Books like Crosstalk: 100 fan favorites

This is a difficult book to describe! It’s about shapes (the main characters are a square, circle, and triangle), friendship, fear of the dark, and imagination. As a picture book writer (but not illustrator), I love to see a book where a writer makes space for an illustrator to tell part of the story. This book does that really well, particularly in the part where it’s just Jon Klassen’s signature eyes in the dark! There are three books in this series but this one’s my favourite.

Napoli is a master at rewriting fairy tales and other classic stories, and Zel might just be my favorite of her works. A young adult retelling of Rapunzel from three perspectives, it sticks to the original tale’s basic plot points but deeply expands the reader’s understanding of each character, particularly Rapunzel’s mother, whose feelings and motivations are written with exquisite nuance. Though it’s written for a YA audience, I still enjoy this story as much now as I did when I first read it at age 13, and now that I’m a mother myself, I experience it on an entirely different level. This is a deceptively simple book that really has layers upon layers to unwrap. 

This is a fairy tale. I’ll state this upfront because at first glance, it’s a bit of a hard read. And why is it a hard read? Because—to me, anyway—it feels like wish-fulfillment fantasy on steroids. It’s like the rantings of a terribly abused boy. Of course, much fiction—especially fairytales which is this book’s genre—is wish fulfillment. But the story feels very uncomfortable. Mio is so over-the-top happy about having been transported into the kingdom of his father the king that one feels as if one is listening to a pitiful delusion.  I found myself reading the book with two minds. One mind kept saying, “Dive into the reverie and joy of a boy who has found his dead father in a faraway land and who discovers that he’s important to the world.” And simultaneously, my other mind was thinking, “Oh my heavens! This little boy… show more.

Gaslamp books not only have adorably fun titles, they also can push fairy tale retellings to have more creatures as part of the main cast. Erin Verse’s debut is Labyrinth inspired with a mixed-race heroine fighting for justice. Which you’ll quickly see is my favorite type of protagonist. While humans can be loveable, I think it’s through monsters we often learn to accept ourselves.

I am a huge fan of the very-brief gothic. It’s so hard to do well; trivial jump-scares are easy, but to produce a meaningful effect in only a few pages takes real precision. Shirley Jackson holds the crown with "The Lottery," but my second favorite instance of a surprisingly quick read that produces a real gasp is Angela Carter’s mini-treasure, "The Werewolf."

It manages to be a fairy tale, feminist critique, a witch, and a werewolf story all at once—and, like the beast in the title, it may not be what it appears. Also wonderful to me are "The Company of Wolves," "The Snow Child," and the eponymous "The Bloody Chamber," that one a revisioning of "Bluebeard"—essentially, Carter updates all kinds of dark fairy tales, bringing out their subversive shadows for a savvy reader. Still so fresh to this day.

In the words of the writer herself, "this is an adult fairy tale about rivers, time, and the mystery of love." I have never read anything like this little gem of a book that immerses you in the natural world to such an extent, I felt like I became half-aquatic during the reading of it. It made me want to run away and live in the Tasmanian wilderness by a river, but then again, I’m not half woman, half fish, like the protagonist of the book. A strange and wonderful read.

Bizarre, misshapen, and sweet, this is the Roald Dahl book I find most alluring. A much-beloved tale, the plot sounds phantasmagoric in distillation: a house-sized peach sprouts overnight from a tree outside the shack where young James is essentially kept imprisoned by two cruel aunts; the boy tunnels into the fruit’s pit, befriends the band of enormous talking insects within, and the whole gang embarks on an adventure where the peach bobs out to sea, is carried through the air by hundreds of seagulls, is attacked by creatures who live on clouds, and eventually comes to rest on the spire of the Empire State Building. Intrigue, humor, and rambunctious versifying abound—and the once-forlorn James is not only unvanquished but happy. Nice ending.

This book is a classic story that transported me to a realm where fairies come alive—I felt I could be there dancing with them, too.

I love the story's initial opening with the magical expression, “Once upon a time.” It’s like opening a gateway to my mind’s eye, imagining life in that country that was very close to Fairy Land, guided by the exquisite illustrations in the book.

I like also very much the simplicity of the names of the characters, like for example, “Princess Niente (Princess Nobody) and of the structure of the story divided into three chapters.

The end is sweet: “Journeys end in lovers meeting, and so do stories.” And offered me a pearl with the quote of Apuleius and the poem.

Why only settle for one unearthly lover when you can have 3? Especially when the female protagonist turns out to be somewhat monstrous herself? This book features 3 completely different male monster protagonists that will stop at nothing to protect the female protagonist. You’ll find it difficult to choose your favourite book boyfriend in this exceptionally entertaining monster reverse harem.

Full disclosure: I’m a sucker for retellings, as you may have noticed since this book is the second retelling to make my list.

This book retells the 12 Dancing Princesses, exploring the family’s curse more in-depth. That means it’s filled with gothic settings, plenty of tragedy, and the requisite family secrets. It’s the perfect spooky story to keep you up all night (because you won’t be able to put it down).