Young Adult Fairy Tales

Hey, did you hear the one about the man who dropped a lit cigarette into the toilet with some gasoline-soaked rags? Of course you did, it happened to your gym teacher's cousin. Or was it your cousin's gym teacher?

Samantha Knox put away her childish fantasies of archaeological adventure the day her father didn't return home from the Great War, retreating to the safety of the antique bookshop where she works. But when a mysterious package arrives with a damaged diary inside, Sam's peaceful life is obliterated. Ruthless men intent on reclaiming the diary are after Sam, setting her and her best friend, along with her childhood crush, on a high-stakes adventure that lands them in the green hills outside Dublin, Ireland.

Gelya is a Vessel, a girl who channels the word of the One True God through song. Cloistered with the other Vessels of her faith, she believes - as all Ovinists do - that a saint imprisoned Elath the Great Demon centuries ago, saving humanity from temptation. When Gelya stumbles into a deadly cover-up by the Ovinists’ military, she reluctantly teams up with Tavik, an enemy soldier, to survive. Tavik believes that Elath is actually a mother goddess who must be set free, but while he succeeds in opening her prison, he inadvertently turns Gelya into Elath’s unwilling human vessel.

Never whistle at the Northern Lights, the legend goes, or they'll sweep down from the sky and carry you away. Sixteen-year-old Eline Davis knows it's true. She was there 10 years ago, on a frozen fjord in Svalbard, Norway, the night her mother whistled at the lights and then vanished. Now, Eli lives an ordinary life with her dad on Cape Cod. But when the Northern Lights are visible over the Cape for just one night, she can't resist the possibility of seeing her mother again. So she whistles--and it works. Her mother appears, with a hazy story of where she's been all these years.

Her name is Omakayas, or Little Frog, because her first step was a hop, and she lives on an island in Lake Superior. It is 1850 and the lives of the Ojibwe have returned to a familiar rhythm: they build their birchbark houses in the summer, go to the ricing camps in the fall to harvest and feast, and move to their cozy cedar log cabins near the town of LaPointe before the first snows.

An epic re-creation of the exhilarating and mysterious time when the Sun King ruled Egypt, Ramses, the Son of Light, has become the rage in France. With over two million copies sold, it is the greatest publishing phenomenon to hit the shelves there in 20 years. Rameses is only 14 when his father, the Pharaoh Seti, begins testing his true mettle. Being the younger of two sons, the proud Ramses has a problem with being relegated to second place.

Marjan is a poor, crippled orphan girl, but she is happy living with her aunt and uncle in the sultan's city. Her hero is the beautiful Shahrazad, who has bewitched the sultan with her nightly tales and thus keeps him from killing other wives. Marjan wonders what Shahrazad's life is like in the silken rooms of the palace. She will soon find out. Taken to the palace to help Shahrazad find new tales, Marjan realizes that the lovely woman is a prisoner of the cycle of stories.

With the end of the Midwinter Festival life in Solana was supposed to quiet down, but turmoil reigns instead. The Calyx are on strike while their familiars are in quarantine. Sasha and Rialta await trial, separated from Jessamine by a bureaucracy she is determined to overcome—even if it means bending the rules. Çifta is frozen in a pillar of ice and only Laec seems interested in trying to save her… But inside the ice Çifta must pass a magical test to win her life.

Some people bomb auditions. Sadie Ramirez throws up during her tryouts on TV show America's Top Talent. Her performance is so bad, it earns her a fairy godmother through the Magical Alliance's Pitiful Damsel Outreach Program. Enter Chrysanthemum Everstar: a gum-chewing, cell-phone-carrying, high-heel-wearing fairy godmother in training.

Halli Sveinsson has grown up in the House of Svein, listening to the legends of the heroes as all his forefathers did. His is a peaceful society where the violence of the past has been outlawed and disputes are settled by the Council. But young Halli has never quite seemed to fit in with the others. For starters, he was not at all handsome or tall, like his attractive blond siblings. He's stumpy and swarthy, with a quick mind and aptitude for getting in trouble.

Marshall Seaver and Cooper Foley have been friends through life - and death. Now the ethereal pathway between realms, known as the Morpheus Road, is in danger of being destroyed by the vengeful spirit who has become their nemesis: the ancient warrior called Damon. The worlds of the living and the dead are about to collide, forcing Marshall to make a brave and shocking decision as the two friends navigate a perilous trail that leads to a frightening realization: Damon isn’t their only enemy.

In the land of moss, magnolias, and bayous, ghost stories suffuse the landscape like mist on a moonlit swamp. Swamp ghosts, hot-tempered villains and tricksters once lived there, and live on today in such blood-chilling stories as the six in this collection.

Growing up in North Carolina, Donald Davis heard stories that came to America through Scots-Irish immigrants about a fellow named Jack who was so real that young Davis thought he was a distant relative or otherside-of-the-mountain neighbor. Now Davis knows that Jack is a universal legendary figure who, by various names, is found in nearly every culture.

Rex M. Ellis weaves the strands of African folklore, early American history, and contemporary interpretations into the rich quilt that is the African-American experience. His stories spin a thread from the Windward Coast of West Africa to the shores of Jamestown and beyond. He uses storytelling as both a historical teaching tool and a method for dealing with controversial subjects.

Much has changed since autumn when Kelley Winslow learned she was a Faerie princess, fell in love with changeling guard Sonny Flannery, and saved New York City from a rampaging Faerie war band. Sonny has been relegated by Kelley's father, King Auberon, to the Faerie Realm, where he's hunting down the remaining deadly warriors with blood magick - his own blood. Kelley is stuck in New York, rehearsing her lines for Romeo and Juliet and missing Sonny more with every stage kiss.

Kateri, an arrogant warrior princess, has to fight in the arena against her suitors to win her right to rule, and she is desperate to prove to her father that she is strong enough to take over his throne and rule the kingdom. But when she finds out her final opponent, she knows she cannot win. Kateri flees to the desert to train under the enemy she hates the most and the only one who might be able to give her a shot at winning. But what Kateri discovers in the desert twists her world - and her heart - upside-down.

One hundred years after falling asleep, Princess Aurora wakes up to the kiss of a handsome prince and a broken kingdom that has been dreaming of her return. All the books say she should be living happily ever after. But as Aurora understands all too well, the truth is nothing like the fairy tale.

Sarah and Evelyn have already risked everything to help Ava win a crown. But they soon learn that a coronation is a beginning, not an ending. Not everyone in Rangmere is happy to see the young queen on the throne, and intrigue and danger lurk all around. The cousins find themselves fighting not only for their new kingdom but also for their own survival in the royal court. When a new threat emerges, the two girls must defeat it to both save the crown and secure their own happily-ever-afters.

For Clara Stahlbaum, this Christmas means the end of her youth. A daughter of the aristocracy, Clara is expected to give up her dreams of adventures and the extraordinary for more normal days as the wife of a cruel viscount. But when magical Uncle Drosselmeyer returns with his wondrous, dancing contraptions and one special gift for Clara, she is beckoned to the land of Winter Dream, where she is thrust into the greatest adventure of her wildest dreams.

September has longed to return to Fairyland after her first adventure there. And when she finally does, she learns that its inhabitants have been losing their shadows - and their magic - to the world of Fairyland-Below. This world has a new ruler: Halloween, the Hollow Queen, who is September’s shadow. And Halloween has no intentions of giving Fairyland’s shadows back. Fans of Valente’s bestselling first Fairyland book will revel in the lush setting, characters, and language of September’s journey.