Old Tales In New Clothes: Once Upon the Internet

The sorts of wolves Perrault warned about still exist today.
Beware of chat and friend-requests from people you don't know... We're all susceptible to being preyed upon by strangers pretending to be something they're not. The internet and the woods have a lot in common these days.

There is this idea that fairy tales are old and irrelevant. If you're reading this blog, we're thinking you might not believe that. If you're a regular reader here, you know we don't believe that either. In fact, the whole reason for this blog is to show how very actively people are using and re-using fairy tales today. Fairy tales have this magical ability to stay recognizable, even as they adapt to be relevant to the person, society, or culture making use of them. (It's something we love to track!) 

For most people, however, it can be difficult to see how such old (ancient, really), tales could have any use today. We have a tendency to believe our predecessors were less evolved - or at least less enlightened - than we are, so how could such old things possibly have any relevance now? Turns out, people haven't really changed at all.

Did you know you can actually ask your Amazon Echo (Alexa) or Apple's Siri this question in real life and get a real answer? (Try it!) There are even actual "smart mirrors" you can talk to and get information from while you are getting ready. And yes, they give beauty tips...

One company, GoCompare, wanted to see if these tales would still be recognizable if reframed in today:

"Hidden amongst magical imagery, mystery and wonder, fairy tales offer an allegory for real life. Mapping the transition from childhood to adulthood, a young hero or heroine is often faced with obstacles they must overcome to achieve their heart's desires, while learning right from wrong. They're tales as old as time, but what do they look like in the modern world?" - From the Title page of GoCompare's Once Upon the Internet campaign. *

*Sadly, the campaign was in 2018 and the page is no longer active. We got additional information from the illustrator and designer, Elizabeth Howlett (also known as Beth Creates) who was hired to create scenes showing how different fairy tales might "adapt to the modern world". We think she did a FABULOUS job!

No need for making the best of a pumpkin; thanks to companies like Uber and Lyft, you can order your own carriage to go with your ball outfit. (Apparently, the Prince got tired of dating apps and decided to try an old-fashioned party - though these days a masked party might add some twists to that story too.)

Unfortunately, it looks like the "tale retelling" story portion of the campaign has been lost to the internet void, but even if you only vaguely know these tales, you immediately get what's going on.

There's something in these tales that shows us, even when we're told "old versions", that we recognize ourselves in them. This campaign goes a long way to showing why that is. These are the same old tales; they just use different tech. These are still our stories.

Enjoy.

Puss in Boots as Social Media Influencer and promoter of "cancel culture" on Ogres of all kinds. And he's a cat - so of course he would go viral on Instagram.

Got wi-fi? You can figure out how to do almost anything yourself these days with Instructables, or get collated advice from the enthusiastic Reddit community! (The only question here, is "which sub-reddit" to ask?) (Illustrator Howlett warns of Rumplestiltskin sliding into your DMs...)

Bitcoin has made millionaires out of ordinary Jacks, but there are definitely risks; at least as much risk as magic beans

Shopping online can be hazardous, especially when it comes to fashion. "BNWT" stands for Brand New With Tags but sometimes the online promise (and picture) is too good to be true. Until you put it on, you have no idea that you've just been swindled by some clever, lying tailors.

Poor Three Bears; looks like their AirBNB income just took a hot with a bad review from an unfair customer.

Ah the Snapchat filter: creating glimpses of your possible future. Thanks to the selfie filter obsession that makes so many different transformations possible, we don't even know what most people really look like anymore!

You can check out more of Elizabeth Howlett's work on her Behance portfolio HERE.

Review: Christian Bärmann’s “The Giant Ohl and Tiny Tim”

(Review written by Lily Stejskal)

Giants typically get a bad rap in fairy tales, so if that’s where you met all your giants, you might automatically assume they were all evil and hateful towards humans. Our folklore “giants”: Charles Perrault, Joseph Jacobs, and the Brothers Grimm, all seem to agree that giants are liminal—neither fully human nor fully beast. They universally portray the non-human parts of giants as evil or wrong, just because they’re different.

Translated and edited by Jack Zipes

I must admit I have never met a giant, but if they exist, I’m sure I’d be just as likely to meet a gentle giant, like Christian Bärmann’s Giant Ohl, as the vicious giants littering more famous fairy tales.

