deonn (Retelling of Arthurian legend)
After her mother dies in an accident, 16-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape — until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus. When a mysterious teenage mage part of a secret society called “Legendborn” fails to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw, Bree’s own magic and a buried memory resurface: the night her mother died, another mage was at the hospital. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down — or join the fight.
Ashlee Conour is the marketing specialist at Naperville Public Library.