Into the Forest discussion

Who is down for another challenge in 2025?
Please post your ideas here!

Are we already here? Ha! I'll start brainstorming some ideas this weekend. :) I look forward to hearing other people's ideas!

Margaret wrote: "Are we already here? Ha! I'll start brainstorming some ideas this weekend. :) I look forward to hearing other people's ideas!"
We have plenty of time, I just thought I’d throw question out now

The only challenge I have the energy to participate in would be something to encourage me to get books off my shelves, that is to say, read tbr books. Sorry.

Well, maybe you can use some of the books on your shelf for the challenge!

Here are some ideas:

-A genre challenge. For example, read a play with fairytale themes, a poetry collection with fairytale themes, a novella with fairytale themes, a children's book with fairytale themes, a graphic novel, etc.

-An Andrew Lang challenge. We pick 10 Andrew Lang fairytales and read retellings of them. Or we could do this with the Grimms, or Perault. Anyone with enough retellings.

-Around the world. We've done this before, but I do love how this challenge helps me discover new authors and read diversely.

Hmm. Any other ideas?

(The challenges would have to be very vague for me to make my books fit.)

I love challenges that allow for diversity, such as Around the World.

For a challenge to be vague, might I suggest a challenge based upon publication year? The book would still need to meet the theme of the group, obviously, but you could Read the Years or Read the Decades. That might make anything in a reader's TBR piles still fit the challenge.

Ah, we haven't done a "Read the Decades" or Read the Years one before!

We have done around the world challenges twice in this group. I love discovering books from different areas the world! The only things that can be problematic is how to divide the worlds regions.
In the past many of us had a hard time finding books from certain regions, in particular Oceania.
Perhaps we can include books inspired by myths and fairy tales from different areas of the world in a different way this time? I’m not sure how!
I also like the idea of genre challenge and you can never go wrong with an Andrew Lange collection!

I was thinking more about my Lang idea, and I think it would be easier if it were "Retellings of Classic Fairytale Authors." So Andrew Lang, Hans Christian Andersen, the Grimms, Perrault, Arabian Nights (I know, not an author), etc.

So right now we have:

-Decades Challenge: Since we do 10 challenges and 2 freebies, we could start in 1930. So 1. 1930s, 2. 1940s, 3. 1950s all the way to 2020s.

-Around the world: This was our 2022 challenge. You can see the categories and what we read here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/.... Is there another way we could spin this?

-Genres: I'm thinking more like formats vs. the more popular idea of genres. So poetry, plays, nonfiction, novels, short stories, graphic novels, etc.

-Classic Fairytale Authors, as outlined above.

What else can we add? We can vote later this month or in early November. :)

All proposed challenges look great :)

I like the Decades and Around the World suggestions! :)

I like the Decades suggestions!

For a variety on around the world, could we combine with retellings of classic fairy tales or mythology from around the world? 1001 Nights, Afanasyev, Aesop etc.

Rose wrote: "I like the Decades suggestions!

For a variety on around the world, could we combine with retellings of classic fairy tales or mythology from around the world? 1001 Nights, Afanasyev, Aesop etc."

I like that idea, but I think it might be tricky for some places, like Australia.

Margaret wrote: "I like that idea, but I think it might be tricky for some places, like Australia.,..."

I agree. When we were doing around the world challenge last time, there were regions notoriously difficult to fill - I am looking at you, Oceania and Caribbean region. It was fun, though :)

Margaret wrote: "Rose wrote: "I like the Decades suggestions!

For a variety on around the world, could we combine with retellings of classic fairy tales or mythology from around the world? 1001 Nights, Afanasyev,..."

I don't think you could represent every country or region- guess it would be more having a diverse list of classic fairy tales (that have been widely available in English) rather than focussing only on European origin ones.

Rose wrote: "I don't think you could represent every country or region- guess it would be more having a diverse list of classic fairy tales (that have been widely available in English) rather than focussing only on European origin ones...."

That could work.

Margaret wrote: "..I like that idea, but I think it might be tricky for some places, like Australia"

Asaria wrote: “I agree. When we were doing around the world challenge last time, there were regions notoriously difficult to fill - I am looking at you, Oceania and Caribbean region. It was fun, though :) "

Yes, Oceania including Australia was difficult. If I remember correctly South America also didn’t have many choices. That’s why the second time we did the around the world challenge we expanded that category to Latin America. Even then most of the books we found were from U.S. Americans of Hispanic ancestry.
I love the idea of reading books from areas aside the US and Europe, but we can do it as Rose suggested and not necessarily include every single country or region.
Maybe a combination of decades, non-European and classic fairy tales?

Ooh sounds interesting how do you imagine combining them?

Rose wrote: "Ooh sounds interesting how do you imagine combining them?"

Well, I guess we wouldn’t have a themed challenge, rather just different suggestions members made. We did that in 2021.
You can see here https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/...

Ah I see. Well I am happy to do just the Decades, classic fairy tales or a combo- all sounds interesting .

I think, if we went with decades, I'd prefer it to be the entire challenge bc then I could see how retellings evolved over the decades (just my two cents). Which I think could be interesting!

We could also do something like fairytale retellings of classics from around the world?

Or we could do a real mix of fairytale themes and vote on them. I'm down with anything!

Personally, if we go with the decades, I'd prefer the challenge to be a bit more flexible to give opportunity to revisit old classics :).

