Horse, Flower, Bird

July 12, 2010
Deep-seated fears find their way into these eight brief, dark adult fairy tales by Bernheimer (The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum). In "A Doll's Tale," a sad child named Astrid loves a life-size doll to distraction, even though it is "haughty and mean." When the doll is lost, then replaced by an imaginary friend who runs away, Astrid eventually becomes more doll-like than either of her companions. Another woman conspires, in "A Petting Zoo Tale," to keep a small menagerie in her basement, unbeknownst to her distracted lawyer husband. And what to make of the wounded and delirious protagonist of "Whitework"? Taking refuge in a remote cottage, she becomes obsessed with the intricate designs of the white-on-white embroidery she finds there. These stories are the product of a vivid imagination and crafty manipulation by their skillful creator. Pity there are not more drawings by Ducornet.

August 15, 2010

A collection of quirky, twisted fairy tales for adults touching on loneliness, alienation and male domination; among the author's previous projects is the children's book The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum (2008).

Streaked with absurdism, Bernheimer's odd little tales are told from the perspective of girls and young women who strive to rise above their unhappy circumstances through elaborate schemes. A 17-year-old living alone with her bird-hating mother conducts bedroom experiments with her parakeet, gets a job dancing topless in a suspended cage and moves into an apartment where she pursues "friendships that paid" in one room and builds the cage of her dreams for herself in another. A young wife keeps a menagerie in her basement, including a goat and a miniature pony, convincing herself that her indifferent husband might suspect something unusual is going on. A lame girl finds herself bedridden in a miniature cottage straight out of an old German folktale, where she is cared for by her faceless companion, cheered by a candle in the shape of a bluebird and transfixed by a portrait of a mysterious young girl. Unlike classic fairy tales, these are largely free of punishment and moral consequences, even as they allude to such dark subjects as rape, misogyny and the Holocaust. Bernheimer cites Peanuts as one of her influences, and this collection does have a certain comic-book sensibility. In these stories, childhood merges with adulthood, the former being no less difficult to understand than the latter. Except for an out-of-sync tale of sisters exploring themes of love and violence by acting out scenes from Star Wars, the stories are of a piece.

Eight strange, quietly unhinged narratives by an author who reinvents the fairy tale with her postmodern approach.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 1, 2010

This is a collection of eight imaginative if not downright unusual tales that will delight readers but also evoke sadness and loneliness. Bernheimer's lean and lyrical writing conceals forceful and spirited stories that will definitely prove disturbing, as in the collection's last, dreamlike tale, "Whitework." Other stories, like the penultimate "A Star Wars Tale," will bring back strong memories of childhood as they communicate an innocent understanding of the world that is simultaneously beautiful and perhaps brutal. Bernheimer's passion for fairy tales is evident in every story she spins, which should come as no surprise--she is founder and editor of Fairy Tale Review, and her previous works (e.g., The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold) draw heavily on classic fairy tales from many countries to create wonderfully original new ones. VERDICT Bernheimer's work provides a refreshing contrast to most available fiction. It is no stretch to compare her to Aimee Bender or Kelly Link, and fans ought to be on the lookout for My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales, a forthcoming collection that she edited featuring those two authors.--Faye A. Chadwell, Oregon State Univ. Libs., Corvallis

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2010
In eight hauntingly poetic fairy tales, Bernheimer roots deep into the hyperimagination and fears of lonely girls and the estranged women they become. When a little girls pet parakeet dies, she runs away from home and later becomes an exotic dancer who builds her own cage. Two sisters perform imaginary scenarios from Star Wars in which love never triumphs. A girl abandons her sisters friendship for that of a doll, and later for an imaginary friend whose disappearance leaves her psychotic. A young Jewish girl suffers from guilt and a fear of incineration after her friends and family fail to comprehend her intense desire for atonement. And in the collections most heartrending story, a woman hides a petting zoo in her basement, convinced that her secret is preserving her overworked husbands stability. By turns lovely and tragic, Bernheimers spare but captivating fables of femininity resonate like a string of sad but all-too-real and meaningful dreams. This is a collection readers wont soon forget, one that redefines the fairy tale into something wholly original.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)