Off-World Fairy Tales

Author: Johanna Drucker

Illustrator: Susan Bee

Publishers: Litmus Press (2020)

For ages 8-12

Off-World Fairy Tales marks the third collaboration between painter Susan Bee and writer Johanna Drucker, following their Fabulas Feminae (Litmus Press, 2015) and A Girl's Life (Granary Books, 2002)—a trilogy dedicated to hybrid language, pastiche images, and the feminist imagination. The creators of Off-World Fairy Tales wonder: What visions of fantastic worlds open the doors to imagine experiences beyond this one and travels undreamt of in our mechanical reality? If we could travel on waves of light—or dream—and wake in other galaxies, what would we see? Simulacral moons? Exotic techno-flora? Meme-streams full of information? This book contains fourteen fairy tales that extend the traditional genre—with princesses, adventures, monsters, boys, and wishes—into encounters with the wildly imagined "off-world," where sulky orphans without their own transport vehicles long to jump dimensions, or unravelling technologies suffer from enchantment. In the bright, bold pages of this book, playful language and images launch flights of fancy to delight today's children and amuse adults of all ages. This poetic work of imagination springs from the footsteps of Lewis Carroll, Florine Stettheimer, Leonora Carrington, Sonia Delaunay, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and Edward Lear.