I think retold fairy stories are a great idea--it's so much fun to reshape the "message" in a way that's more immediate--but a "tweet" yesterday from agent Jennifer Laughran got me thinking: "In two 7th grade classes, zero kids had read any Grimm's fairy tales."

Add that to an admission from a critique buddy that her grandchildren don't have nursery rhymes read to them--it's scary! Are kids today losing out on a whole cannon of cultural references? Not only "crying wolf," but "straw into gold"; "don't count your chickens"; "ugly duckling" (I'm sure kids can figure out what an ugly duck is--but do they realize that when someone is called an ugly duckling, there's a world of promise and reassurance implied--because the "ugly duckling" was really a swan?). Do they "get" a parody by Jon Scieska? Isn't David Wiesner's Three Little Pigs that much funnier if you know the original story? How about all the sly references in the Shrek movies?

I believe a retold story should stand on its own--but fear modern readers are missing the resonance that gives these retellings such depth.

In the resulting twitter conversation yesterday, a fellow writer ventured the opinion that no one reads Simple Simon (for instance) because no one now (kids or adults) knows what a "pieman" is. But isn't that WHY we read to our children--to give them context by introducing them to other times and other cultures?

Sorry to have hijacked the "message" discussion--this just really freaks me out!

Hi Auntie Flamingo. I finally had a moment today to catch up on website stuff. I still promise a future blog on picture book revisions, so stay tuned (plus a real answer to your screenwriting question soon, too).

In the meantime, you bring up a great topic. It's very difficult to write a picture book that is about a "cerebral" topic such as fibbing. Picture books are ultimately very visual with visceral text, and the story itself must be very active and the main character has to be pro-active. You have to dramatize externally a lot of "internal" concepts. 

So I think a re-telling of The Boy Who Cried Wolf is a fantastic way to dramatize a very cerebral topic (don't lie!). It's a story everyone is familiar with. Do not abandon this project because you are assuming ahead of time that publishers will find it too preachy or derivative. Don't assume! Be brave! (Remember, as Oscar told Felix in "The Odd Couple" - "When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me." LOL! I always loved that show.)

Anyway, without having seen your draft, my general suggestions are:

1.  What makes your re-telling of this classic fable NECESSARY in this day and age? Is it a new setting, a new twist in the plot, is it the language (unique voice) or is it told from someone else's point of view? (For example, imagine if The Boy Who Cried Wolf was told from the SHEEP's point of view... that would be hysterical! Plus it would still get across the theme of the consequences of  fibbing. Those poor sheep!)

2. A trick I learned in a writing class was - sometimes we get super preachy or we go overboard with the sledgehammer of theme in the last paragraph. So I was told - when you finish a story, chapter, or novel or picture book, delete the last paragraph. Often, you'll find that the real last paragraph was the second-to-last paragraph, but you didn't trust the reader and you were insecure about your writing skills, so you threw in that extra paragraph just to make sure everyone got the point with a really preachy or purple prose-y last paragraph. So try that - get rid of the last paragraph from your book and see if it's less "preachy." Or even try getting rid of the last paragraph to the end of each new scene. I'm curious to hear what you found!

Finally, re-telling of fairy tales and fables is a market that will never grow old, but it just has to be done in a fresh and innovative way. For example, Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith re-told The Three Little Pigs story but from the wolf's point of view (he was set up! No fair!) and the result was a hilarious book that still kept the integrity of the original fable alive. The amazon link is here:

http://www.amazon.com/True-Story-Three-Little-Pigs/dp/0140544518

I hope this helps! Keep me posted on your progress. Does anyone else have any thoughts? I know it's been quiet lately because I was a little AWOL due to my crazy schedule plus I think some folks are recovering from NaPiBoWriWee, but hopefully more people will participate in these message forums! I am enjoying the messages posted here so far!