If we stick strictly to fairy tale retellings of classics from around the world, it’d tip the balance strongly in favour of English/primary English published works, I guess. At least basing on my observation of the type of books that English-speaking publishers are choosing from my country.

I enjoyed the Around the World one. What if we did a sort of spin on that instead of regions of the world, we did like ecosystems or habitats? So like desert, forest, city, ocean, tundra/polar, rainforest, etc.? Could even stretch to include common "tropes" (for lack of better word) like castle, cottage, garden, tower?

That's all I've got for now...

Erin Darrow wrote: "I enjoyed the Around the World one. What if we did a sort of spin on that instead of regions of the world, we did like ecosystems or habitats? So like desert, forest, city, ocean,
tundra/polar, rai..."


That is a great idea!

ooh, I love the idea of ecosystems!

Ecosystems could be cool!

We did tropes one year, too. I remember there were so many tropes nominated, like 60+, ha! And we had to vote on them and see which 10 got the most votes. I think it went through a few rounds.

Yes, if there are not 12 ecosystems we can add tropes

So how about
1. desert
2.forest
3.city
4. ocean
5. tundra/polar
6. rainforest
Then 6 different fairy tale or myth tropes?

6 and 6 is nicely balanced.

But I'm wondering whether we could make it 7 ecosystems, and add outer space?

If we want to go for 10 (with two free spots) theres also subterranean, freshwater (marshlands/rivers/lakes) and mountains?

Ooh.... I'm not sure how easy it will be to find everything, but I'm actually excited to try.

I would add mountains. And if we do city, should we do a rural category?

How about this, to bring us to 10.

1. Desert
2. Forest
3. Ocean
4. Freshwater
5. Tundra/Polar
6. Rainforest
7. Mountains
8. Outer space
9. City
10. Rural

And 2 free spaces.

And actually, should marshes be separate? I kinda think of them as separate from freshwater. And subterranean, like caves, as Rose suggests? Or would that be mountains?

Does everyone like Ecosystems best? Over Decades and Genres and the other nominations? Should we have a vote?

Margaret wrote: "And actually, should marshes be separate? I kinda think of them as separate from freshwater. And subterranean, like caves, as Rose suggests? Or would that be mountains?

Does everyone like Ecosystems best? Over Decades and Genres and the other nominations? Should we have a vote? ."




I love the idea of ecosystems and we have never done this before here!
Personally I don’t think it’s necessary to have a vote. We know from experience that when we set up polls many people vote who never end up participating in the group discussions. I think the people who are interested in participating will see our discussion here.

I like the idea of adding mountains and subterranean. For me marches would count as fresh water. IMHO rural isn’t necessarily because many of these places would be considered rural, but I don’t feel strongly about it if others want to include it

If everyone agrees about ecosystems, that's fine by me! Just want to make sure every voice is heard (of the people who participate).

Should I trade out rural for subterranean?

Ecosystems is a great idea! I agree with including subterranean.

Margaret wrote: "If everyone agrees about ecosystems, that's fine by me! Just want to make sure every voice is heard (of the people who participate).

Should I trade out rural for subterranean?"

Yes we don’t have to set up the challenge right away. We can wait until December before setting up the challenge in case there are any new suggestions

Yes changing rural for subterranean is fine because so many of the prompts could be rural

1. Desert
2. Forest
3. Ocean
4. Freshwater
5. Tundra/Polar
6. Rainforest
7. Mountains
8. Subterranean
9. The sky & celestial space
10. City

And 2 free spaces.

A rough draft of the ecosystems list!

Margaret, the list looks nice :)

Asaria wrote: "Margaret, the list looks nice :)"

Thanks to Erin for nominating it!

I see that she also mentioned including place tropes, like castle or garden, so if people want to replace anything, we can!

It looks like a great list, looking forward to this! Thanks for putting together

I'm doing this on my own and would love if the group wanted to go along:

2025 Fairy Tale Retelling Challenge

Sleeping Beauty
Cinderella
Snow White
The Little Mermaid
Beauty and the Beast
Arabian Nights
Little Red Riding Hood
Hans Christian Anderson
The Brothers Grimm
Non-Western
Anthology
LGBTQ+

Jamie wrote: "I'm doing this on my own and would love if the group wanted to go along:

2025 Fairy Tale Retelling Challenge

Sleeping Beauty
Cinderella
Snow White
The Little Mermaid
Beauty and the Beast
Arabia..."

That looks interesting and you’re most certainly welcome to create your own challenge for yourself and anyone else who wants to do it!

I am still intrigued by the idea of ecosystems so we can wait a little longer before we put the poll up to work out a few details.
Personally I’m a little concerned I won’t find anything for outer space. Can anyone think of any books that would fit this prompt?

Probably The Snow Queen?

Perhaps instead of "outer space" we could use "sky & celestial space" or may just "firmament"?

Some other examples of outer space: Arch-Conspirator, Midnight Robber, Once & Future, The Stardust Grail.

Lots of sci-fi retell fairytales and myths. However, I love the idea of using the sky and celestial space! Then books like Star Daughter would count.

I updated my list above with Katy's idea of "The sky & celestial space."

Glad to help :)

Margaret wrote: "I updated my list above with Katy's idea of "The sky & celestial space.""

Katy wrote: "Perhaps instead of "outer space" we could use "sky & celestial space" or may just "firmament"?"

Great idea! Thanks both of you!