A Rheumatoid Descent into Villainy
From 19th-century fairy tale illustrations to Disney’s global empire, rheumatoid arthritis has evolved into a visual shorthand for evil—a medical condition transmuted into moral metaphor that resonates today.
From 19th-century fairy tale illustrations to Disney’s global empire, rheumatoid arthritis has evolved into a visual shorthand for evil—a medical condition transmuted into moral metaphor that resonates today.
With anthology Workers' Tales, children's literature professor Michael Rosen curates fairy tales from the 19th and 20th centuries that resonate with workers' rights activists and their children today.
Intimacy with animals, babysitting plastic dolls, and running into your dad at a furry cuddle party are just a few of the details in this off-the-chain collection of stories, Unruly Creatures.
"Some people would argue that writing stories about rebellious people is not actually an act of rebellion," says Sachdeva, "but I believe those people underestimate the extent to which we internalize a story that really moves us."
This collection gives us Ortberg's trademark gender-swapping, flipping of accepted norms of good vs evil even while blurring the line between them, and startling backstories that do not always reveal underlying motivations but definitely add dark, ironic humor.
Barbara Comyns' The Juniper Tree, recently reissued by the New York Review of Books, diminishes the space between fairy tale and real life.