Of Slippers and Spindles - Fairy Tale Retellings and Adaptations in Books, Film, and Theatre

Cassie, Daurie, Laura, and special guest Daniel wrap up their thoughts on the 2000 miniseries The 10th Kingdom. We discuss changes we would make to the story, the script, and the world, and leave you with our overall impressions.

Of Slippers and Spindles will be taking a two month hiatus for the holidays, but we will be back in late January 2026 with our revisit of Snow White! In the meantime, catch all our bonus content on our Patr...

Cassie, Daurie, Laura,  Matt, and special guest Daniel continue their discussion of the 2000 miniseries The 10th Kingdom with the final episode in the series, episode 5. Subtitle: The Script Doctors. We talk about how close this came to reaching its potential, Matthew's extensive apple knowledge, the inescapable pull of saying "Destiny" as an answer to every question, and how well the series as a whole addresses our ...

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...

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 diffe...

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."

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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.

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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 ...

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 co...

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 came...

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 ...

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, spoile...

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.

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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, ...

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 bo...

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 Cass...

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.

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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. Pl...

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...

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 rea...