cover image Truly Grim Tales

Truly Grim Tales

Priscilla Galloway. Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, $10.95 (132pp) ISBN 978-0-385-32200-3

Cinderella's princely suitor has a foot fetish; Rumpelstiltskin deliberately lets his name be known to the hapless miller's daughter, who-unknown to her-is really Rumpelstiltskin's daughter; Snow White's stepmother, who comes from an abusive home, worked at a slaughterhouse before winning a beauty contest. Galloway broodingly revisits eight classic fairy tales, prowling about their dark corners to lay in additional helpings of pain and loss. A few of her plots are overwrought and none of them produces the frisson of The Magic Circle, Donna Jo Napoli's masterly reworking of Hansel and Gretel. And yet their subversive promise to reveal the ``real'' story, and even their morbidly romantic motifs of self-sacrifice, intelligently cater to adolescent tastes. Nearly operatic in their conception and accomplished in their execution, these stories could also serve as a guide to young writers: their inventive, vigorous exploration of familiar territory easily stimulates the reader's own imagination. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)