Yeah, same here-- literary purist, despite my alternate retelling above. When I do this kind of POV retelling (and I do it fairly frequently, if only as a mental exercise) one of the rules I set for myself is that I have to account for everything that was in the original. For example, Sara says she was denied food, as we've discussed above. I need to take that into account, whether Maria Minchin really told her "no meals for you tomorrow" or that was just Sara dramatizing in her head after Maria caught the girls eating junk food in a cold attic (because Sara forgot to bring up coal again). I can get away with claiming that Maria has a bare-bones bedroom, because that's never shown in the story. ;)
But sorry, the dad is dead. The only way I could accept him appearing alive is if it happens AFTER the narrative in the book, i.e. Sara goes to live with neighbor Tom Carrington (I think that was his name) and then at some later point, Ralph Crewe wanders, feverish, into a hill station in India and gets repatriated to England, to the surprise of all, and it turns out he was mistakenly reported dead because he had wandered off in a fever and saying he was dead was easier for his caretakers than trying to explain that they hadn't been watching him all that closely.
Or possibly he faked his death for tax reasons or some other fraudulent purpose, in which case Tom Carrington might even be in on it, but that's a different book. In THAT book, Tom C. probably has very nefarious plans in mind for Sara, and Maria Minchin may need to save the girl from a Fate Worse than Death. (Or maybe Becky could save her. Those who want to ship Becky and Sara would probably like that option.)
Well, I do see your point. I was worried about how to handle the starvation part, myself. On the other hand, I don't think it's stretching the point to say Sara is an unreliable narrator, even when she's wealthy and not being hit or starved.
I do like Sara's resiliency in the face of bullying (by adults OR children). I have always liked the quote "There's only one thing stronger than anger, and that's what makes you hold it in-- that's stronger." At the same time, this isn't an entirely healthy point of view.
Maybe it would be better to write it not portraying Maria Minchin as a saint, but acknowledging that she hits and starves Sara and Becky (well, I can think of two instances of each) out of fury, but hates herself for losing her temper. Maybe she even admires that part of Sara, even while she's pulling her hair out with frustration at trying to get Sara to show up on time to teach kids at morning classes.
I've been outlining a version of this story from Miss Minchin's point of view. Sara is a nice enough child, but constantly living in her own head, rather than following anything going on around her. ("I assume your father would like you to study French..." does not mean discuss why you have a French maid, kiddo.) Miss Minchin's school is always teetering on the edge of sustainability, and Maria Minchin herself lives in a bare room with no comforts, though she keeps a nice "parlour" to put up a good front for prospective students' parents. She buys all the expensive things Sara's father orders, often on credit, as he has always paid up to that point, but gets stiffed the last enormous birthday party bill. Sara is now a pauper and the school is even closer to going under. But Sara is a well-educated pauper, and Maria Minchin thinks she might make a passable schoolteacher, possibly even to inherit the school later, if she'll just focus on the tasks at hand. Sadly, Sara continues to wander around in dreamland, and worse, is distracting some of the other girls from learning with her constant fantasies. Sara can't even be relied upon to remember to bring coal up to her own room to keep the place warm! (She is also attracting rats to the house by feeding them.) Eventually it turns out that the new next door neighbor is able to pay off Sara's debts and take her off Maria's hands, also relieving her of the care of Becky, a developmentally delayed girl she'd helped off the streets out of charity. After a month or so, the new guardian has a full sense of how unreliable a narrator Sara is. He has a business conversation with Maria Minchin and invests in her school so she can finally get another decent teacher in to help cover classes (as Amelia Minchin is clearly not capable), sponsors several scholarships for more promising but less financially well-off pupils, and starts looking for a psychiatrist for Sara Crewe.
Most of these, yes, but not the anti-vax or faux Dementors. I could see Luna thinking Dementors were re-processed Azkaban criminals, or possibly a byproduct of making chocolate frogs, or even that they are really made of Dark Matter, but not that they don't exist. As for anti-vax... I realize the point is that Luna believes in all kinds of wacky stuff that more "sensible" wizards completely reject, much of it conspiratorial, but the anti-vax thing just doesn't feel quite right. I think it's too main-stream, for one thing. Luna would say "everyone knows..." and then come out with something none of the Trio had ever heard of. Granted Harry lives with Muggles, but Ron is pretty plugged in to Wizardry folklore, and Hermione is obsessively well-read. Another hallmark of Luna's theories was that they tended to be difficult to disprove. "Microwave radiation interfering with wand performance" is spot on. I would see her going for the "we live in a holograph of the real universe"....
+ 1 bazillion points for Gryffindor thanks to Hermione learning not to act like an enabling doormat. (I like Ron and Harry just fine, and I thought their actions re: homework were completely plausible, I just don't think Hermione should have let them off the hook.)
That's assuming most of their homework was relatively meaningful, of course, which was probably mostly true for everything except Divinations, and Hermione was hardly going to be helpful with what seems to have been the only possible strategy for that course: make up a horrible death.
This one's a Grimm
(http://www.literaturecollection.com/a/grimm-brothers/550/), but the complaint still holds. It's also somewhat based on "The Twelve Brothers," in which at least the girl nods at the king before he carries her off:
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/sixswans/stori...
I always loved the original for the strong princess, but yeah, why she would want to stay with this king who assumes lack of "no" means "yes" has always been a sticking point. (Plus, what happened to the three babies in the original, after they were stolen away by the king's mother? Mallory has fixed that problem in her version as well, and even though I'm sad for the unborn, because that's the way I feel about it, this does make more sense.)
I note that in the original the witch's daughter has no choice about marrying the first king, and that seems to fit right in with this story, even though it's not mentioned. I also note that the first king just assumes the worst of this poor girl he marries, when he hides his kids from her. Mistrust breeds mistrust?
I'm kind of baffled as to why the father king in this story would be willing to get rid of all the boys and leave the kingdom to a daughter, though. That seems to fly in the face of patriarchy... but that's in some of the old variants of the story, including "Twelve Brothers."
Fans with wet cloth are a great idea-- as long as it isn't too humid where you are. The water evaporating helps cool the air. For best results, use a long enough cloth that you can leave one end in a bucket of water.
I live in New England, and we've had some beastly hot days, but there are lots of trees where I live, which helps a lot. We do have a portable AC unit with an exhaust air hose that can be inserted into any window. We use it on very hot nights for a bit to help cool things down. It's much easier to set up for short usages than a window unit, but does take up floor or closet space when not in use.
Sorry, I know I'm supposed to just be sympathetic about the terrible heat, but I'm an engineer-type at heart, and my first impulse is to try to actually fix the problem. ;)
I provide tech support for a living and I make a point of telling people that they are NOT stupid and how to use software is NOT intuitive. Understanding how to do something with any software is generally a matter of practice and experience, not age or intelligence. Don't be shy about asking for help, here or elsewhere, and I agree with all those who have suggested Google (or your search engine of choice). You'll learn the most when you have a particular problem to solve and someone shows you how to use a new feature to solve that specific problem. Hang in there! :)
Plus there's a homonym with "meetspace" that adds a nice layer of connotation. :)
So... Tuxedo Mask is a golden retriever, then? (Works for me....)
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emdalton 
Contraption