Beast (Donna Jo Napoli)

Author Biography:

Donna Jo Napoli is head of the linguistics department at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. She has written dozens of books for children, tweens and young adults alike.

Published By: Atheneum Books for Young Readers

Year: 2000

ISBN: 0-689-83589-2

Reading Level: Grades 8 and up

Reader’s Annotation:

This retelling of “Beauty and the Beast” offers a Middle Eastern-flavored spin on the tale, told from the Beast’s point of view. Prince Orasmyn is transformed into a lion, a curse that only a woman’s love can break.

Plot Summary:

Prince Orasmyn of Persia lives a peaceful life in his parents’ palace, delighting in his Islamic faith, in books of mythology and in tending the royal gardens. But on the feast day of Eid al-Adha, he makes the mistake of choosing a ritually unfit camel to be sacrificed. Cursed by a pari (fairy), Orasmyn finds himself transformed into a lion and is forced to flee from his home to escape death at the unwitting hands of his own father. Only a woman’s love can break the spell.

Unable to speak and possessed with a lion’s ferocious craving for raw flesh, but retaining his sapient mind, Orasmyn journeys away from Persia, through India, and all the way to France. There he takes shelter in an old, abandoned castle, and with teeth and claws he plants a rose garden, in the hope of luring a loving woman to his side to set him free.

Critical Evaluation:

Having previously read and loved Robin McKinley’s Beauty and Rose Daughter, I approached Beast with enormous curiosity as to how a different author’s YA retelling of “Beauty and the Beast” would compare. Particularly since this version is written from the Beast’s viewpoint instead of Beauty’s. What I found was the most unusual retelling of the story I’ve ever seen. Inspired by Charles Lamb’s 1811 verse retelling of the tale, which portrays the Beast as a Persian prince named Orasmyn, Beast is richly infused with the culture, languages and religion of Iran.

As a “Beauty and the Beast” retelling, it falls slightly flat. The familiar fairy-tale’s plot doesn’t take shape until roughly the last fourth of the book, and both the character of Belle and her relationship with Orasmyn feel underdeveloped. If I were the author, I might have left out Orasmyn’s ill-fated sojourn in India and devoted the book’s whole second half to the classic love story. But Orasmyn is a likeable hero, whose struggle between his human, devoutly religious conscience and his new, brutal animal instincts (which not only dictate the way he eats, but in one startling scene drives him to mate with two lionesses) is a moving one. The fact that he becomes a realistically portrayed lion, not the humanoid monster of tradition, provides good education for young readers about lion behavior. And the vivid, loving portrayal of Persian culture and the religion of Islam might make this book a valuable tool in combatting Islamphobia and anti-Middle Eastern racism among young readers. It shows that not only fairies’ curses, but the artificial barriers of race and religion can be overcome by love and mutual understanding.

Curriculum Ties:
•Persian culture
•Islam
•Lions
•Fairy-tale retellings

Challenge Issues:

•Animal mating

•Animal violence

Why This Book?

For any lover of “Beauty and the Beast,” this unique, informative, atmospheric retelling is worth reading.