Red Caps
New Fairy Tales for Out of the Ordinary Readers
by Steve Berman
Red Caps might be a rock band. Or they might be something more sinister, a fey source of sounds that are but the backdrop to thrills and misadventures. These thirteen stories provide readers jaded with the traditional, Old World fairy tales and tempts them with new stories that will engage bored readers from their suburban ennui. Closets are waiting to be explored. Escape from work camp leads to a dangerous encounter on a wet road. That high school year book is magical and might be mocking you...or helping you find love. And isn't love one of the central premises of the fairy tale? These teenage boys and girls need not fear that their love has no worth, because Steve Berman has written for them princesses who love maidens and adorkable students who have wondrous and smart boyfriends. Readers can be assured that, if the tale does not end happy, it ends most memorably.
Table of Contents
"The Harvestbuck"
"Most Likely"
"Cruel Movember"
"Thimbleriggery and Fledglings"
"Bittersweet"
"All Smiles"
"Persimmon, Teeth, and Boys"
"Gomorrahs of the Deep"
"A Calenture of the Jungle"
"Steeped in Debts to the Chimney-Pots"
"Only Lost Boys Are Found"
Paperback with illustrations by various artists
"Stylish and compelling, this will find an audience with many a teen, gay, straight, or those that refuse to be labeled." - Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
"Do you know what I love about Steve Berman's young adult stories? His characters always come across as young adults, neither too young nor too old. And, whether his short stories are strictly contemporary, speculative fiction or fairy tales, the core of the queer themes have weight and meaning, and there's always a sense of fun to be found in them--creepy, adventurous, romantic, weird, fun. Their endings vary from the happy to the memorable, to the twisty weird, but as a whole they usually have a positive message." - Impressions of a Reader
"There is variety and spice and romance and light and dark in these pages, a most satisfying mélange." - Prism Book Alliance
"Berman’s Vintage: A Ghost Story (2008) was a finalist for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy; he brings the same fertile imagination that he employed in that story to many of the entries here." - Kirkus Reviews