[Note from Frolic: We’re so excited to have author Lynda Cohen Loigman guest posting on the site today. She has some advice for our favorite fairy tale characters!]
I’d be lying if I told you I was the first of my friends to say that lately, real life feels like a dystopian novel. I have no desire to read that kind of story right now, and I find that what I’m drawn to most is the opposite. I’m re-reading Harry Potter, looking for new fantasy novels, and going back to the basics, to every fairy tale I can find. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped worrying about coronavirus. In fact, I’m genuinely concerned for how my favorite fairy tale characters might be handling it. Here’s my advice to them, in these very strange times:
The Seven Dwarves.
Enough with the hi ho, off to work you go attitude! Mining for gems is definitely not an essential business, so unless there are ventilators buried in those caves, just stay home!
Goldilocks.
The bear family went for a walk (the only safe outdoor activity during social distancing) and you broke in? Now they have to toss out the porridge, re-wash all the bedsheets, and bleach everything in sight. You are a menace.
Prince Charming.
Sure, it’s lonely quarantining without a partner, but throwing a crowded ball to find a wife seems terribly selfish. Trust me, it wasn’t the clock striking midnight that made Cinderella run off – it was your hacking cough!
Hansel and Gretel.
Trips to the grocery store are unnerving right now, but your extreme behavior seems risky, at best. Eating the outside of a stranger’s house is not the same as ordering take-out.
Prince Phillip.
Did you even check Aurora’s forehead for fever before you kissed her? For all you know, that sleep is just a prolonged case of COVID-19.
Little Red Riding Hood.
Your grandmother is high risk and you want to drop off groceries. But do you have to get close enough to see how big her teeth are? Leave the basket on the front steps and go!
The Beast.
Don’t be so quick to turn back into a prince. They’re telling us that dogs can’t contract coronavirus, so if you stay in Beast form, you’re probably safe.
The Little Mermaid.
Stop obsessing over Prince Eric – no man is worth getting this illness. Stay in the ocean, play with your fork combs, and wait this thing out with the other underwater creatures.
Pinocchio.
Maybe we’ve been misjudging this guy all along. Did we mistake social responsibility for laziness and truancy? Staying home from school sounds like a good idea.
Rapunzel.
Girl, you’re doing everything right. You’ve been social distancing in that tower since the day you were born. As long as you keep your hair to yourself, you’re absolutely going to survive us all.
About the Author:
Lynda Cohen Loigman grew up in Longmeadow, MA. She received a B.A. in English and American Literature from Harvard College and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. Her debut novel, Two-Family House, was a USA Today bestseller and a nominee for the Goodreads 2016 Choice Awards in Historical Fiction. Her second novel, The Wartime Sisters, was selected as a Woman’s World Book Club pick and a Best Book of 2019 by Real Simple Magazine. She is currently at work on her third novel.
The Wartime Sisters by Linda Cohen Loigman, out now!
Two estranged sisters, raised in Brooklyn and each burdened with her own shocking secret, are reunited at the Springfield Armory in the early days of WWII. While one sister lives in relative ease on the bucolic Armory campus as an officer’s wife, the other arrives as a war widow and takes a position in the Armory factories as a “soldier of production.” Resentment festers between the two, and secrets are shattered when a mysterious figure from the past reemerges in their lives.
