What's good for the goose
For her impressive debut novel, American writer Shannon Hale has turned to intriguing source material. You can almost sense the excitement and potential as the idea occurred to her. Why not take a classic folktale and breathe new life and excitement into its old bones by giving it a full-length make-over? Traditional folktales are often slight in their structure but possess the basic elements of romance and magic that are popular with teenage readers today.
With a lot of restructuring and fleshing out, a traditional story from hundreds of years ago could just well end up as an intriguing new novel. Hale's idea is a simple and fascinating one. She was even confident enough to keep the original tale's title.
Shannon Hale's The Goose Girl is a new and impressive look at a story some of us might know. Hale has taken the Brothers Grimm fairytale of the princess who was tricked into working as a goose girl, and turned the whole thing on its head.
From the few pages of a slim folktale that the original writers themselves had collected from the oral tradition of German storytelling, Hale has woven an original and magical story of a young girl who has to understand herself before she can claim her true inheritance.
The Goose Girl is set in an imaginary bygone world that is very real in its detail and atmosphere. Ani, Crown Princess of Kildenree, is rejected by her mother from the moment she is born. She is brought up by her mysterious aunt, and spends all her time listening to wonderful stories and learning all about the animals in the forests around the palace. She discovers that she is able to communicate with birds and animals, but has the sense to keep this a secret from her parents.
Ani's cruel mother hatches a plot to deprive her strange daughter of the succession and, when she is old enough, the scheming queen arranges a marriage for Ani so she can get rid of her once and for all. The young princess is packed off to the neighbouring country of Bayern where she will eventually marry the king's eldest son.
But fate plays Ani a cruel blow as she journeys to Bayern. En route to her marriage, she is betrayed by one of her ladies-in-waiting who takes her place as the princess. Ani is left alone in the forest where nobody believes her story.
The stage is set for a captivating story of suspense and intrigue. Will she or won't she claim her rightful inheritance and marry the handsome prince? We might think we already know the answer to that one, but Shannon Hale is a clever storyteller who has many twists and turns in store for Ani as she fights to get back what is really hers.
The Goose Girl has moments of sadness, passion, happiness, intrigue and adventure just like any good fairytale should, but it has them in bucketloads rather than mere sprinklings. This is a highly readable, enjoyable and captivating novel from a writer with a fertile and vivid imagination.
The Goose Girl
By Shannon Hale
Published by Bloomsbury
ISBN 0 7475 6419 1
