Recently, Evangelist Franklin Graham started urging people to boycott the Disney’s new Beauty and the Beast movie because Gaston’s sidekick, LeFou is gay, or at least sexually confused. In a Facebook post, he accused Disney of “trying to push the LGBT agenda into the hearts and minds of your children– watch out!”
Yes, how dare Disney tell children that people different than them exist. They are monsters.
Here are 5 fairytale retellings that would also piss off Graham.
Cinder Ella by S. T. Lynn
Genre: LGBT, Fairytale
Page Count: 62 pages
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.23 out of 5 stars
Ella is transgender. She’s known since she was young; being a woman just fit better. She was happier in skirts than trousers, but that was before her stepmother moved in. Eleanor can’t stand her, and after Ella’s father passes she’s forced to revert to Cole, a lump of a son. She cooks, she cleans, and she tolerates being called the wrong name for the sake of a roof over her head. Where else can she go?
An opportunity to attend the royal ball transforms Ella’s life. For the first time, strangers see a woman when she walks down the stairs. While Princess Lizabetta invited Cole to the ball, she doesn’t blink an eye when Cinderella is the one who shows. The princess is elegant, bold, and everything Ella never knew she wanted. For a moment she glimpses a world that can accept her, and she holds on tight.
She should have known it wouldn’t last. Dumped by her wicked stepmother on the farthest edge of the kingdom, Ella must find a way to let go of the princess and the beautiful life they shared for an hour. She’ll never find her way back. But it’s hard to forget the greatest night of her life when every rose she plants is a reminder.
You can buy this book on Amazon (this is not an affiliate link).
Cyndra: A Modern Fairytale by Scarlett Cantrell
Genre: Contemporary, Fairytale, LGBT
Word Count: 8,300
Average Goodreads Review: 3.38 out of 5 stars
17-year-old Cyndra has one dream and one dream only: to get the hell away from her foster family! She’s tired of playing maid to her wicked foster mother, her bitchy foster brother, and her mean, overweight foster sister.
When word gets out that Verbena’s most eligible bachelorette, “Princess” Raven, is searching for a suitor, every young person in town wants the chance to bag the wealthy heiress. No one, not even Cyndra, will miss that opportunity.
Raven Wright isn’t looking for love. She’s young and there’s still so much fun to be had. But if she doesn’t get married soon she may never realize her dream of running her father’s company. So she hosts a ball in the hope that she’ll meet someone who will go along with the fake marriage. Her father’s company is the furthest thing from her mind, however, when she meets Cyndra at the ball.
Maybe the marriage won’t have to be fake after all…
You can buy this book on Smashwords for only 99 cents.
Peter Darling by Austin Chant
Genre: Fairytale, LBGT, Fantasy
Page Count: 164 pages
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.36 out of 5 stars
Ten years ago, Peter Pan left Neverland to grow up, leaving behind his adolescent dreams of boyhood and resigning himself to life as Wendy Darling. Growing up, however, has only made him realize how inescapable his identity as a man is.
But when he returns to Neverland, everything has changed: the Lost Boys have become men, and the war games they once played are now real and deadly. Even more shocking is the attraction Peter never knew he could feel for his old rival, Captain Hook—and the realization that he no longer knows which of them is the real villain.
You can buy this book at your local bookstore or on Smashwords.
Ash by Malinda Lo
Genre: LGBT, Fairytale, Fantasy
Page Count: 264 pages
Average Goodreads Rating: 3.62 out of 5 stars
In the wake of her father’s death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away, as they are said to do. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.
The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King’s Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Though their friendship is as delicate as a new bloom, it reawakens Ash’s capacity for love-and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.
Entrancing, empowering, and romantic, Ash is about the connection between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.
Buy this book at your local bookstore today.
The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman
Genre: Fantasy, Fairytale, LGBT
Page Count: 72
Average Goodreads Rating: 3.9 out of 5 stars
On the eve of her wedding, a young queen sets out to rescue a princess from an enchantment. She casts aside her fine wedding clothes, takes her chain mail and her sword and follows her brave dwarf retainers into the tunnels under the mountain towards the sleeping kingdom. This queen will decide her own future – and the princess who needs rescuing is not quite what she seems. Twisting together the familiar and the new, this perfectly delicious, captivating and darkly funny tale shows its creators at the peak of their talents.
I know I’m super psyched about the new Beauty and the Beast movie. This a retelling of one of my favorite fairy tales and I’m really happy about Disney finally started to add LGBT characters.
You can buy a signed edition at your local bookstore today.
I know I’m looking forward to the new Beauty and the Beast movie. And I’m looking forward to reading some of these fairy tale retellings. Have you read any of these books? What did you think about them? Let me know in the comments.
All of the links here, with the exception of Cinder Ella, is an affiliate link, which means I get a small commission every time you purchase through these links. 50% of my affiliate earnings is donated to Trees for the Future.