Romancing the Shoe

Once upon a time, before I met my friend Bridget (who started quite a lot of bad habits in me), I used to have one or two pairs of shoes, cross trainers which I wore for every occasion. Then Bridget came along, and now my shoe closet is full to the brim and overflowing with high heel shoes, boots, flats, and the usual cross-trainers (though now I own more than one). I still wear the same pair of shoes all the time: a well-worn pair of Merrell pace gloves which I love, but having options in case of emergencies or special occasions is fun!

So yes, I think shoes are very important to a woman’s life (and possible to a man, as well). But in Jessica Day George’s Dragon Slippers, shoes are important to everyone: men, women, and dragons. In fact, they are the trigger around which the entire plot revolves!

I finished reading Jessica Day George’s Dragon Slippers a couple days ago and enjoyed it very much. It’s a light and easy read, and I read through it fast. The novel follows the story of Creel, an orphan peasant girl. Creel’s aunt decides to sacrifice her to the village dragon in the hope that somebody might rescue, marry, and altogether take Creel off the aunt’s hands. Instead, Creel makes a bargain with the dragon and gets a pair of shoes (shoes! Notice where this is going!) from him for the road. Creel does not intend to go back home. She wants to go the big town, where the palace is, and make her fortune by weaving and embroidering.

Creel makes friends easily, befriending not only the girls in the shop where she finds work, but a dragon, the youngest prince, and the prince’s bodyguard. She also makes enemies fast -- or at least gets on the wrong side of the foreign princess about to marry the royal heir. Many adventures befall Creel, because even though she refuses to see it, the shoes she received from the dragon are magic. The foreign princess knows and wants them. The dragons know, but prefer to keep Creel ignorant. Only once she loses the shoes does Creel finally understand how important they are, and now her world is turned upside down as she realizes she could lose all her new friends unless she gets those shoes back!

I find it funny that both Jessica Day George books I read so far have a lot to do with shoes. In Midnight Ball (which I wrote about here) the whole hullabaloo starts because the princesses wear out their dance shoes every night. In Dragon Slippers Creel’s shoes possess a strange power over the dragons without which the conflict of the novel would not exist. Jessica Day George wrote several other novels, and I wonder if the theme of significant shoes continues in them. If I find the answer, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Fairytale Retellings

My favorite Cinderella retelling is Eleanor Farjeon’s The Glass Slipper which I originally read in Hebrew. I love the image of Shoshi’s father (she is called Ella in the English version), hiding sugared plums for Shoshi in his pocket during the ball, feeling sad about not standing up to his wife. I love the chirping fairy godmother who hides peaches for Shoshi within a pile of kindling, Shoshi’s childlike enthusiasm about dancing and the speeches that the toastmaster gives for every dish.

When I came upon a recommendation for Ash, a Cinderella adaptation by Malinda Lo, I was excited. Here was an opportunity to research the fairy tale market. Ash grows up near the forest, and after her mother and then her father die, she is taken to live at her stepmother’s house, which is adjacent to a different part of the forest. The forest helps maintain the enchantment permeating the book: paths form beneath Ash’s feet as she wanders, leading her in and out of mist-shrouded places to which a fairy friend tells her she ought not to go. In the forest she also meets the King’s Huntress, and in an unexpected twist we find that Ash is to fall in love not with the prince, but with this woman who feels compassion for the deer she hunts.

The novel is beautifully written in lyrical language which brings to life the mystical world Ash lives in. Despite that, I felt confused by Ash’s bizarre relationship with the fairy man. I was further confused by the scene at which Ash enters the ball in her fairy ball gown and is accosted by the prince who falls in love with her. I suppose three is a magical number in fairy tales, but this abundance of lovers simply made me see Ash as rather emotionless. I also wondered whether women kissing in public during the king’s ball was a common occurrence, since no character commented on it.

In contrast, I was entirely entranced by Jessica Day George’s Princess of the Midnight Ball. I do not know if there is another retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses fairytale, but I was smitten by this one. Jessica Day George raises the stakes so high in the story that I was kept wanting to read more and more and in fact felt so eager to know what is coming next that I never once thought to peek ahead (my usual naughty practice). Midnight Ball is readable and colorful, and all the characters felt lovable to me, including the grumpy Reiner Orm, uncle to the soldier who attempts to rescue the princesses from the enchantment placed on them.

I am looking forward to reading some other fairy tale adaptations I downloaded into my ipad, as well as some new releases which I found recommended on blogs. I enjoy discovering new writers, and I already purchased another Jessica Day George novel called Dragon Slippers, which I hope will be as good.