Everything becomes even more strange to the two sisters when they discover that their so called grandmother is a detective, but not a normal detective as she’s investigating a possible house squashing by nothing other than a giant.  It doesn’t take long for the girls to realize that the Grandma Grimm and themselves are the descendants of the Brothers Grimm, who’s classic book of fairy tales is more truth than fiction.

When the giant kidnaps their grandmother, the two sisters must rely on all the magical fairy tale creatures that  live in Ferryport Landing to get her back alive.  Perhaps what I enjoyed the most about The Sisters Grimm was finding out what all my favorite characters were up to.  Prince Charming is the mayor, the three little pigs are the town’s law enforcement, Ichobad Crane is the jailer and so on.  Overall, the book was a fun, quick read which I think will make for a good read-a-loud books with parents and their kids, particularly girls.  I’m curious to know where the rest of the story takes us, but not rushing out to pick them up immediately.

Once again, my husband also read this book.  And I asked him for his book review.  It’s his first and I must say much more entertaining than mine!

Taylor’s Book Review:

I picked up The Sisters Grimm because of the title.  I am a big fan of twisted fairy tales and fairy tales reimagined.  I also liked the cover.  I read this book about a year ago.  I remember it clearly like it was my unbirthday or something.   It was sitting on the shelf at the library all alone.  And I looked at the little orange book and it looked back at me.  It was like a stranded puppy but square and bookish.  Then it magically floated into my fingertips and opened to the first page.  The pages were cut all cool and jagged like it was handmade by the Brothers Grimm themselves and buried for hundreds of years, waiting all this time for me to find it and read its pages.

I think The Sisters Grimm started out really fun.  In the middle like most books its slowed down.   The two sisters are relatives of the Brothers Grimm and solve mysteries.  They met some character that wasn’t from a fairytale so I thought that was a little strange.  I liked the premise a lot.  I was expecting a little more “pow” at the end but it was still good.  I think Harry Potter has spoiled me forever.

You know what else has spoiled me?  The Sixth Sense.  Even after watching it almost nine years ago I still compare endings to that movie.  I don’t know why I thought of that.  The Sixth Sense is nothing like the Sister’s Grimm.  Except that they . . . No, I really can’t think of how they are alike in any way.  I probably said that because its almost 2:00 am and my wife wants me to write a book review for her.  This is the worst book review I’ve ever written.  I look forward to reading the rest of the books in the series and going to sleep for three hours before I getting up to start the day.  Thundercats Ho.

Links of interest:  Sisters Grimm website.
Genre:  Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy, Fairytale
Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers. August 1, 2005.
Hardcover.  192 pages.  ISBN 0810959259.
The Sisters Grimm is available from your local independent bookstore, Powell’s, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.

Rapunzel’s Revenge is a great addition to children’s literature and the world of graphic novels (although I fully admit that I’m not familiar with the graphic novel world, but how can it not?!).  It was fun to read, had a lot of great one-liners, and had a great story.  Rapunzel isn’t just a poor, woe is me girl locked in a tower.  She’s sassy, witty, and can handle those lasso braids like no one you’ve seen.  I know Nathan Hale spent forever on those illustrations!!  I thought they were really nice but there were some panels that I thought could have been better.  I thought the faces got funny sometimes.  But it’s not enough to really bother me.  Overall, a fun book I’d totally recommend.

I went to the Rapunzel’s Round-Up, a fun book release party for Rapunzel’s Revenge.  See my commentary on that fun day here.  If you haven’t heard the story of how I ended up with Shannon’s garden zucchini, then you should check it out!

Shannon and Dean Hale were just on the today show.  Check out their fun segment:

Visit Shannon Hale’s website and Nathan Hale’s blog.

Coming right up (or at least today, we’ll see what I can do with the kiddo’s around) is a great Shannon Hale interview.  You won’t want to miss this one.  She answers your questions!

Jane Yolen is not a author that’s new to me, in fact I read and reviewed The Devil’s Arithmetic (my book review here) earlier this year. So I found it quite interesting that she wrote not one, but two Holocaust books. But Briar Rose is not like most Holocaust books, it’s the retold story of Sleeping Beauty. Sleeping Beauty and the Holocaust?! What a interesting combination. And I say, not like most Holocaust books, because funny enough I read The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy (my book review here) earlier last month, which is also a retold fairy tale set during the Holocaust. What are the odds?