After reading The Giant Ohl and Tiny Tim, I’m honestly surprised that Ohl even had the courage to try living among humans. Humans like Jacobs’ “Molly Whuppie” and Perrault’s “Little Thumb” steal from the giants they encounter. Then, when the giants try to retrieve their stuff, they’re killed (just read “Jack and the Beanstalk”). Sometimes the humans even kill giants just for the heck of it, like in “Jack the Giant Killer”.

Even in one of the kinder tales about giants—Grimm’s “The Young Giant”—there’s the underlying message that humans and giants can’t mix. In this tale, a baby no bigger than a human thumb (much like Little Thumb), is nurtured by a giant. Male giants are apparently able to “suckle at their chest”, but this results in the boy growing so big that he eventually becomes a giant himself.

However, this giant clearly believes humans have no place among giants, because he gives the supersized boy back to his human parents. But the parents don’t want him back. This leads the boy to hurting and deceiving others. If either side had accepted him, perhaps he would have turned out alright. But in the Grimm’s world, it’s simply not possible for giants and humans to live together in harmony.

Gulliver Awed by Three Giant Beggars in the Land of Brobdingnag
by Paul Gavarni, 1862. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

With all that in mind, when our gentle Giant Ohl is told by a fortune teller that he’ll find happiness with humans, why does he believe them? The book doesn’t say. I can only give kudos to Ohl for being brave enough to seek out companionship among the creatures who have caused his kind such pain.

Ohl is lucky because the humans in this book don’t automatically label him as evil.  They’re afraid of him, and probably willing to kill him to protect themselves, but are also curious about him, which is why, intentionally or otherwise, they end up giving him a chance.
That’s progress as far as I’m concerned.

Ohl may not suckle any human children, but he certainly loves them and knows how to be kind to them. He carries them on his back as they take summer trips together. None of this would surprise a modern audience, but it may have surprised people at the time. Bärmann wrote in the years surrounding World War I, right after the Victorian era, when parenting was often done at a distance and playtime wasn’t a high priority in many households. In that way, perhaps The Giant Ohl was ahead of its time.

Any fairy tale scholars out there have ideas about why Bärmann had such love for giants? Information about him online has been tough to find. His Goodreads page says that he was a German painter who published most of his work in the early 1900s. At first, I thought it might stem from a general cultural shift between the time of Perrault (the 1600s) and Grimm’s (early 1800s), but that doesn’t fully explain it. Because Joseph Jacobs, of the infamous Jack stories, was a contemporary of Bärmann, and clearly had zero fondness for giants. (Fun fact: Jacobs was from Australia!)

I can see why Jack Zipes chose this story to revive as a part of his new “Forgotten Fairy Tales” series. If you’re a fan of Roald Dahl’s The BFG or Harry Potter’s friend Hagrid, you should check out The Giant Ohl. You can purchase it directly through the Wayne State University Press' website and I think you’ll find it delightful.

L'ogre et le petit poucet
by Honore Daumier, 19th century. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

About the reviewer:

Lily Stejskal has enjoyed reading, telling, writing, studying and re-imagining fairy tales, as well as other stories, all her life.  She started seriously interpreting and analyzing fairy tales at age fourteen. This served her well in college, where she studied English and Psychology.  Since then, Lily has been working on new fairy tale retellings and other types of fiction, for both children and adults.

"I Kill Giants" Gives Us Much More Than (Just) A Female Version Of Jack the Giant Slayer

“Barbara Thorson is your new hero. A quick-witted, sharp- tongued middle-schooler who isn’t afraid of anything. As the only girl in school carrying an ancient Norse warhammer in her purse and killing giants for a living, why wouldn’t she be? I Kill Giants is the sweeping, bittersweet story of a young girl struggling to conquer monsters both real and imagined as her world crumbles at the feet of giants bigger than any one child can handle.”

Anywhere you have a child, or young person, dealing with giants, the comparison to Jack (of giant slayer and beanstalk fame), is inevitable, and with this film, and it's graphic novel source, there is some sense to that. Despite the lack of enchanted, cloud-reaching plants to climb, this world of the bunny-ear-wearing 5th-grader heroine, Barbara Thorson, is filled with all the magic and peril of Jack's, and the metaphors work too, with or without the, er, flora. And with the trailer showing the lines between reality and fantasy being more than a little blurred, the echo of "Jack themes" is stronger than ever.

