Thursday, July 7, 2011

Top 10 fairytales

Cornelia Funke is an internationally bestselling, multiple award-winning author, best known for writing the Inkworld trilogy, Dragon Rider, and The Thief Lord.

Named by Time magazine as one of the "100 most influential people in the world today," Cornelia currently lives with her family in Los Angeles, California, in a house full of books.

For the Guardian, she named her top ten fairytales.

One entry on the list:
The Birthday of the Infanta

Another tale that has quite modern origins. I mention this one, because it touched me so deeply that I illustrated it once for a picture book project, but in fact all of Oscar Wilde's fairytales should be on this list. He is the master for me, when it comes to modern fairytales. I like him better than Andersen, who doesn't have Wilde's social compassion. The ugly dwarf doesn't turn into a beautiful swan. Wilde loves him as the ugly dwarf.
Read about the other fairytales on the list.

Also see: Five best academic studies of fairy tales.

--Marshal Zeringue