Book Review: "Rump" by Liesl Shurtliff

When I saw this shiny new book on our "New Books" shelf, it caught my eye for two reasons: one, it is a fractured fairy tale and ever since I got my tattered copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales from a used book store at age ten, I have always loved immersing myself in a faraway magical land.  Two, its subtitle is "The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin".  Now here is a guy who really gets a bad rap, a true underdog.  I love underdogs.  I want to give poor little Rumpelstiltskin the benefit of the doubt.  Shurtliff's charming debut novel, published April 2013, shows readers that Rumpelstiltskin just may be a good guy after all.

All of his life, Rump has felt as though there was something missing.  Actually, he knows there is something missing because he was born with half a name.  His mother died during childbirth before she could utter the last syllables of his name.  So poor Rump becomes the "butt" of all jokes, literally.  He does have one true friend though, named Red who lives deep in the forest with her Grandmother (sound familiar? It should!).  Rump lives a dim and dreary life of being bullied and mining for what little gold his mountain village has left so that he can help his grandmother put food on the table.  Rations are slim, however, especially under the rule of a greedy king and miller.

When Rump discovers that he can magically spin straw into gold, he thinks his luck has changed.  But soon, the more gold he spins, the more trouble he gets into.  His piles of gold lead him on a quest through the mountains where he will meet pixies, gnomes, and trolls, and hopefully save a foolish princess from a terrible fate.  He may even find out his full name and destiny.  One thing is for sure; readers will never think of "Rumpelstiltskin" the same way again.  Shurtliff seamlessly weaves details from traditional fairy tales into her retelling, enchanting readers throughout each page.