Cassie, Daurie, Laura, and Matt continue their discussion of the 2000 miniseries The 10th Kingdom, and look at episodes 3 and 4. Our love for Lucy Punch is on full display throughout the episode, and we also touch on our favorite elements of these two much stronger episodes -- their portrayal of Snow White and her story, the inclusion of the courtroom drama and all its tropes, and what happens when real world logic meets fairy tale rules. There's also some intense plot-doctoring discussi...

Cassie, Daurie, Laura, and special guest Daniel dive deep into the first two episodes of the 2000 miniseries The 10th Kingdom, starring Kimberly Williams, John Larroquette, Scott Cohen, Dianne Weist, Ed O'Neill, and more. They discuss fairy tale characters in the real world and real world characters in fairy tale land, debate how to properly format magic wishes, and analyze what approaches and storylines would be handled differently if this story was told today. Join our community! View ...

Cassie and Daurie wrap up their thoughts on Hansel and Gretel, including talking about some of the other adaptations out there, and then all four cohosts join together to introduce that cult classic fairy tale mash-up, The 10th Kingdom. Featuring many a side conversation and tangent, and a truly impressive run down of "Where You Know Them From." Join our community! View all of the benefits of joining our Patreon including the Official Of Slippers and Spindles Newsletter, bonus episodes, ...

Cassie and Daurie wrap up the Hansel and Gretel era with the loosest retelling this time around, Sweetly by Jackson Pearce. They discuss modernizing fairy tales, the Twilight Effect of the early 2010s media, and how to deal with surprise werewolves. Content warning for gore and violence. Join our community! View all of the benefits of joining our Patreon including the Official Of Slippers and Spindles Book Club, exclusive polls, monthly bookmarks, Zoom hangouts, and more! https://patreo...

Cassie and Daurie watched the 2002 movie version of Hansel and Gretel, featuring Jacob Smith, Taylor Momsen, Howie Mandel, Alana Austin, Delta Burke, Tom Arnold, and Lynn Redgrave to answer the age old question: does it deserve that 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes? And the verdict is, yes. Yes, it really does. We watched it so you don't have to; all you have to do is listen to our discussion on how this take went so deeply wrong -- from poorly used framing devices to unnecessary character a...

Cassie and Daurie give you two discussions for the price of one, as their exploration of A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz reveals a novel with Hansel and Gretel as the main characters, but a novel that isn't really a retelling of that classic story. So they pull in an old favorite and also look at how Hansel and Gretel was incorporated into Transformed: The Perils of the Frog Prince by Megan Morrison. They discuss what common elements tie all these stories together and wha...

Cassie and Daurie begin Hansel and Gretel's era with the Cannon Movie Tales Hansel and Gretel featuring Helen Stoltzfus, Allison Brody, Sam Carter, Gene Morrill, Bo Patterson, and more. This movie pulls heavily from the Humperdinck opera, and features the acting talents of David Warner; Hugh Pollard; Nicola Stapleton; Emily Richard; and Cloris Leachman. We discuss how Cassie is a lying liar with a bad memory, how music and camera work can foreshadow things that do not actually exist, how UNBE...

It's time to bid another farewell to the ultimate storyteller's tale and turn to a pair of siblings getting lost in the woods and finding a house of questionable building materials. Cassie and Laura start us off with our final thoughts on The Arabian Nights and how its walking red flag was handled overall. Then Cassie and Daurie begin a journey into an apparently overlooked classic, Hansel and Gretel. We talk through the plot of the story and the many questions it brings up, then we reveal th...

Cassie and Laura wrap up their The Arabian Nights era this week with a discussion of two of Cassie's favorite books of all time-- The Wrath and the Dawn and The Rose and the Dagger by Renee Ahdieh. We discuss the refreshing approach of Shahrzad as a would-be assassin, loopholes within curse loopholes, impressive trope subversions, and the surprising thing these books have in common with Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Also, spoilers for Pirates of the Caribbean 3 a little bit, I guess? Content wa...

Cassie and Laura discuss a looser retelling of The Arabian Nights this week -- A Thousand Nights by E.K. Johnston -- and touch on a variety of topics including our shared love of thread-based magic in fantasy, what kind of storytelling counts in a retelling of Shahrezad, and how the choice not to name any of the characters can be both fascinating and frustrating at the same time. Join our community! View all of the benefits of joining our Patreon including the Official Of Slippers and Sp...

