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Science fiction often serves as a warning.

Perhaps a new technology is overreaching or dangerous or perhaps the rights of the individual are being stripped away by a powerful regime. In either case, science fiction muses on the idea, traveling the road of “what if?” In a world where we are already so plugged in, connecting even further could be disastrous, perhaps even destroying what it means to be fundamentally human.

Still, in other sci-fi works, it is the reach of technology outside of ourselves that might lead to our downfall.

Despite the dire consequences that these works discuss, I still can’t help wishing that some of these dangerous sci-fi concepts were real.

Yesterday was the birthday of H.P. Lovecraft, creator of beloved weird tales like The Call of Cthulhu and At The Mountains of Madness, and namesake of our Lovecraft Middle School series.

This past Sunday, E. B. Hudspeth, author/illustrator of The Resurrectionist, spent the afternoon recreating the book’s magnificent and wonderfully creepy cover in chalk on the sidewalk outside NYC’s The Strand bookstore. Didn’t catch it? Not to worry—the whole thing’s been filmed in a super-cool time lapse so you can watch the art as it unfolds live! Check it out.

(Image via flickr)

People never really grow out of fairytales. I’m no exception: fairytale retellings have always intrigued me. Whether the source is a classic from Hans Christian Andersen, a tale from the Brothers Grimm, or another folktale handed down through the ages, there are so many interesting ways an author can change and re-vamp the story. It could be a new location, an unseen layer to the protagonist’s personality, a different time in history, anything.

A beloved tale transformed for a modern audience is exciting in its newness, but at their core, fairytales also possess some universal themes no matter the setting: a character coming of age, learning to trust their own experience, and encountering new dangers around every corner.

So it’s not surprising that YA fiction is such a perfect fit for fairytale adaptations. What makes YA retellings unique is their ability to make the fantastic elements familiar for modern readers — even if in a historical setting — while also incorporating some of the satisfyingly dark aspects from Andersen and Grimm. When the right elements come together, a YA retelling is just as spellbinding as that very first picture book.

But what are the elements that make for a great YA fairytale retelling?

The Romantics were the superheroes of 18^th century literature. These poets wrote about nature, emotions, and personal themes when the current trends favored Enlightenment ideals (scientific thought, skepticism, and intellect).

This group of men used their collective power of colloquial language to create poetry that emphasized intuition and the pastoral. Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats banded together to form the Romantics: the Avengers of classic literature.