Take a look at the newly-released trailer. (Note: it's followed by a pre-released scene, with Barbara showing her new friend one of her "Giant traps".):

In Joe Kelly and J.M. Ken Niimura’s comic book, I Kill Giants, it’s unclear just how much of young Barbara’s giant-slaying adventures are real and how much are part of an elaborate fantasy world she’s created in her mind to escape from the emotional stresses of her actual life. The new trailer for the film adaptation does a good job of getting that point across. (iO9)

The graphic novel*, and the movie, take the nerdy outcast type and, unlike making her silent and withdrawn as is typical (especially for female characters), Barbara is outspoken, witty and takes no prisoners with her speech and humor, very much like the typical Jack of the various Jack tales (from beanstalks to giant slayings and much, much more). 

Although she's just as brash and energetic (and imaginative), it's clear that, unlike most versions of "Jack" we've seen, she is dealing with a lot of pain. Uniquely, this loner type is a character whom you can't simply pity, despite her situation and life-troubles; she requires the audience's respect as well. It's great to see and, from what we can tell, strikes a fairly rare balance in drawing a girl who is very different from, and still very like, any regular kid, and it's clear that this emotional balance has made loyal fans and readers out of many different people.

Here's a description of Barbara and the graphic novel premise by Joe Kelly, the writer & creator of the comics, and screenwriter for the movie adaptation, from an interview with CBR.com:

“The story follows Barbara Thorson, a troubled but resilient fifth grader who’s a bit of an outcast — Dungeons & Dragons, fantasy and general mopery are her hobbies. But it looks like she’s taking the fantasy thing a little too far. She’s always talking about giants, reading books on giants, setting traps for giants, getting ready to kill a giant. Almost the entire story is told from her point-of-view, so we see what she sees: pixies, critters, and a monster that lives upstairs in her house, so terrifying that Barbara only sleeps in the basement. So is she crazy, or does she know something that we don’t? Does she have an active imagination, or does she see another world? The story kicks off as this fantasy world begins to crack because of some outside forces–a bully, the school psychologist, and her first real friend.” (Joe Kelly, from an interview with CBR.com)

I Kill Giants deals with issues similar to those in A Monster Calls** (highly recommended by the way), of sickness and family concerns, as well as bullying, loneliness and friendship, anger, the very real pain children can have, and a different "coming-of-age", but it also has it's own mark to make, and, might be even more in touch with present societal concerns. In other words, Barbara may just be the heroine many people - girls in particular - are looking for right now.

Does Barbara bring to mind another modern fairy tale-type heroine as well? How about Fionna, (of Fionna and Cake) in the animated TV series Adventure Time? And it's not just the bunny ears. In the Adventure Time universe, Fionna is the hero of the time, and this version of the 'universe' in which she appears, is deliberately gender-swapped. Not only is she not Finn, (of Finn and Jake), she's not a boy. Boys are typically the loners who "go out and save the world" and have tales created around their adventures - their angst, their journey to maturation and their eventual triumphs. In the gender-swapped universe of Adventure Time, it's Fionna who fills this role, much to the delight of audiences*** and fans who loved seeing a weird-but-strong female character saving princes who needed saving, and in I Kill Giants, it's Barabara Thorson who takes it upon herself to save the town and school from impending destruction by giants. It should be noted that the town and school typically view her with either derision or concern and unlike most heroes, she's not given a pass for her quirks, let alone respect. In this respect, a female hero is often more alone than a male hero. At least boys, who are derided for their crazy ideas, are still ultimately respected for 'wanting to be a hero'. In a girl, this quality and the various manifestations of that, is just seen as "cray-cray".

It's great to see this addressed and these issue being given the respect they deserve. Using the lens of a fairy tale is playing a major part in this, and that's no coincidence. Nothing tells us the truth, quite like a fairy tale.

I Kill Giants, directed by Anders Walter and also starring Zoe Saldana and Imogen Poots, hits theaters March 23, 2018.

*The graphic novel has been nominated for a lot of different awards, including an Eisner, and received the International Manga Award in 2012.
**I Kill Giants was apparently pitched and began development around the same as A Monster Calls, but the latter, made with a bigger budget, ended up making it to the screen a year earlier.
*** The debut airing of the Fionna and Cake saw "a dramatic increase in all boy demographics" and "marked a 42% increase in viewers compared to a year earlier". (Source)

TILT "Spin Tales" To Release Interactive Fairy Tale Bedsheets

Sleeping Beauty by Lucy Levenson

Technology meets textiles in startup company TILT's new line of fairy tale bedding. The announcement was made to the public at The Toy Insider's Holiday of Play event on September 21.

