Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast (Robin McKinley)

Author Biography:
Robin McKinley has won multiple awards for her young adult fantasy novels, including the 1985 Newbery Medal for The Hero and the Crown. She lives in Hampshire, England.

Published By: HarperCollins Publishers

Year: 1978.

ISBN-10: 0552572322

ISBN-13: 978-0552572323

Reading Level: Grades 7 and up

Reader’s Annotation:
Beauty loathes her nickname. Short, mousy-haired and boyish looking, she avoids society in favor of books and horseback riding. But what she lacks in looks, she makes up for in courage when facing a new life in a mysterious castle… a castle that belongs to a Beast.

Plot Summary:

Honour Huston, ironically nicknamed Beauty, is her family’s ugly duckling. While her sisters Grace and Hope are belles of society, she prefers to stay in her room with books or in the stables with horses, and when their wealthy merchant father suddenly loses his fortune, Beauty adjusts the most easily to the simple, hardworking life of a peasant. But soon she faces a far more daunting change. To save her father’s life, she must leave her family and journey to a new home – a forbidding castle, where her only companion is a monstrous Beast.

But the enchanted castle, where candles light themselves, invisible servants attend to every need, and the magnificent library features every book that ever has been or will be written, just might become a true home to her. And the Beast, hairy and gruff yet always kind and courteous, who shares her love of reading and dislike of mirrors, just might become her first real friend… and something more…

Critical Evaluation:

This 1978 retelling of “Beauty and the Beast” gives the classic fairy tale a bit of a Jane Eyre-like quality, re-envisioning its heroine as a homely and socially awkward yet headstrong eighteen-year-old bookworm. Its influence on the Disney film version of the tale is also clear: Beauty’s literature-loving misfit status, her enormous horse, the Beast’s glorious library, and various other details. But unlike the Disney film, or Jane Eyre for that matter, this novel can’t be accused of teaching girls to think they can change an abusive man. This version of the Beast is respectful and kind to Beauty from the start. Their quietly evolving friendship and later romance is endearing in its gentle understatement.

Despite the Disney-parallels, Beauty still retains a unique identity. It offers vivid, poetic description of seventeenth-century bourgeois and peasant life and of the castle’s enchantment, and it stands out from other “Beauty and the Beast” retellings with its total lack of villains. There’s no Gaston-like character here, nor are Beauty’s sisters the traditional jealous harpies, but sweet, loving mother-substitutes. The only real conflict is adjustment to change, whether falling from riches to rags, leaving home to face a frightening new destiny, or learning to love a Beast. A fitting theme for young adult readers with lives, bodies and brains in transition.

The novel’s greatest appeal, however, is the characterization of Beauty herself through her first-person narration: warm, intelligent, practical, insecure yet quietly strong, and infinitely relatable to young adult female readers. Her personal transformation, becoming increasingly attuned to the castle’s magic and detached from her old life, serves as a graceful metaphor for coming-of-age and sexual awakening without being heavy-handed. For a young adult who loves fairy tales and wants to begin exploring the various novel-length retellings by contemporary authors, this book is an excellent place to start.

Curriculum Ties:

•Literature

•Fairy tales

•Feminism

Challenge Issues:
•May-December romance

Why This Book?

Thirty-seven years after its debut, Beauty remains one of the best fairy tale novels available for young adults. Admittedly, in some ways it shows its age: compared to more recent examples of its genre, it’s a fairly straightforward retelling with few unpredictable twists. But its strong writing, its atmosphere of warm, gentle fantasy, and its engaging, relatable heroine stand the test of time.