The fairy tale has proved itself to be a sturdy little structure, standing firm through the storms of censorship, Disneyfication, and the impulse to prune, tidy, and organize. One of the reorchestrations to which we have subjected fairy tales from the earliest days of their being collected is parody. William Thackeray did it in The Rose and the Ring. A.A. Milne did it in Once On a Time. Even Andrew Lang, of the coloured fairy books, did it with Prince Prigio. We live in an age particularly drawn to parody and some of the best, cheekiest, and most inventive parodies of folklore are recent. The popularity of Jon Scieszka and his “Stinky Cheese Man” has encouraged a number of other parodists of his ilk.

Toronto writer Jennifer Rae and Victoria illustrator Rose Cowles join this ebullient, off-centre company with their collection Dog Tales. When the review copy of a book arrives wrapped in neon yellow tulle graced with a dog-bone bow, one expects a good time. Rae and Cowles do not disappoint. “Little Red Riding Hound,” “Jack Russell and the Beanstalk” – you get the idea. At its best this kind of thing conveys the flavour of a bunch of goofy nine-year-old boys crammed into a van pushing a joke past all limits of logic, taste, and adult patience. The trick is retaining this feeling in the cold light of the printed page. Dog Tales succeeds pretty well. There are bad puns (“doggedly determined,” “cat-a-gorically impossible”), good words (persnickety, pompadour), and the requisite postmodern touches. A pair of disgruntled cats comment disparagingly on all aspects of dogdom and on the design of the book. The illustrations, reminiscent of American illustrator Maira Kalman, are lurid, jumpy, and perfectly suited to a fairy tale world in which the fairy godmother is a vacuum cleaner salesman called Harry Dogslobber. The final story, “The Doberman’s New Clothes,” is the most unified and satisfying, perhaps because it seems most rooted in real cat and dog behaviour. It is all a tasty helping of kibbles and includes great endpapers for appetizer and dessert.

If you imitate the style and substance of fairy tales but do so with your tongue removed from your cheek you are participating in another tradition, that of the literary fairy tale. This is the territory of Hans Christian Andersen and Oscar Wilde, and it demands a combination of strength and delicacy, and a knowledge of and respect for your template.

Vancouver Island writer Barrie Baker makes his book debut with The Village of a Hundred Smiles, which was nominated for a Governor General’s Award. (Not bad for your first effort!) This collection of four stories is set in an isolated village “like a populous island in a sea of rolling fields.” The setting is somewhere in Asia, sometime in the past. Mild change threatens their continuity. A village elder threatens to go on a journey. A rich merchant comes to visit. The people see their first bicycle. The stories feature the folktale themes of community resilience, group cleverness, outwitting the powerful, and the joys of a potluck dinner. The linking thread is the relationship between Little Orchid and her playful, wise, kite-building, story-telling grandfather. The look of the book, with its delicate, detailed watercolour illustrations by Montreal artist Stéphane Jorisch, and its generous amounts of white space, is as serene as Dog Tales is agitated. Jorisch’s use of upswept rooflines, fretwork, conical hats, pigtails, parasols, and little bridges, coupled with Baker’s use of names, “Venerable Grandfather,” “Man-of-Thousand-Words,” “Number One Son,” also lets us know where these stories are really set. The Village of a Hundred Smiles exists neither in folklore nor in history, but in the imaginary land of Chinoiserie. We could be gazing into a blue willow bowl. And while Chinoiserie is lately out of fashion, this version of European-imagined Asia reminds us of the grace and charm of this vision. Fans, bamboo, stylized gestures, and a fat man in a sedan chair – The Village of a Hundred Smiles is a very welcoming place for young readers or listeners with a taste for quiet storytelling and pictures that bring to mind a set of small, beautifully costumed dolls.