Books Based on Fairy Tales

Little Red Riding Hood by Trina Schart Hyman

These books are retellings of traditional fairy tales or rely on a reader’s knowledge of traditional tales. Books like The Ordinary Princess, The Princess Bride, and The Birthday Ball share many tropes and details with traditional tales, but they’re original stories that don’t reference or retell traditional tales, so I decided not to include those in this list.

This list will be frequently updated because I love fairy tales and I read a lot of books inspired by them.

PLEASE NOTE – SPOILER ALERT: Reviews on this site are aimed at parents, educators, and other adults who care about what kids are reading. For that reason, they contain spoilers, since it’s usually the spoilers that you most wish you knew about before your kid read the book and ended up sobbing or cowering under the covers until well after midnight. (Gosh, what makes it sound like this is the voice of experience?)

• As Old as Time by Liz Braswell (Disney’s Beauty and the Beast)*
• Ash by Malinda Lo (Cinderella)
• Beauty and the Beast by Jenni James (Beauty and the Beast)
• Beauty Sleep by Cameron Dokey (Sleeping Beauty)
• Before Midnight by Cameron Dokey (Cinderella)
• Belle by Cameron Dokey (Beauty and the Beast)
• Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu (The Snow Queen)*
• The Brixen Witch by Stacy DeKeyser (Pied Piper)
• Cinder by Marissa Meyer (Cinderella and others)*
• Cress by Marissa Meyer (Rapunzel and others)*
• The Door in the Hedge by Robin McKinley (The Twelve Dancing Princess and The Frog Prince)
• Entwined by Heather Dixon (The Twelve Dancing Princesses)
• Ever After High: The Storybook of Legends by Shannon Hale (Snow White and many others)
• Fairest by Marissa Meyer (Snow White and others)
• A Frozen Heart by Elizabeth Rudnick (Disney’s Frozen which is very loosely based on The Snow Queen)
• The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale (what it says on the tin)
• The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shulman (many tales referenced and influential)*
• The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy (many tales named after princesses)*
• A Hidden Magic by Vivian Vande Velde (an original fairy tale that works as a satire of familiar tales)*
• Jinx by Sage Blackwood (many tales referenced and influential)*
• The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland isn’t technically a fairy tale, but close enough for our purposes.)*
• My Very UnFairy Tale Life by Anna Staniszewski (many tales referenced and influential)
• The Princess Curse by Merrie Haskell (Twelve Dancing Princesses and other folklore)
• Pennyroyal Academy by M.A. Larson (many tales referenced and influential)*
• Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George (Twelve Dancing Princesses)*
• Rapunzel: The One With All the Hair by Wendy Mass (Rapunzel)*
• Scarlet by Marissa Meyer (Little Red Riding Hood and others)*
• The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman (Sleeping Beauty and others)*
• Snow in Summer by Jane Yolen (Snow White)
• Sunlight and Shadow by Cameron Dokey (The Magic Flute)
• A Tale Dark & Grimm by Adam Gidwitz (Hansel & Gretel and many more obscure Grimm tales)*
• The Thirteenth Princess by Diane Zahler (Twelve Dancing Princesses)
• Undercaffeinated and Overexposed: The Tale of a Coffee Shop Princess by Andrew G. Schneider (many tales referenced and influential)
• The Wide-Awake Princess by E.D. Baker (Sleeping Beauty and others)*
• A Whole New World: A Twisted Tale by Liz Braswell (Disney’s Aladdin)*
• Wild Orchid by Cameron Dokey (Mulan)
• Winter by Marissa Meyer (Snow White and others)*

* These are books that I think will particularly appeal to both boys and girls, regardless of what the pictures on the cover might suggest.