68 books like Jack the Giant-Killer

I am not a fan of fantasy, but this is magical realism at its best. Not too much, not too little, just enough to remind everyone that the spirits are still working on behalf of true love and goodness and that justice prevails despite all obstacles…like a fairy tale with complications. Just my cup of tea. 

How realistic is it that food transmits any emotions the cook may be feeling while making the food? This idea captivated me immediately; it was something I had never thought about. And yet, growing up in my family, women always made the food. So again, a very female tale.

In the beginning, Tita, the heroine, is passionate and in love, but she succumbs to tradition and rejects true love and passion to submit to tradition, which dictates she takes care of her mother. In time, Tita learns to disobey the injustice of that tradition… show more.

The author went on a journey to discover all she could about the pink dolphins (the botos) of Brazil, but she soon found herself immersed in the folklore and myth of this very real animal. She learns that people who live with the botos believe the dolphins are shapeshifters who live human-like lives in an amazing underwater world—the Encante—where everything in life is better. Even so, they come out of the water as human beings to visit our world and interact with the locals. They can only be recognized by the hats they wear to cover the blowholes in the tops of their heads. I love the feeling this book gives that we are constantly walking with the enchanted.  

In The Thousand and One Nights, Scheherazade famously told stories to keep herself alive. In this novel the wife of a man in a coma uses stories to coax him back to life. The storytellers she brings to his hospital bedside include a raven, a ghost, a centaur, and Scheherazade herself. Even a house gets a monologue here. I love how this book brings the mythic aspects of life into every day for the purpose of healing. The underneath here is the man’s subconscious. The entities speaking to him exist in the every day; we just don’t normally see them. This book brings them all to life. A beautiful story beautifully told.  

This is Paula Gunn Allen’s modern-day retelling of many Native American tales. They feature talking animals, shape-shifting bears, and creation stories. Here, we see how the underneath comes to the surface in wondrous and awe-inspiring ways. The ordinary walks with the extraordinary. In fact, the ordinary is extraordinary. Allen sees power in these tales for women, and that’s what I loved about this book. These stories are part of a female shamanic tradition; they are in many ways medicinal. 

Lang’s story telling is compelling opening up for the reader the timeless characters of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel & Gretel, Jack the Giant Killer, Jonathan Swift’s “A Voyage to Lilliput” from Gulliver’s Travels, Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstilzkin, Why the Sea is Salt, Goldilocks, Blue Beard, Snow White and many others. 

My sister and brother (older than I) used to read aloud from, not only The Blue Fairy Book but the Red Book and the Green Book. These stories were the first I’d heard, and were so real I believed the characters would be present in my life. Grimm’s Tales ‘told’ by Lang becomes an exciting guidebook for a young person growing up. This aspect was ‘proven’ to me by the co-existence of these characters as archetypes in terms of life events and situations. My conviction is that the storyline, characters, and the progression of events in… show more.

For a rational, well-educated woman, I’m also occasionally superstitious. This gripping compilation of folk beliefs and rural ritual–from two stalwarts of folklore academia–is a book I return to again and again.

Almost every aspect of rural life has a superstition attached. From churning butter to childbirth, I pour over these weird and wonderful subjects and am reminded of just how pervasive and persuasive folk beliefs still are.

I am a sucker for fairy tale retellings. Beauty and the Beast especially. Throw in the fae, magic based on a flower language, and an assassin who just wants to be a very proper lady, and it’s really no wonder that I was hooked.

The characters are what really made this book shine. I may not be languishing alone in a sentient castle or trying to find my place in high society, but I could still relate to Briannis and the fae king. A perfect romance to showcase that, sometimes, proper manners are the villain.

Tangrams are ancient Chinese puzzles made of up to seven interlocking geometric shapes. As Grandfather Tang assembles his polygons, the animals he creates spring to life. You’ll be astonished to learn all the creatures you can make with a square, a parallelogram, and five triangles. Wooden or plastic tangram puzzles are easy (and inexpensive) to find online, but be sure to help your child make their own out of paper so they can get solid, hands-on experience seeing how they can transform a square into so many different shapes.

I loved this entire series, but there was something about this book that was my favorite. It’s told from a different perspective than the others, giving it a really fresh view of the world. My favorite thing about this book was the character development.

You follow one of the main female characters, who at the beginning is spiteful and hurt and constantly lashing out, and you see her grow into herself. She takes responsibility for her mistakes, and reading about her opening up again really warmed my heart as I can heavily relate to it.

I think her character is very real and raw, and her development as a person is portrayed beautifully. I didn’t always like her initially, but I ultimately loved her.