Fairy Tale Retellings
Thumbelina
- Block, Francesca Lia. "Tiny." The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold. 2001. After eight miscarriages, a woman has a tiny thumb-sized daughter. One day a boy enters their garden; Tiny realizes how different she is while also falling in love with him. She leaves home, using a needle to ward off dangerous animals. Finally, she finds the boy again and becomes his muse.
- Bozic, Jennie Bates. Damselfly. 2013. Six-inch-tall, winged Lina is a creation of the Lilliput Project. At age sixteen, she’s told that she must choose a husband from six other tiny experiments, the "Toms," and she must do all of this on reality TV. But she's already fallen in love with a boy she met online, who has no idea who she really is.
- Dale, Katie. Thumbelina Thinks Big. 2015. A children's picture book. Thumbelina dreams of becoming a model but is told she's too small. Finally she gets a job creating and modeling doll clothes and fulfils her dream.
- Ensor, Barbara. Thumbelina: Tiny Runaway Bride. 2008. A children's novel-length retelling.
- Friesner, Esther M. "No Bigger Than My Thumb." Black Swan, White Raven. Ed. Datlow and Windling. 1997. A nobleman, cursed to have no children, returns to the witch who cursed him, investigating rumors that she has borne his daughter. Dark and gruesome.
- Jacobs, Harvey. "Persimmon." Snow White, Blood Red. Ed. Datlow and Windling. 1993. The animals in this story are replaced by humans; the swallow is a wealthy man whom Persimmon restores to life. He raises her as his daughter for a while but finally, recognizing that she's lonely, returns her to her people, whom he created to take over the world without ruining the environment.
- Meadows, Daisy. Elle the Thumbelina Fairy (Rainbow Magic series). 2017. Goblins interfere with the plotline of Thumbelina's story.
- Petrushevskaya, Ludmilla. "Droplet." There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales. Inspired by Thumbelina, but focuses on the mother and takes a markedly different path. 2009.
- Wade, Susan. "Ivory Bones." Silver Birch, Blood Moon. Ed. Datlow and Windling. 1999. Retelling from the mole's point of view.
- Willingham, Bill. Fables #18. "Barleycorn Brides." 2003. Collected in trade paperback Fables: Storybook Love and in the deluxe edition Fables Vol. 2.
- Anholt, Laurence. Seriously Silly: Scary Fairy Tales: Tom Thumb, the Tiny Spook. Picture book retelling of the story with all the characters as ghosts. 2015.
- Barwell, Louisa Marie. The Novel Adventures of Tom Thumb the Great, Showing how He Visited the Insect World, and Learned Much Wisdom. 1838. Read online.
- The Beano, an anthology comic, featured stories and comic strips based on Tom Thumb from 1938 up until the 1950's.
- Beck, Ian. Tom Trueheart and the Land of Dark Stories. The second book in a series mashing up various fairy tales. In this installment, the hero Tom is shrunk to the size of a thumb but must still rescue his six brothers. 2009.
- Coville, Bruce. "A Life in Miniature." Swan Sister: Fairy Tales Retold, 2003. Ed. Datlow and Windling. A modern sci-fi retelling.
- Griffith and Farran. Extraordinary Nursery Rhymes and Tales: New Yet Old. 1876. “Tom Thumb.” Read online.
- Johnson-Shelton, Nils. The Invisible Tower (The Otherworld Chronicles #1). 2012. Tom Thumb appears among a cast of Arthurian characters, as a guide and mentor for a reincarnated Arthur.
- Price, Susan. In a Nutshell. 1983. A novella inspired by Tom Thumb and Thumbelina; here, the characters Thumb and Thumbling are exiled fairies trying to survive in the human world and find each other.
- Mayer, Marianna. The Adventures of Tom Thumb. 2001. Picture book with some lovely illustrations.
- Shurtliff, Liesl. Jack: The True Story of Jack and the Beanstalk. 2015. Includes elements of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina, among many other tales.
- Sir Thomas Thumb, or, The Wonderful Adventures of a Fairy Knight. 1908. This retelling ties together elements of the Arthurian mythos and incorporates the poem Nymphidia into Tom’s backstory, making him a reincarnated fairy.
- Tom Thumb's folio, or, A new penny play-thing for little giants : to which is prefixed, an abstract of the life of Mr. Thumb, and an historical account of the wonderful deeds he performed : together with some anecdotes respecting Grumbo the great giant. 1779. Read online.
- Yonge, Charlotte Mary. The History of Sir Thomas Thumb. Ill. J.B. Edinburgh: Thomas Constable and Co., 1856. Read online.
- Watson, Richard Jesse. Tom Thumb. 1993. A very detailed picture book version.
- Richards, Laura E. Hop o' My Thumb. 1886.
- Lemaitre, Jules. “The Lovers of Princess Mimi.” The Living Age, April 9, 1921, pp. 116-120. The miniature nobleman Hop o’ my Thumb vies with a giant named Polyphemus for the hand of a princess.
- Also printed as “The Suitors of Princess Mimi.” Fairy Tales for the Disillusioned: Enchanted Stories from the French Decadent Tradition. Ed. Gretchen Schultz and Lewis Seifert. 2016.
- Mourlevat, Jean-Claude. The Pull of the Ocean. Y. Maudet, translator. 2006. A modern retelling from the points of view of the brothers, the social worker, and the people the runaway children encounter on their journey.
- Tem, Steve Rasnic. "Little Poucet." Snow White, Blood Red. Ed. Datlow and Windling. 1993. A very dark and sexual retelling.
- Tournier, Michel. La fugue du petit Poucet (Tom Thumb Runs Away). 1979. Pierre Poucet flees his strict parents in the city and goes to live in the forest with M. Logre, a vegetarian hippie. Has appeared in the anthology Spells of Enchantment (1991).