Note: None of the quilts shown in this post have anything to do with TILT or the interactive bedding. 

Here's the details:

Quilt or wall-hanging featuring Little Red Riding Hood,
made by Ukrainian woman Olga Basylewycz in a
displaced persons camp in southern Germany, 1946. 

Bedsheets and rugs are common household items yet a startup textile franchise called TILT has found a way to turn these unassuming items into playthings that will entertain children and foster their imaginations. Launched in 2016, TILT—which is under the umbrella of the larger Welspun group—is dedicated to the formation of “start textiles” which work with tablets and smartphones to bring colorful patterns and prints to life. This cutting-edge and creative franchise is known as “Spin Tales” and the brand has released a bedspread depicting the fairy tale themes of Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk and The Three Little Pigs and a rug featuring jungle themes.

And from the public announcement:

Hopeless Romantic by Barbara Zuazua

TILT by Welspun is an innovative smart home textiles company that creates interactive experiences through seamless integration of smart technology with home textiles. TILT will be launching their product line, Spin Tales, the first ever interactive bedding for children with a focus on storytelling, user experience and AR technology. The Spin Tales classic duvet and pillow case set allow readers to join Little Red, Three Pigs and Jack from Magic Beans on their adventures, or join Milo and friends in the Spin Tales Jungle rug to explore and learn about life in the jungle, by using an app that brings characters alive in 3D images. Spin Tales creates a unique bonding experience for children and parents; it draws them into an immersive world of stories and fosters learning in an interactive environment that is truly magical and playground cool. This is the first in a series of smart home textiles products that TILT is creating.

Here's the press release on the patent and technology, describing how an interactive bedspread would work:

Jack & the Beanstalk by Ellen Anderson

Welspun, a conglomerate that specializes in home textiles, is thrilled to announce that it has secured the "Interactive Textile Article and Augmented Reality System" patent, which protects Welspun's new product line TILT. The patent covers a system that has textile material with a design motif and an augmented reality software application. The software application is designed to allow a user to scan the design motif on the textile material, and enter an augmented reality portal that is thematically related to the design motif. TILT by Welspun is a new brand that focuses on seamlessly integrating technology into textiles. The first product, Spin Tales, is an interactive and innovative bed set and rug for kids aged three and up. With innovative technology, a free app designed for the duvet cover and rug allows the user to experience adventures in augmented reality and engage in interactive games. Spin Tales is the first of many smart home textile products that will be introduced under the TILT umbrella. 

We're not sure what we think of this new technology. It obviously has a lot of possibilities but we can also see the downside of this. Hopefully someone will see positive aspects and develop those.

In the meantime we support "portals into other worlds" by way of time honored bed time stories.

Disney's 'Gigantic' Adds 'Inside Out' Writer Meg LeFauve As Director

It happened on Frozen and it's happening, now, on Disney's upcoming animated feature Gigantic. Announced yesterday (Monday), Meg LeFauve, who was already writing on Gigantic, was just promoted to Director, joining the original director Nathan Greno, for being recognized as adding key creative direction to the script and development. It will be LeFauve's first directing credit.

Sources say the move is akin to what transpired on Disney’s 2013 hit Frozen, on which Jennifer Lee was promoted from screenwriter to director alongside Chris Buck. (source)

We applaud the recognition of female writing talent and recognizing the potential for the position of director, we hope this shows the long-coming acceptance of women in leadership roles in the "good-old-boys club" of feature animation. There's no doubt LeFauve has the talent and ability. Her credits and track record testify to that. (LeFauve is most recently known for her work on the upcoming Captain Marvel.)

There has been a trend in recent years of Disney adding a second director to their movies during development and production, as seen in Big Hero 6 and Zootopia, as well as Frozen, so it's not without precedence. We're very interested to see what a Greno-LeFauve team looks like in terms of creative output.

Official description: Set in Spain during the Age of Exploration, Gigantic follows a teenage adventure-seeker Jack as he discovers a world of giants hidden within the clouds. Along the way he meets Inma, a 60-foot-tall, 10 year-old girl, and agrees to help her find her way home. But he doesn't account for her super-sized personality. Who knew giants were so down to earth?  

"Jack befriends the female giant Inma, who’s “11 years old, 60 feet tall, fiery, feisty and a lot to control” and treats him like a living doll", Greno said. (D23)

It should also be noted that Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez (Frozen) are confirmed as writing the music. Gigantic is currently scheduled for release on November 21, 2018.

