I just finished The Book of Lost Things by John Conolly. It is brimming with everything that makes a good novel: affection, loss, imagination and of course, fairy tales. Connolly rewrites some of the best known fairy tales with a distinct flavor, somehow managing to be both darkly twisted and compelling cute. Besides the fact that the protagonist, David is a young boy, this must be one of the reasons it is popular among (and marketed to) both the young adult and adult reading crowd. If nothing else, Connolly shows us why this is true of fairy tales themselves. These stories would not stay alive in our imaginations if they were not capable of simple, yet profound messages.
16 different versions of Little Red Riding Hood (dating back to the 18th century!) can be found here
...They also have a cinderella project that is equally as interesting.