Cassie and Laura continue our Arabian Nights era with book one in the Once Upon a Time series from Simon Pulse -- The Storyteller's Daughter by Cameron Dokey. There's a bit more chatter up top in this episode than usual, so if you want to get straight to the discussion and bypass Toddler Tales and the history of the Once Upon a Time series, skip to 10:55! Laura and Cassie go off on several tangents during this discussion, but along the way, we do touch on how this novel captures the oral trad...

Cassie and Laura kick off our Arabian Nights era with one of the earliest -- Shadow Spinner by Susan Fletcher. We get into the way she deftly weaves a story presenting complex topics in a way that is accessible for younger readers without talking down to them, how she represents the cycle of resentment and forgiveness, and discuss the ways we did have to stretch our suspension of disbelief once or twice. Trigger warnings for this book include ableism and mentions of child abuse and suicide. P...

It's time to bid another farewell to our second (riches to) rags to riches girlie and introduce ourselves to the ultimate storyteller Shahrazad, in any of the many many ways her name has been spelled. Cassie and Matt start us off with our final thoughts on The Goose Girl, including our ideas for how we would like to retell the story ourselves and how easy it is for Cassie to shoehorn Anonymous Penpals into any story. Then Cassie and Laura begin a journey into a new story, 1001 Nights, also kn...

Cassie, Matt, and Daurie come together to discuss the Goose Girl retelling that started it all -- The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. Join us as we gush about the audio book, rhapsodize about how Shannon Hale names her characters, offering our opinions on the musical-in-progress, and teach you all the most important lesson you can learn from literature - what to do if you're being kidnapped. Join our community! View all of the benefits of joining our Patreon including the Official Of Slippers and...

Join Matt and Cassie as we discuss Thorn by Intisar Khanani, a book with a fascinating path to publication. We discuss another intricately built world and a second veritable buffet of trauma responses, the worst version of Conrad, the power struggle inherent in who gets to choose the narrative, horses vs. Horses, and the beauty of an ambiguous ending. Trigger warnings for this book and episode include physical and sexual assault. Please read and listen carefully. Join our community! Vie...

Finally tackling one of Drew's all time favorites, Matt and Cassie come together to discuss Little Thieves by Margaret Owen, our loosest retelling this era, but a wonderful look at what happens to this story when we focus on and humanize the servant girl who forced the switch. Join us as we discuss intricate world building, incredible enemies-to-lovers banter, a veritable buffet of trauma responses, internalized privilege, and demisexual representation, and the ultimate question for this fair...

Cassie and Matt begin Goose Girl Month with the Goose Girl episode from Tom Davenport's Tales from the Brothers Grimm featuring Helen Stoltzfus, Allison Brody, Sam Carter, Gene Morrill, Bo Patterson, and more. This series from the 80s reset classic fairy tales into settings from Appalachian history, specifically in one of the earliest American settlements for The Goose Girl. We discuss how the story is interpreted for this real world setting, what other periods of American history might have ...

It's time to bid another farewell to our (riches to) rags to riches girlie and introduce ourselves to . . . ANOTHER riches to rags to riches girlie! Cassie, Daurie, Laura, and Matt begin this episode with our final thoughts on Cinderella, and the potential for future adaptations. As always, we discuss our ideas for how we would like to retold the story ourselves. Then Cassie and Matthew begin their journey into a new story, which is The Goose Girl by the Brothers Grimm. We talk through ...

In the final episode of our third Cinderella era, Daurie and Cassie come together to discuss the classic Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix, an exploration of what happens after Happily Ever After, when life for Ella has become an endless round of lessons and restrictions and even worse, Prince Charming turns out to be more like Prince Boring. Why can't she talk with him the way she can with Jed, her earnest young tutor? Slowly, Ella comes to realize she doesn't want the life she...

For episode two of our third Cinderella era, Cassie is joined by Matt to discuss Vassa in the Night by Sarah Porter, a retelling of the Russian Cinderella-esque story Vasilisa the Beautiful. When Vassa’s stepsister sends her out to buy lightbulbs in the middle of the night, she knows it could easily become a suicide mission. Babs Yagg, the owner of the local convenience store, has a policy of beheading shoplifters―and sometimes innocent shoppers as well. But Vassa has a bit of luck hidde...