Found on Tumblr as a Gigantic/Star Versus the Forces of Evil crossover
(both Disney properties). You can see the character of Inma mirroring Star
very well (by an anonymous Drawfriend) 

Fairy Tale Bonus of the Day:

New Character for Gigantic: The Golden Goose

(reposting, extracted from Tumblr)

If people were not aware, there’s been a new character revealed for Disney’s Gigantic. It’s the Golden Goose. Thing is though, the character hasn’t been finalised. From the concept art by@pbcbstudios (voice of Marshmallow, Mr. Yama), we see that it’s going to join the ranks of Maximus, Sven and Pua of non-speaking Animals. This means to say that there’s going to be some gimmick with this character (Maximus was strategic and engaged in combat despite being a horse and Sven was able to speak through Kristoff). But, there’s some more interesting details that people may not realise…

It nests in human hair: On the concept art, we see that it nests on human hair, and, it has strands of blonde all hair over its body. This elaborates on a lot more than people may presume. For instance, it’s a size indicator of the Golden Goose being regular human size if it rests on giant hair strands. Also, if the hair is blonde, we can assume that the golden goose is associated with Imna. And before you wonder, I don’t think it’s even Imna’s pet, because…

The significance of birds: Linking back with my previous point with the Golden Goose being associated with Imna, another point to stress out is a world building aesthetic of Gigantic. Now, I want you to evaluate this picture (LEFT) very closely and identify anything that particularly stands out in this art…

Still haven’t figured it out yet? Well, birds are insects in the world of Gigantic. This leads to a lot of creative scenarios, for instance, pigeons and seagulls being pests instead of flies and mosquitoes. 

But how is the Golden Goose significant to the plot? We'll have to wait a little longer to find that out.

Disney's "Gigantic" News From D23 Today!

This is just breaking as I'm typing the post and people seem more excited about this news than anything else, including any news about Frozen 2, Moana (although that's a close second and I'll bring you up to date on that shortly), Zootopia, Winnie the Pooh or Once Upon A Time.

What is this, you're wondering? 

This is Disney's long-awaited Jack and the Beanstalk project Giants, now renamed Gigantic,  and news has been announced at the currently-running annual Disney fan expo, D23, in Anaheim California.

The story initially broken by Deadline, here's the gist (emphasis in bold and underlined is mine):

Disney said today at the D23 fan expo in Anaheim that its toon studio’s next project will be Gigantic, a Spain-set take on the Jack And The Beanstalk story.  Nathan Greno, who co-directed 2010’s Tangled, will helm the Disney Animation film with Dorothy McKim (Meet The Robinsons) producing. The film will hit theaters in 2018. 

“We want to make the definitive version of Jack And The Beanstalk,” Greno said onstage at D23. 

(Edit FTNH: Inserting official description below, rather than the paraphrased version) The director said: 

Set in Spain during the Age of Exploration, Disney’s “Gigantic” follows adventure-seeker Jack as he discovers a world of giants hidden within the clouds. He hatches a grand plan with Inma, a 60-foot-tall, 11-year-old girl, and agrees to help her find her way home. But he doesn’t account for her super-sized personality—and who knew giants were so down to earth? 

And it’s not just one Big Person at the top of the beanstalk but an entire world of giants from lots of different cultures, he said. The bad guys are the Storm Giants.

The premise isn't exactly new, though it will be interesting to see a grown-man Jack and giant child pair up. There's been more than one adaptation of the fairy tale that has multiple giants in the clouds. The 'set in Spain' part has sort of been done too, but still, this is the Disney version and soon people will have trouble remembering that. Let me rephrase that: this is the Disney FEATURE-LENGTH version. This will actually be the Disney company's FIFTH adaptation of the English fairy tale, including the animated versions in 19922, and the next in 1947, the Once Upon A Time version (in which Jack was Jaqueline and not-so good-of-heart) and the recent Disney movie version of Into the Woods, directed by Rob Marshall.

Did we mention that the music is being written by the duo who created Frozen's wildly successful soundtrack? They're far enough along in the process that they played (and sang) one of the songs at the D23 presentation - after Jack meets the giant girl Inma. Apparently it was "aw-dorable!" Being that the giant is 11 years old, we shouldn't be treated to any teenage angst songs like the infamous Frozen ballad, but there's a lot of warning about getting tugs on the heartstrings and the need to bring tissues so you never know.

And here's additional tidbits reported from various places.

