Tinder – Sally Gardner & David Roberts – Young Adults Story Sack

Another day, another post, another Story Sack, but todays isn’t the usual story sack; yes it’s constructed around a picture book, but it’s not for Key Stage One children, but for Young Adults, and older adults too! Continuing on our features on stretching the scope, and challenging the pre-conceptions, of Story Sacks we bring you a story sack inspired by Sally Gardner and David Roberts’s beautiful re-imagined fairy tale yarn, Tinder.

Tinder was penned by the hugely talented Sally Gardner who took come the Carnegie medal in 2013 for her novel Maggot Moon, and was inspired by Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale The Tinder Box. It’s is a touching story for older YA readers and is beautiful accompanied by David Roberts monotone and atmospheric illustrations, and it was also shortlisted for the Carnegie in 2015, for a full review press here.

I chose Tinder to be the basis for a YA Story Sack for a few reasons; firstly because it’s a wonderful book, and secondly because it is one of a few (but ever increasing) number of highly illustrated books for young adults, and lastly due to the current debates about the changing of Fairy Tales that have recently been in the news, (for find out more press here), my use of Tinder illustrating my opinion that Fairy tales should and have to evolve in order to remain relevant to society and therefore survive.

So as you may know from our previous post story sacks usually have: a picture books, a non-fiction book, a soft toy and a game, that are all to be related to the story in the picture book.

As Tinder was inspire by Hans Christian Anderson’s The Tinder Box, it seemed right to also include a copy of The Tinder box, for comparison, and to see how fairy tales have changed across time and generations. For the non-fiction element I picked Jack Zipes’s What Dreams Come True, which explores the history, eviloution and social life of fairy tales from the sixteenth century to current day, including The Tinder Box. However, being a YA Story Sack I thought it’d be fine to include more than non-fiction books, so if What Dreams Come True looks a little heavy there is also a lighter biographical book about Hans Christian Anderson, and his work.

Adapting the concept of a story sack for young adult readers, has meant that the soft toy and games, can be replaced with alternatives like the little wooden Tinder Box that can be decorated, and the sketchpad and pen, so the reader can try their hand at both penning and illustrating their own fairy tale. Thereby not being childish, but still incorporating the educational element and inspiring imaginative flow.

I believe this show one way that a story sack can be assembled to inspire and interest Young Adults, but there are many more books which would produce equally lovely story sack, like Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls or Marcus Sedgwick’s Ghost of Heaven to name but a few.