FantASStic Book Fair
29 August 2019
Parkside Lounge
With: Lee Valone, Rocco Chanel, Striker Posie, Queerly Femmetastic, Kia Sangria, Rhoda Dendron, Mimi Hurricane, DJ Stormageddon, Pocket Monáe, and Clitoris B. Toklas
Reading List
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
While Lee Valone's act focuses on events in The Two Towers, the second book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the world of Middle Earth stretches across multiple narratives written across 70 years by J.R.R. Tolkien and his son Christopher Tolkien. Those books are:
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The Hobbit (1937)
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The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)
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The Two Towers (1954)
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The Return of the King (1955)
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The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962)
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The Silmarillion (1977)
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The Children of Húrin (2007)
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Rocco Chanel's act pays homage to Maurice Sendak's 1963 Caldecott-winning book Where the Wild Things Are. While we currently think of Sendak's book as a classic of childhood, it was initially met with controversy and was even banned in some places:
Maurice Sendak’s picture book faced many opponents immediately after its publication in 1963. Readers believed Where the Wild Things Are was psychologically damaging and traumatizing to young children due to Max’s inability to control his emotions and his punishment of being sent to bed without dinner. Psychologists called it “too dark”, and the book was banned largely in the south. It has also been challenged several times for its images of witchcraft and supernatural elements.
Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen
This show has both an act and a stage kitten inspired by the work of Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. Most people have a greater familiarity with animated adaptations of his work, like Don Bluth's Thumbelina (1994), which inspired Striker Posie's act, and of course Disney's The Little Mermaid (1989), which informs Mimi Hurricane's work in his show. Want to read Andersen's work? Check it out now! (Thanks, public domain!)
Snow White and adaptations
Queerly Femmetastic is offering us a reimagining of the fairy tale first popularized by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Check out some other adaptations! We recommend Neil Gaiman's "Snow, Glass, Apples" from his short story collection Smoke and Mirrors, which imagines Snow White as a vampire, and Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles, where the character inspired by Snow White is a moon-dwelling woman of color. (She doesn't show up until late in the series, but is pretty pivotal.)
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
Y'all know these. In June, Anja Keister gave us one Harry Potter villain (Dolores Umbridge) and now, Kia Sangria brings Bellatrix Lestrange to the Bibliothèque Stage! Bellatrix is first mentioned in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; she's a central villain in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
The Clifford the Big Red Dog series by Norman Bridwell
Clitoris B. Toklas is excited to host this show as one of her favorite childhood characters!
