32 pages · Released Dec 22, 2011 · Groundwood Books Ltd
Content report card
Beautiful Griselda parent’s guide: what’s inside
Medium confidence
Language
None · 0/5
LGBTQ+ themes
None · 0/5
Substance use
None · 0/5
What it offers
A note for parents
This is a darkly imaginative fairy-tale retelling that uses magical consequences (people literally losing their heads) to explore vanity and narcissism rather than realistic violence. The tone is whimsical and satirical rather than genuinely frightening, though the repeated deaths and dark humor require some maturity. It offers thoughtful messages about selflessness and the limits of beauty, making it suitable for older elementary readers comfortable with darker fairy tales.
Princess Griselda was so beautiful that almost everyone she met fell head over heels in love with her. And that's not just a saying. They actually lost their heads. In this wonderfully original fairy tale Isol takes on the dangers of narcissism. Griselda not only causes anyone who looks at her to lose his head -- she c...Princess Griselda was so beautiful that almost everyone she met fell head over heels in love with her. And that's not just a saying. They actually lost their heads. In this wonderfully original fairy tale Isol takes on the dangers of narcissism. Griselda not only causes anyone who looks at her to lose his head -- she collects the lost heads, oblivious to the fact that everyone is terrified of looking at her. Eventually she runs out of companions, until she finally finds a prince so myopic that for a short while he is able to be with her (before the inevitable happens). But they are together long enough that at the end of nine months she has an extremely beautiful baby who, for the first time in Griselda's life, takes her out of herself -- unfortunately with the inevitable result.
