Fractured Fairy Tales

Reviewed By Jennifer Hammond

This fractured fairy tale web site (http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/fft.html) was created by Betty Fraser in 1997 and is hosted by The Children's Literature Web Guide, a valuable resource in itself. This simple web site provides an annotated bibliography of fractured fairy tales in book form. The books are divided into three categories: picture books, fiction, and adult collections/novels. Fraser provides the author, title, and in many cases, the publication information and recommended age level. She provides a very succinct one-sentence annotation for each work.

This resource can be valuable for storytellers who enjoy fractured fairy tales or are looking for a different version to present. The books selected are excellent choices and would provide useful source materials for storytellers and teachers. However, the list is rather limited and doesn't appear to have been updated since its creation in 1997. There are other excellent examples, such as The Wolf at the Door by Ellen Datlow and Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson, which are not included.

Also, no information is given about the qualifications of Betty Fraser, the web site’s author. Her e-mail address is provided and a link to the sponsoring page, The Children’s Literature Web Guide, is provided.

The page is relatively free of large graphics, which makes the loading of the site very rapid. The design is very simple and easy to access. The Judith Viorst poem excerpt is a nice touch to the top of the page. Bookmark links to the three categories of books might have been helpful and made access even easier.