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

Cassie and Laura tackle a novel from up-and-coming fairy tale reteller T. Kingfisher with her Snow White adaptation Hemlock and Silver. They discuss the beauty of a looser retelling, the importance of a strong narrative voice, and their delight with the unique and occasionally brain-breaking world-building.

Spoilers somehow again for Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie a little bit. Content warning for talk of poisons and murder.

Jo...

Cassie, Laura, and special guest Christian begin the Second Snow White era with Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre episode of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, starring Elizabeth McGovern, Vanessa Redgrave, Vincent Price, and Chip Zien's blonde doppelganger Rex Smith. They discuss the messiest mirror in Snow White retelling history, truly immersive set design, and the true delight that is Vanessa Redgrave.

You can find Ch...

Cassie and Laura return from the holiday hiatus to sit down to revisit Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and introduce the books and movies we'll be exploring in this fairy tale's second era. All discussion of killing children really does require context.

We will release in a slightly different order than listed in this episode, due to illness in Cassie's household affecting recording schedules. We will kick the era off...

Merry Christmas!

Cassie, Daurie, and Matt take a few moments out of this busy holiday season to discuss an absolutely classic -- The Muppets Christmas Carol. 

Of Slippers and Spindles will be back from hiatus on January 28! In the meantime, thank you for being part of our podcast family, and happy holidays to all who celebrate!

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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...