Three retellings of The Goose Girl that I love

For some reason I love retellings of The Goose Girl, though I’ve never been much of a fan of the original.

Of course there’s Shannon Hale’s The Goose Girl, which is the first book of hers I read. That was way back in 2012, and I didn’t write a review anywhere at the time, so I have to depend on my memory to tell you why I loved it. What I remember: girl friendships are very important (that’s your surprised face, right?) in counterpoint to female betrayal; Hale’s prose, which is just lovely no matter what she writes; Ani has a lot of agency and it’s agency that makes sense to modern readers (unlike some agency in fairy tales where it’s like …what is going on here??!!); and it’s the first book in the Bayern series and I love a series that follows the different characters in the next books (hint, hint).

Much newer is Stolen Legacy, by Cathleen Townsend. This version is a short story, a little longer than the original. It’s told from the point of view of Falada, the princess’s friend (the horse from the original!), who is a kelpie, which is a kind of murderous shape-changing horse fairy! Their friendship is at the heart of the story, which I love, and Jentelle’s (the princess) relationship with the Queen is also pretty great (spoiler, they’re not rivals and the Queen isn’t evil like in a lot of fairy tales). It’s great and has a marvelously direct conclusion (which I liked for many reasons but I won’t spoil it). Like the original, it’s pretty short but very fun and worth the read.

And last, Thorn, by Intisar Khanani. Chronologically this was published in between the other two, but isn’t available right now because it will be re-released soon. Intisar Khanani’s books are my comfort reads. I’ve re-read all of them a bunch of times because they make me happy when life is tough. I think I might have read Thorn without realizing it’s a retelling of The Goose Girl until I started making this list. Reading it made me think a lot about Deerskin by Robin McKinley, with its themes of abuse and redemption by creating a new life. While Alyrra, the main character in Thorn is abused, the book is nowhere near as brutal or graphic as Deerskin, which I have only been able to read once (just so you know, pretty graphic abuse and incest, and it’s also a fairytale retelling). I think Alyrra is the gentlest of the heroines of these retellings and she really has to work to find the courage and reasons to stand up for herself.

Writing about these books totally made me want to write my own retelling. Maybe I will.