- Hans Thumbling and Other Stories. 1880. A picture-book retelling that features a water nymph as a love interest.
- Sonneborn, Scott. Tom Thumb: A Grimm Graphic Novel (Graphic Spin). 2011. A comic book retelling.
- Maitland, Sara. From the Forest: A search for the Hidden Roots of Our Fairy Tales. "Thumbling." 2012. An expanded version of the Grimm tale from the mother's point of view.
- Charles, Veronika Martenova. It's Not About the Tiny Girl! Features retellings of Pinoncito, Issun-Boshi and Boy-Man.
- Goode, Diane. Diane Goode's Book of Giants and Little People. 1997.
- Great Courses: A Children's Guide to Folklore and Wonder Tales. Hannah B. Harvey. 2017. DVD and book set. One chapter compares Tom Thumb and Thumbelina.
- MacDonald, Margaret Read. Tom Thumb: The Oryx Multicultural Folktale Series. Phoenix: Oryx, 1993. This is the book that inspired me to publish the Thumbling Project.
- Manning-Sanders, Ruth. A Book of Dwarfs.
- Johnson-Shelton, Nils. The Invisible Tower (The Otherworld Chronicles #1). 2012. Tom Thumb appears among a cast of Arthurian characters, as a guide and mentor for a reincarnated Arthur.
Articles and Reference
- Aarne, Antti, and Stith Thompson. The Types of the Folktale, A Classification and Bibliography, Helsinki, Suomalainen Tierdeakademia - Academia Scientiarum Fennica, F.F.C., second revision, 1961, n° 184, 588 p.
- Angelopoulou, Anna, and Aegli Brouskou. Catalogue raisonné des contes grecs : types et versions AT 700-749 : Archives A. Mégas, catalogue du conte grec, Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1995.
- Agundez Garcia, José Luis. "Cuentos Populares Andaluces." Revista de Folklore no. 326, 2008.
- Armintor, Deborah Needleman. The Little Everyman: Stature and Masculinity in Eighteenth-Century English Literature. 2011.
- Bauer, Susan. “Tom Thumb in the Arthurian Tradition.” University of Rochester Libraries.
- Berezkin, Yuri E. Thematic classification and distribution of folklore-mythological motifs by area.
- Bolte, Johannes and Jiri Polivka. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm I.
- Hancock, Susan. The Child That Haunts Us: Symbols and Images in Fairytale and Miniature Literature. 2008.
- Oriole, Carme. “The Catalan Versions of AaTh 700: a Metaphor of Childbirth.”
- Pape, Walter. “Däumling.” Enzyklopädie des Märchens. Vol. 23.
- Raufman, Ravit. “The Birth of Fingerling as a Feminine Projection: Maternal Psychological Mechanisms in the Fingerling Fairy Tale.”
- Schmiesing, Ann. Disability, Deformity, and Disease in the Grimms' Fairy Tales. 2014.
- Stewart, Susan. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. 1984.
- Weiss, Harry B. "Three Hundred Years of Tom Thumb." The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 34, pp. 157-66. Feb. 1932.
Books about tiny people
- K’tonton: a Jewish character created by Sadie Rose Weilerstein. First appeared in the September 1930 issue of Outlook, and had a book series. The name means “very little” (see also Katanya) and K’tonton is four inches tall. The author mentioned other stories that inspired her such as Rabbi Gadiel ha-Tinok and "Fingerel of the Babache Tale."
- Digit Dick: the tiny hero of a series about Australian wildlife, by Leslie Rees. Main character is the size of his mother’s big toe. The series began in 1942.
- Izé Gani: character created in the 1980s by the Nigerian politican and author Boubou Hama. Inspiration for Kirikou and the Sorceress. The character is an enfant terrible with amazing powers. Already omnisicent within the womb, he calls out to his mother when it's time for him to be born. He gradually becomes a benevolent figure.
- The Borrowers, by Mary Norton
- Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift
- The Little Man, by Erich Kastner
- The Heroic Adventures of Hercules Amsterdam
- The Indian in the Cupboard, by Lynne Reid Banks
- The Little Gardener by Emily Hughes.
- Little Little Sister, by Jane Louise Curry.
- Little Old Mrs Pepperpot by Alf Proysen
Mistress Masham's Repose, by T. H. White (inspired by Gulliver's Travels) - Polly Thumb, by Helen Cresswell
- Rosella and the Star, by Jennifer Magnani and Rose Selarose
- The Secret of the Blue Glass by Tomiko Inui
- Stuart Little, by E. B. White
- A Tiny Family, by Norman Bridwell
- Truckers (Bromeliad Trilogy), by Terry Pratchett
- The Carpet People, by Terry Pratchett
- The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett
- The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, by Selma Lagerlöf
General and Mrs. Tom Thumb
- Benjamin, Melanie. The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb. 2011. Fictionalized biography.
- Bleeker, Sylvester. Gen. Tom Thumb's Three Years' Tour Around the World: Accompanied by His Wife, Lavinia Warren Stratton, Commodore Nutt, Miss Minnie Warren, and Party. 1872. Available on archive.org.
Lehman, Eric D. Becoming Tom Thumb. 2013. - Raum, Elizabeth. The Big, Bold, Adventurous Life of Lavinia Warren. 2018. Biography for middle-grade readers. (Amazon)
In the 2017 musical film The Greatest Showman, Stratton was played by Sam Humphrey and voiced by James Babson.
In 1915, Stratton's wife Lavinia Warren appeared in a silent film, The Lilliputians' Courtship, playing the part of Lady Petite.