CinemaBlend:

To add some cultural flare to film, it is actually set in Spain during the Age of Exploration, so expect Jack to be something of a Christopher Columbus of the skies. 
In addition to the officially released news, our own Eric Eisenberg is reporting from D23, and from what info he's gathered there, it sounds like Gigantic will include entire societies of different sorts of giants, including Storm Giants, who will act as the villains of the story, and will be twice as big as the girl Jack makes friends with. The character of Jack will be a grown man, as opposed to the youth that he is often portrayed as, which will be important to the interaction between Jack and Inma as the film will focus on the relationship between the adult, yet small human, and the young, yet huge, giant.

From InsideTheMagic:

As the announcement was made, a giant green beanstalk emerged on the D23 Expo 2015 show floor in the Walt Disney Animation Studios pavilion, surrounded by sound effects of a cow mooing and a giant grumbling. Artwork was (also) shown during the presentation. (Edit FTNH: I've inserted the main pics throughout this post.)

The definitive version, hey? I just can't imagine that, even if they do include the famous "Fee Fi Fo Fum" line. 

Dreamworks did an impressive homage to the fairy tale in their Puss In Boots film, but it wasn't the main image of the movie, so tends to be forgotten (worth a look if you haven't seen it - the whole film was far better in the use of fairy tales than I expected, for many reasons).

Oh and check out the cow in the clip below of the giant beanstalk 'prop' that appeared during the presentation, as well as a good look at the storybook Spanish village as well:

But no matter how this pans out, I'm excited to see this classically boys' fairy tale come into the Disney feature length canon and am curious to see what they do with the tale. More than that, though, I'm curious to see how people then re-discover and discuss Jack and the Beanstalk, which, if you read this blog, you'll know is one of my favorites. (Plus, my son's name  - yes my love of fairy tales had a BIG influence on his name choice - is going to have a whole Disney styling he can call his own! Sort of... Yes I am particularly biased in being excited about Jack and the Beanstalk things and there's no way it's going to be like Jack the Giant Slayer that, um, 'happened' a couple of years ago. At least some of those beanstalk posters were seriously awesome, [especially THIS one] even if the movie was... not.)

OK. I will admit this one thing: this movie is going to come complete with a ton of beanstalk products I am going to NEED (yes NEED I tell you!) and I am starting to save this very minute..! A giant beanstalk, along with a red hood, is one of the universal symbols for all things fairy tale. I don't care that it's been done to death, is well known etc etc. The sight of a giant beanstalk always sends me to a happy place. Expect more greenery in the Once Upon A Blog offices the moment merchandising and dollars collide.

So what do you think about all this? (Beanstalk product awesomeness or not?)

"Storybook" Opens Tomorrow at Modern Eden Gallery

See the whole announcement HERE

While not limited to fairy tales, childhood classics definitely include them so this exhibit which reinterprets childhood favorite stories through an adult lens has more than a few works of interest for us fairy tale folk.

Since most of us won't be able to pop by San Francisco to head into the Modern Eden Gallery and check it out in person, here are some of the fairy tale specific works.

Jack and the Beanstalk by Chris Leib

Where the Wild Things Are by Leilani Bustamente

Thumbelina by Ciou

Alice and the Mushrooms by Brianna Angelakis

James and the Giant Peach by Richard J. Oliver

Beauty and the Beast by Jana Brike

Someone's Been Eating My Porridge (Goldilocks) by Edith LeBeau

Nightsong in the Jungle (The Jungle Book) by Helice Wen

Paper Bag Princess by Megz Majewski

Supper (LRRH - I think) by Erika Sanada

The details on the Goldilocks one are just stunning.

And, yes, I added James and the Giant Peach because it always reminds me of Peach Boy - Momotaro, though it really has very little in common with the folktale, and Where The Wild Things Are because oh-my-goodness-do-you-see-the-Japanese-monsters?! Straight out of Japanese fairy tales... Love it! And a bonus because I heart it:

Ferdinand the Bull by Isabel Samaras

Some surprise interpretations: Are you There God? It's Me Margaret (the scaly girl)
Winnie the Pooh - the bottom left with added Taoist symbology
I am super curious as to what the girl holding the invisible 'something' is, in the upper right corner by Chris Leib - ideas? (I found no clues from the artist anywhere.)

You can see more previews of the pieces at the various article sites below:
Platinum Cheese
Hi-Fructose
Warholian (puts some pieces next to books were inspired by - I would have bet the bunny above was from The Velveteen Rabbit - but I was wrong!)