"'My feet are not bound.' 'I noticed,' said the prince." 

For our fourth retelling in our second Cinderella Month, Drew and Cassie are taking a look at Bound by Donna Jo Napoli. This 2004 book specifically retells the ancient Chinese legend of Ye Xian, reimagining the main character as Xing Xing, a young woman whose circumstances have left her orphaned and living with her cruel and jealous stepmother and half-sister, Wei Ping. We discuss the appropriateness of Napoli as a white author telling this story, the lack of development for the prince, the complicated family relationships, the way Napoli uses foot binding to connect to the Cinderella story, the inclusion of the toe removal from the Grimm version of the story, Stepmother as a clever villain, and more! 

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Music: Through The Woods by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com  

"I'm not happy pretending everything is fine when I know it's not." 

Drew and Cassie return after a hiatus to continue our Cinderella Month with our next book, Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron. This 2020 YA novel imagines a harshly patriarchal world set 200 years after Cinderella's death, in which her story is used to enforce the rules of the world. Our heroine is 16-year-old Sophia, who is about the attend the ball for the first time, and who is desperate to rebel against the world thanks to her love for her best friend, Erin. Sophia ends up fleeing the ball and starting a campaign to bring down the king along with help from a descendant of Cinderella's stepsister, the original fairy godmother, and more. While we share many of the same frustrations with this book, we do appreciate some of the ideas at the core of the story!

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"His father wanted him to choose Lavaliere for Prince’s Preference, but he had to talk to Ella."

Drew and Cassie are so excited to talk about Megan Morrison's Tyme series but also sad that this is the final Morrison book that has been published! For our second week in Cinderella Month, we are discussing Morrison's Disenchanted: The Trials of Cinderella. This novel is told from three points of view: Ella Coach, a young woman whose mother died in a sweat shop and wants every laborer in the Blue Kingdom to receive fairer treatment; Prince Dash Charming, a young man whose familial curse has recently been broken, and who wants to be a better person than his father and grandfather before him; and Serge, a fairy godfather who is losing his magic, and who finds himself in a position to help one Ella Coach. We discuss the creative world of Tyme, the incredibly themed characters names, Serge/Jasper, fantasy slang, the way the Cinderella elements are rearranged, awesome mom Queen Maud, and we say "these books are so good" about ten times!

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"I don't want a life stuck waving from a royal box any more than a life confined to a basement."

Drew and Cassie begin our return to the fairy tale of Cinderella by discussing the Amazon Prime movie from 2021 starring Camila Cabello, Idina Menzel, Billy Porter, and more. This jukebox movie musical incorporates songs like "Rhythm Nation," "Somebody to Love," and "Material Girl" while reimagining Cinderella as a young woman who dreams of designing fashion and owning a dress shop. Meanwhile, Prince Robert is struggling with his father's expectations versus his own desires, and soon the two protagonists find their ambitions entwined. We discuss jukebox musicals, the movie's similarities to other Cinderella-adjacent movies, the aggressively contemporary dialogue, the reinterpretation of Cinderella's relationship with her stepfamily, Cassie's idea on how to fix the story, and more!

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It's time to wish our way out of one fairy tale and into another! Drew and Cassie wrap up their final thoughts on Aladdin, including, and then rather than discussing how we would retell the tale ourselves like we usually do, we suggest ideas of how we would like to see someone else retell Aladdin. Then we take a journey to the past by explaining why we wanted to revisit Cinderella. We discuss the plots of some of the most prominent cultural variants of the story: Rhodopis of Greece, Ye Xian of China, and Vasilisa the Brave of Russia. We also update our criteria a little bit from the last time we talked about Cinderella and reveal which books and movies we'll be reading and watching throughout the month! 

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"This is all your fault, Jafar."

In our final week of Aladdin Month, Drew and Cassie are joined by Cassie's younger brother, Jeffrey, to discuss the 2013 musical Twisted: The Untold Story of a Royal Vizier from StarKid Productions. This parody of Disney's Aladdin is inspired by Wicked and retells the tale from Jafar's point of view, reimagining him as a well-intentioned advisor to the king who is trying to fix all of the kingdom's problems, but finds himself blamed for them instead. Aladdin himself is a greedy 33-year-old orphan who seeks to take advantage of the optimistic Princess, and all this is happening while Prince Achmed - yes, that Prince Achmed - seeks revenge for being attacked by a tiger. We discuss Jim Povolo's voice, dodging copyright laws, Jasmine as a Social Justice Warrior, Dylan Saunders' extraordinary performance, the inclusion of Scheherazade, Michael Caine in The Muppet Christmas Carol, the many references and allusions to Disney movies and Disney history, and more! 

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Music: Through The Woods by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com 

"You ain't never had a friend like me!"

Disney week came early this month! For our third week of Aladdin Month, Drew and Cassie discuss Disney's 1992 animated film, the 2019 live action movie, the 2011 Broadway musical, and much more! We talk about our personal memories and connections to Disney's version of Aladdin before delving into the plot specifics of the animated movie. Then we talk about the differences made for the live action movie and the Broadway musical, and then we go even further by looking at some of the changes made for Aladdin, Jr. and Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular at the California Adventure theme park. We discuss the Disney+ stereotype warning, the various iterations of Iago, the casting issues across all versions, Aladdin as the "diamond in the rough," Jasmine's naiveté contrasted with her strength, Robin Williams' Genie vs. Will Smith's Genie vs. the Broadway Genie, the adaptation from screen to stage, ways in which Disney nods to the original fairy tale, Aladdin's appearances in the theme parks, and much more! 

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Music: Through The Woods by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com 

"Oh, my naive thief. Love is rarely a choice.” 

For our second week of Aladdin Month, Drew and Cassie are discussing The Forbidden Wish by Jessica Khoury. This 2016 YA novel casts Zahra as the protagonist, a jinn who has been trapped for five hundred years until her lamp is found by a young man named Aladdin. As Aladdin makes his three wishes and Zahra receives an opportunity to earn her freedom, the two characters find themselves falling into a star-crossed love. We talk about the novel's jinn lore, reinterpreting Aladdin's laziness as trauma, Pinterest, the "make me a prince" wish across all retellings, compulsory heterosexuality, the different ways Drew and Cassie imagine characters when reading, and more! 

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Drew and Cassie begin Aladdin Month with the Aladdin episode from HBO's Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child featuring the voices of B.D. Wong, George Takei, Joan Chen, and more. This series from the 90s reset classic fairy tales into alternate cultural settings, although for Aladdin they kept the Chinese setting from the original story. We discuss Aladdin as a dreamer instead of just lazy, the combination of the magician and the vizier, using the lamp as a lamp, the lack of actual wishing involved, the movie Holes, and much more!

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It's time to dance our way out of June's story and make a wish to start July's story: Aladdin! Drew and Cassie wrap up our final thoughts on The 12 Dancing Princesses, and Drew shares some thoughts on the reasons he doesn't care for the original story while Cassie helps sort through these ideas. As we discuss our own ideas for how we would retell the tale, Drew connects The 12 Dancing Princesses to a different, perhaps more beloved, story, and Cassie goes into detail about "Deliverance," her version of the story that she's been hinting to throughout the month. Then we begin our journey into the world of Aladdin by discussing its muddled history before talking about the "original" tale. We end by revealing the Aladdin criteria and which retellings we'll be reading and watching throughout July! 

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Music: Through The Woods by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com