Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin

Rump was brought up in a world where names are not given to mountains, kingdoms, roads, animals or woods, instead only reserved for people.  Names are considered to be powerful and hold your destiny.  Unfortunately, Rump's mother only gave him half a name before dying after childbirth. For this reason, Rump believes that he need only find his true full name and his destiny will be revealed to him.  On Rump's twelve birthday, he finds his mothers spinning wheel hiding among the wood pile.  Rump believes that finding the spinning wheel will help him find the other half of his name and unravel his destiny.  Instead, he learns that he will "cause a heap of trouble" first. 
Why I picked this book should be pretty obvious, cover love and fairy tale re-telling, yep I'm in.  Of course I was first drawn to this book by the beautiful cover.  (That makes two books in a row where covers instantly drew me in.)  I love the golden hue of the words Rump and the women in the window with the spinning wheel adds such a nice touch. Ahh,  but those pixies on the cover are very misleading with their glitter.  They are so not the way they actually are in the story.   I also really wanted to read this story because I love the TV series Once Upon a Time and well fairy tales can be such fun when they get all twisted up and retold in a special way.  I will be the first to admit that I knew only a few things about Rumpelstiltskin before going into the story.  I knew him as Rumpelstilzchen from the German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm.  I knew the fairy tale entailed a miller promising the king that his daughter could spin straw into gold and Rumpelstilskin came to help her in exchange for a promise of her first born baby.  In the versions that I knew, Rumpelstilskin appeared evil and villainous to me.  Which in the case of Liesl Shurtliff's version, Rump just isn't. He even takes all of the jokes about his name in stride.   I really enjoyed this retelling because it contained all the elements of the original tale, spinning straw into gold and taking of a baby, but combined them into a rather cute tale.  I also loved the theme that magic comes with consequences, a predominant theme in  Once Upon a Time too.   In Rumps case magic comes in the form of bargains with the miller.  Yet, the millers bargains  never seem fair and although Rump tries to pay the price in gold, he may just need to find a way to make a fair trade.  Overall, loved the story and the characters and look forward to any new books to come by Liesl Shurtliff.  My Copy for review was from the Public Library. 

Up Next:  House of Secrets by Ned Vizzini and Chris Columbus