Do we want them to learn that you cannot improve your body by going under the knife? That Cinders cannot hide true beauty, which will attract royal inheritors of unearned wealth? That stepmothers are evil? That fathers are manipulable? That Disney is so ubiquitous that it’s impossible for children to avoid?

Gender Swapped Fairy Tales by Karrie Fransman | Goodreads Gender Swapped Fairy Tales by Karrie Fransman | Goodreads

Startling and refreshing, thought-provoking and unique, this book will stay with me. Its genius is that it feels like a timeless classic – beautifully illustrated, a joy to share – even as it shakes the gender stereotypes in our most beloved stories by their roots."— Jess Kidd Fairy tale retellings are great ways of taking the original stories and turning them into something better, that is not filled with stereotypes

Snow Truer Love: An Adult Gender Swapped Snow White Retelling: Volume 5 (Sexy Gender Swapped Fairy Tales) Disney’s Cinderella gives us comically unattractive stepsisters, but at least their feet stay intact. Which version is better for small children? If I’m finding a working mother more distracting than a magic hen or a talking mole, I have more work to do pulling the copper wire of princessdom from my brain. ‘I’ll be giving Gender Swapped Fairy Tales to every child I can come Christmas’ (Photo: Karrie Fransman) Fairy tales are still an extremely popular genre, there are hundreds of fairy tale retellings that exist. However, they are often influenced by the original story and turned into something new. For example, A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas is a Beauty and the Beast retelling but Feyre, the main character is not described as weak and she refuses to be trapped inside the castle. This is the same for another Beauty and the Beast retelling, A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer, this story’s heroine is Harper, a girl with Cerebral Palsy and she is described as being both physically and mentally strong. The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer adapts the stories of Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Snow White. The main female characters in this series are all extremely clever and are presented very positively. Fairy tale retellings are great ways of taking the original stories and turning them into something better, that is not filled with stereotypes. It is so important for there to be adequate representation in books for all ages. The majority of fairy tale retellings I have read with strong female characters are either in the Young Adult or New Adult genres, but these kinds of characters need to be accessible in literature for younger children also.

Gender Swapped Stories - Karrie Fransman Gender Swapped Stories - Karrie Fransman

I’ll be giving Gender Swapped Fairy Tales to every child I can come Christmas, in a thinly veiled cover for shoving it into the hands of their parents – undoubtedly, it is they who need it most. Handsome and the Beast: An Adult Gender Swapped Fairy Tale: Volume 4 (Sexy Gender Swapped Fairy Tales) Imagine a world where princesses in shining armour race to rescue their sleeping princes, kings sit by the window sewing and longing for a child and kind-hearted men are rewarded for looking past the flaws of beastly princesses. The illustrations by Karrie Fransman, boldly coloured in watercolour and ink, are full of rich detail, like a beautiful gown adorned with jewels and embroidered embellishments. Karrie researched classical paintings of illustrated fairy tales, and used the references as a starting point, “I then began to draw my own gender-swapped versions, paying attention to the new power balance in each image.”Karrie Fransman writes and draws visual stories and comics that have been published in The Guardian, The Times, The BBC, Time Out, The Telegraph, The New Statesman, The Young Vic, Psychologies Magazine, The Arts Council and The Goethe Institute. She published two graphic novels with Penguin Random House, The House That Groaned, and the award winning Death of the Artist. She developed an award winning comic about a teenage refugee, for The British Red Cross, created a 2 storey installation for Southbank Centre and was commissioned to make a ‘Selves Portrait’ for an exhibition with Manchester Art Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. You can see more of her work at karriefransman.com I only intended to look at it . . . but I’m completely drawn in. I love it. The language is fantastic. The gender swaps I hope will undo all my unconscious bias and I’ll find my inner power! Fabulous."— Philippa Perry Keen to see the magic in action, I read “Mr Rapunzel” to my niece Violet, six, over Zoom: “Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a woman came in, for he had never seen one before.” I was all set to hear how confused and empowered she felt – but that’s only because, for me, it is too late. To Violet, the story was no weirder than any other bedtime saga; certainly, a beard long enough to scale a tower seemed more important than whether Rapunzel was a boy or a girl. How many times will you endure glittery magical creatures lifting stepchildren out of poverty and ornate descriptions of royal sparkly clothes? What the Queen Wills: A Gender Swapped Cinderella Retelling: Volume 1 (Sexy Gender Swapped Fairy Tales)