Professor Emma Teaches Classics Anew

So I don't know about y'all but there are some classics I like and others that are just so dry and dull that I can't imagine how they ever become renowned. But there's this trend of retelling classics, particularly in the YA world, and it's one I can definitely get behind. (Heck, I want to write a Hamlet retelling someday.) So the final class I'm teaching this spring at the Bibliophile University is...

 Classics Anew.

It would be all about retelling classic books, plays, fairytales, and legends, and I'd love to discuss with the students what elements from the original are needed to call it a retelling and not just "inspired by," and talk about what makes a good retelling (we'd definitely have to watch clips from Clueless and The Lizzie Bennet Diaries). 

Scratch that. Before I start rambling too much, here are the five books I'd assign for my students.

Required Reading

• Across a Star-Swept Sea by Diana Peterfreund (The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy)
• Still Star-Crossed by Melinda Taub (Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare)
• The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh (A Thousand and One Nights)
• The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale (The Goose Girl)
• This Monstrous Thing by Mackenzi Lee (Frankenstein by Mary Shelley)

Recommended Reading

• The Espressologist by Kristina Springer (Emma by Jane Austen)
• Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen (Robin Hood)
• The Merchant's Daughter by Melanie Dickerson (Beauty and the Beast)
• Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George (12 Dancing Princesses)
• Splintered by A.G. Howard (Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll)
• Lock & Mori by Heather W. Petty (Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle)

Are there any other retellings you'd teach? (There's a few upcoming ones I'm very interested in, but I obviously couldn't include them.) And would you want to take this class?