Spinners (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Richard Tchen (Author), Donna Diamond (Illustrator) "LATE afternoon heat strokes the young man's belly..." (more)
Key Phrases: rumpled leg, gold wedding dress, gold yarn (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Fairy tales touch something deep within us, and Donna Jo Napoli is a master at bringing those primal feelings to light. Her retellings of ancient tales such as The Magic Circle (based on "Hansel and Gretel"), Zel (based on "Rapunzel"), and Crazy Jack (based on "Jack and the Beanstalk") flesh out the age-old stories in unexpected ways, imbuing them with psychological resonance for contemporary teens. One of the marks of Napoli's skill is that her stories draw us into the characters' predicaments long before we figure out their original source in folklore. In Spinners, she and coauthor Richard Tchen weave a tale of a young tailor who cripples himself while spinning gold thread on a magic wheel to win his beloved's hand. Spurned for his ugliness, he watches her marry the miller and die giving birth to the child he knows is his own. The girl grows up to become a master spinner, but only when the cruel young king commands her to spin straw into gold do we begin to sense a creeping familiarity. When a deformed man demands her firstborn child as a return for spinning the gold, we are almost sure. But not until the very last, when to save her baby the young mother must guess her unknown father's secret name, do we, like her, know that this is Rumpelstiltskin, of whom we've heard tell long ago. In Napoli's story-spinning hands, however, Rumpelstiltskin is not a spiteful dwarf but a lonely outcast yearning for the love of his grandchild; rather than a hand- wringing victim, the young queen shows herself to be a strong and resourceful survivor given to imaginative solutions. (Ages 12 to 16) --Patty Campbell

From Publishers Weekly

Napoli and Tchen spin fairy tale into something less than gold in this attenuated retelling of "Rumpelstiltskin." The villain of that tale, the odd little man who helps the miller's daughter but demands her first-born child, is first seen here as an unnamed lovestruck youth, a tailor. His beloved is carrying his child, but her father, ignorant of his daughter's pregnancy, doubts that the tailor can support her and wants her to marry the wealthy miller. To impress his would-be father-in-law, the tailor promises that he will clothe his bride in gold; to this end, he steals an elderly woman's spinning wheel and ends up obsessed, turning straw into gold but somehow "rumpling" his legAthus earning his lover's disdain and the hated sobriquet Rumpelstiltskin. The narrative then fast-forwards and shifts to Saskia, the miller's daughter (really Rumpelstiltskin's child), whose mother has died in childbirth. After a series of hardships, Saskia becomes renowned for the marvelous yarns she can spin. Girls will enjoy many of the details here, like the yarns Saskia designs out of violets and fruit fibers, but the novel will disappoint anyone expecting Napoli to do here what she did for Hansel and Gretel in The Magic Circle and for Rapunzel in ZelAthis is all back story. While there are intriguing subplots, many are simply dropped, and the characters' motivations implausibly swerve at pivotal moments. In the end, this version fails to offer new insights or perspectives on its famous subject. Ages 12-up. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Juvenile; 1st edition (August 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525460659
• ISBN-13: 978-0525460657
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #894,188 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tender and tragic tale, December 5, 2001

By	Kelly Griffin (Rexburg, Id United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spinners (Mass Market Paperback)

Napoli and Tchen weave a beautiful and bitter-sweet tale that takes this fairy tale to a new level. Based on the age old story of Rumpelstiltskin, Spinners delves into the story behind the story. The Spinner is a tailor who loves a woman so desperatly that he would do anything for her, even spin straw into gold. When he promises her father to clothe his love in gold he has to make good on his word. But his ever faithful love marries the drunken old miller instead. But she is with the Spinner's child.
Fifteen years later, the spinner returns to his village and saves his daughter, who likewise has a gift for spinning, from the fate imposed upon her by the king.
Beautiful retelling of the classic fairy tale, poignant and moving. I was unused to the tense in which the story was written, but it soon became natural to read as if it were just happening. If you have ever read Napoli's other books, such as Zel you will love this one!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spinners, November 12, 2001

By	Samantha (Bay St. Louis, MS, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spinners (Mass Market Paperback)

Spinners was one of the best books I've ever read. When I first picked it up, I had no idea what it was about. After the first few pages, I was enthralled. I had no idea what was going to happen to the spinner, especially after he lost his girl. I could not believe it when he said his name. I picked up the book again not long ago, and I had almost forgotten what it was about. When I finished it, I was in love with it, and had fallen in love all over again. It was one of the best books I've ever read, and I will read it all over and over and over again.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a beautiful story!, June 27, 2001

By	Allison "kopprey" (Davis, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spinners (Mass Market Paperback)

I have never liked the story of Rumpelstiltskin, so I suprised myself when I checked this book out from the library. I'm so glad that I did. Donna Jo Napoli did such a wonderful job writing Spinners that I'm now convinced that the Grimm Brothers were WRONG! This is how Rumpelstiltskin was ment to be.

In this book we gain insight to Rumpelstiltskin's personality: why he is deformed, how he can spin straw into gold, and the reason that he bargained for the queen's firstborn child. We learn that he once loved so deeply that he gave up everything to impress his lover's father...only to lose lose her in the end as she has his baby while married to another.

Fifteen years later he returns to the village he grew up in and finds that his daughter (whom has never spoken to him and does not know that the man who has raised her is not her father) needs his help to save her life. She must spin straw into gold. He gives her this help, but asks for the impossible in return- her first child. Will Rumpelstiltskin get his grandchild? Read Spinners to lose yourself in a tragic, moving, and deep story- one that you won't forget!