Tag a fractured fairytale

Santarella

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Santarella
Suzy Senior and Lucy Semple
Little Tiger

Suzy Senior has created a smashing seasonal twist on the Cinderella story telling in rhyme how Cinders comes to the aid of Santa Claus who has the misfortune of a pulled muscle in his back.

One evening Cinderella sits alone in the kitchen after her sisters have departed for the ball and as she stares miserably at her phone something causes the chimney to wobble. In the living room on the floor is Santa Claus complaining about his back and in desperate need of some help. No sooner has Cinders offered to assist than they’re up and away in Santa’s sleigh delivering gifts all around the world. The job is almost done in double quick time and on the brink of midnight they land on the palace roof with one final gift. A pair of party shoes for Santa’s special helper. Down the drainpipe goes Cinderella and peers into the ballroom.

However rather than going in to join the dancers she returns to Santa and asks for a lift back to her abode. She collects all her important belongings together and sets off to see the world, stopping at various locations to give assistance where required;

she learns a lot and makes friends with some unlikely characters. No matter where she is though, Cinders returns to help Santa in the run-up to the big day and on his Christmas Eve round.

I love fractured fairy tales and Suzy Senior delivers this one with panache. Accompanied by Lucy Semple’s funny scenes – watch out for the antics of the mice, the hoarding signs and other giggle-making details, this is a story to share at home or in the classroom in the weeks before Christmas.

Who Will Kiss The Crocodile?

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Who Will Kiss The Crocodile?
Suzy Senior and Claire Powell
Little Tiger

Suzy Senior puts a hilarious spin on a favourite fairytale in her snappy rhyming take on Sleeping Beauty. It starts on Princess Liss’s first birthday when her family hold a big fancy ball for all the town’s residents, or rather, all but one. With the party in full swing there’s a sudden chill as in sweeps a furious fairy who proceeds to shout, “… In fifteen years, she’ll bump her knee.And then the princess DIES!” and with a wave of her wand she turns the infant into a baby crocodile. All is not quite lost though thanks to a life-saving pixie who informs the princess’s distraught parents that instead of dying, their daughter will sleep `til woken with a kiss. But who would be willing to kiss a crocodile, especially one with increasingly long claws?

On her sixteenth birthday the princess injures her knee while swimming in the lake and takes to her bed for what turns out to be a snooze lasting around a century, during which numerous princes have shown up at the castle only to flee when they realise what slumbers within the increasingly crumbling castle.

Eventually the neighbours decide to call upon the services of the Handy-Grans to carry out some urgent work on the thorny hedge surrounding the castle. This they do and after a day’s slog they discover the slumbering crocodile within.

Rather than running for their lives, they run back to their van for some knee soothing salve…
Surely there couldn’t be a happily ever after to this story – or could there?

Claire Powell’s comical scenes are simply bursting with bright colour, her cast of characters is inclusive and Suzy’s text is a delight to read aloud. If you like fractured fairy tales, don’t miss this one.