Black Fairy Tales & Folktales Matter - Useful Resources (a growing list)

ABC's Once Upon A Time Rapunzel in S3:14, The Tower, played by Alexandra Metz

This resource list is just a place to start and will be added to as we can manage. Suggestions for any category below (or for adding more categories) are welcome!

ONLINE ARTICLES:

• These Stories Are Ours, Too: Writing Black Characters into Fairy Tales by L.L. McKinney
• Not Until We Get A Turn: Retellings, Tropes, and Who Gets To Tell Stories by Kalynn Bayron
• Black Stories Matter (resources, books, ways to be an advocate) by Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic

BOOKS (tale collections):

• Blackberry Blue: And Other Fairy Tales by Jamila Gavin
• Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales by Virginia Hamilton
• The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales by Virginia Hamilton
• The Annotated African American Folktales (The Annotated Books) edited by Henry Louis Gates and Maria Tatar

BOOKS (Scholarship):

                                          

• Fairy Tale TV by Jill Terry Rudy and Pauline Greenhill (2020)
• Re-Orienting the Fairy Tale: Contemporary Adaptations across Cultures (Series in Fairy-Tale Studies) edited by Editors Mayako Murai and Luciana Cardi (2020)

ONLINE ARTICLES (Scholarship):

• Seeing White: Children of Color and the Disney Fairy Tale Princess by Dorothy L. Hurley (link to downloadable PDF)
• Moving Beyond Grimm’s Fairytales for Representations of Black and White:Diversity as an Integral Component of quality Provision in Early ChildhoodEducation by Dr Maria O’ Dwyer (link to downloadable PDF) 
• Enchanting the Masses: Fairy Tale Dystopias and Allegorical Diversity by Jill Coste (abstract only)
• From Representation to Participation: Rethinking the Intercultural Educational Approach to Folktales by Annette de Bruijn (on reading & teaching multicultural fairy tales to early elementary children)

BOOKS (Fiction):

• Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi (genre - literature, magical realism - Snow White, Goblin Market & more)
• Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron (genre - fantasy/UF, Cinderella, princess culture)
• A Blade So Black by A. A. McKinney (genre - fantasy/UF, Alice in Wonderland)
• Redemption in Indigo: A Novel by Karen Lord (genre - fantasy, magic realism, Bluebeard & Beauty and the Beast)

BOOKS (picture books):

• Freedom Child of the Sea by Richardo Keens-Douglas, illustrated by Julia Gukova - though it's a picture book, we recommended it for everyone

• Rachel Isadora 's fairy tale retellings - The Fisherman and His Wife, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Rapunzel, The Princess and the Pea, Hansel & Gretel

• Once Upon A World Collection (board books by various authors & artists): Rapunzel, Cinderella, Snow White, The Little Mermaid, The Princess and the Pea 

              

• Fairy Tales by Jane Ray (illustrator) and Berlie Doherty (diverse cultural characters and settings for familiar tales)
• Mufaro's Beautiful Daughter by John Steptoe

GRAPHIC NOVELS/COMICS:

• The Girl Who Married A Skull: And Other African Stories (Cautionary Fables & Fairy Tales 1) by Mary Cagle, Kel McDonald (Editor), Kate Ashwin (Editor), & 15 more

• Fred H. Crump Jr (Main FT printings: 1989- 91, 2007-10) Retold & Illustrated Fairy Tales and classic stories with POC Main Characters - over 40 titles, now out of print (NB: created specifically for children of color by Crump, a black comic artist, and teacher) A collection of book covers can be seen HERE.

FILM/TV:

• HBO's Happily Ever After: Tales for Every Child series (1995-2000) - world-famous fairy tales told with diverse characters and settings

• Emerald City (NBC 1 season - 2017 - based on The Wizard of Oz)
• The Princess and the Frog (Disney 2009)

• Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (Disney 1997, live-action remake of stage-play, starring Brandy and Whitney Houston)
• The Wiz (1978 musical movie Wizard of Oz, starring Diana Ross)
• The Wiz Live (2015 starring Shanice Williams, Queen Latifah)

UPCOMING:

          

Come Away official poster; Halle Bailey as Disney's new Ariel (pic was Disney approved for announcement)

• Come Away (due for release Dec 2020, directed by Brenda Chapman, starring David Oyelowo, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Angeline Jolie; Alice in Wonderland & Peter Pan) Trailer available to view HERE.
• The Little Mermaid (Disney's live-action remake of their animated classic, due for release July 2021, starring Halle Bailey)
  

FAIRY TALE ARTISTS TO KNOW:

• Lachanda Gartistry with Creative Soul Photography - Black Princess Portraits

OTHER ART RESOURCES:

• Racebentdisney.tumblr.com - not recently updated but still a good resource, Tumblr blog includes a wide range of artist interpretations, POC actors in traditionally white Disney roles and more.

FAIRY TALE/FOLKTALE AUTHORS TO KNOW:

• Helen Oyeyemi (Mr. Fox, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, Boy, Snow, Bird, Gingerbread: A Novel)
• John Steptoe (Mufaro's Beautiful Daughter)
• Virginia Hamilton (collections of African American Tales)
• Nalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl in the Ring, Skin Folk, Sister Mine, multi-award-winning folklore/fantasy author)