Summer Reading -- Beauty and the Beast?
Posted by JacqueJ on May 27, 1998 at 10:47:27:
For you summertime reading pleasure...
I don’t know if this would make a good discussion for the Library Board or not, but it may be interesting to some readers. The story of Beauty and the Beast has always been one of my favorites and recently I picked up the book Beauty at our school’s book fair. It is a retelling of the story by Robin McKinley, written about 20 years ago. It is considered a “young adult book”, though I am not entirely sure what defines that genre. In any case, it is a lovely read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Then I was fascinated to find out that now, 20 years later, Robin McKinley has again re-written the story, recently published under the title Rose Daughter. I have now read it and it is a lovely, if very different read. (Frankly, I preferred the first book, but that is based on some of my own ideas about the story).
I was fascinated by these books for two reasons -- one, because of the approach she took in re-telling the familiar story, giving it new depth and fleshing out the characters, and second, because she did it twice, first as a younger writer and now as a more mature writer, having published several more works in the meantime.
If you do read Rose Daughter, I recommend you reading her comments at the end of the book. She talks about why she wrote it the second time and about her experience with the process of writing fiction. Very interesting.
So if you are casting about for something to read this summer....
- McKinley Kate 21:00:44 5/27/98
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