Blog Tour: Tales From Beyond the Rainbow – Pete Jordi Wood

Ten captivating stories of adventure and resilience celebrating LGBTQ+ characters, published as an illustrated collection of queer classics for the first time.

These are the fairy tales that history forgot – or concealed. Tales in which gender is fluid and where queer stories can have a happy ending.

From the humble sailor who finds his handsome prince to the transgender market girl who becomes queen, from Europe to Asia via the African savannah, LGBTQ+ folklore researcher Pete Jordi Wood has combed through generations of history and adapted ten unforgettable stories, each illustrated by an artist who shares heritage with the culture from which the stories were born.

Pete Jordi Wood (he/him) is a British author, illustrator and screenwriter from Cornwall, U.K. Pete has written original drama for Channel 4 and the BBC and was a recipient of The John Brabourne Award from the Film and Television Charity. He describes himself as a ‘fairy tale detective’ who has dedicated himself to the academic study of queer folk tales, myths and legends.

My thoughts: what a great book to start Pride Month off with, ten stories from around the world collected here in this beautiful book. Each story has an LGBTQ+ protagonist and they’re illustrated too.

From modern day Benin (then the Kingdom of Dahomey) to Russia, China, India and beyond, these are traditional tales featuring characters that are either explicitly Queer or could be read as such.

Modernising the language but not altering the content, making them more accessible for younger readers as well as folklorists means this is a collection that could sit easily alongside a collection of Grimm tales on either a child’s shelf or a researchers. Or just someone like me, who loves fairy tales and folklore (and ok, I do have an academic background in this) but any reader would find these enchanting.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.