Briar Rose is the story of Becca and her grandmother Gemma, who told and retold the Briar Rose fairy tale constantly. Becca knew the story from heart, she’d heard it so often. It isn’t until Gemma is on her deathbed that she reveals that she really is Briar Rose, awakened by the kiss of a prince. Gemma’s life is shrouded in mystery. Not even her own family knows anything about her personal history. Using a single wooden box engraved with briars and roses with random scraps of paper and clippings inside as her only guide, she takes off for Poland determined to find out the meaning of her grandmother’s last words.

It is there that Becca learns of castles, princesses, deep sleep, and being awakened with a kiss. But this is no fairy tale. This is horror, sadness, death, and cruelty. Our fairy tale has turned into death camps, Nazi’s, Jews, gas chambers and mass graves.

I thought that Jane Yolen did an amazing job weaving the two stories into a coherent whole. Briar Rose was a page turner that I could not put down. The only critical thing that I could mention is that the love interest in this story was completely unnecessary and I wonder why it was even there. But that aside, I’d highly recommend this one.

I thought that it was interesting to note that this book was published for adults and then republished as Young Adult. So a good one across the board.

In my book review of The True Story of Hansel and Gretel, I asked the question: is it appropriate to contrive the facts of the Holocaust to fit into a fairy tale story? I couldn’t help but think of that question while reading Briar Rose. I felt that it was perfectly appropriate, very well done, in good taste, and in no way trivialized the Holocaust. In fact, it made me think about it in ways that I haven’t before.

And because I can see the search terms coming in already “Why did Jane Yolen write Briar Rose?” I’d thought I’d include the answer that I found on Jane Yolen’s website:

The idea for an adult novel on the subject of the Holocaust came to me when I was watching the documentary “Shoah” in which the concentration camp Chelmno was described. It was a camp in a castle. Castle, barbed wire, and the gassing of innocent folk. It suggested the fairy tale “Sleeping Beauty” in a horrible way. Yet I had recently done a YA novel about the Holocaust–”The Devil’s Arithmetic”–and wasn’t eager to visit that awful research again. But when I had lunch with Terri Windling, the editor of a series of adult novels all based around folk tales, I told her about this camp. She urged me to write the book.

So far, I’ve enjoyed Jane Yolen who is quite the varied and prolific author. Thanks everybody for turning me on to Briar Rose.

Anyways, back to Ella Enchanted. We have the fairy godmother, evil step-sisters and step-mother, glass slippers, orange pumpkins and mice being turned into carriages and footmen, a royal ball and, let’s not forget the prince. But we also have elves, ogres,bandits, and a magical book among other things. And as I’ve never read the original Cinderella, who knows, those may be in there too. My only familiarity with the Cinderella story is the animated Disney version, which I’m sure as all Disney movies are, is way off base of the real thing.

Ella, at birth, is given a fairy’s present. The gift of obedience, or as Ella calls it the curse of obedience. She says,

Anyone could control me with an order. It had to be a direct command, such as “Put on a shawl,” or “You must go to bed now.” A wish or a request had no effect. I was free to ignore “I wish you would put on a shawl,” or “Why don’t you go to bed now?” But against an order I was powerless.

If someone had told me to hop on one foot for a day and a half, I’d have to do it. And hopping on one foot wasn’t the worst order I could be given. If you commanded me to cut off my own head, I’d have to do it.

I was in danger at every moment.

As you can see, Ella’s life is one of constant turmoil and we, as the reader, are taken on many adventures as she tries to fight her curse, find the fairy to ask her to take the gift back, takes orders from her step family, and falls in love with the prince.

Oh, and Ella is quite sassy. I loved her character. Strong, independent, willing to do the right thing but follows her heart.

I enjoyed Ella Enchanted so much that I decided to rent Ella Enchanted, the Disney version. Ha, ha! It’s nothing like the book, so don’t even expect to compare the two. Different storyline, different mood, everything. But if you have kids at your house, they’ll love it. In fact, I watched it with my seven year old niece who said she loved it and asked to watch it again (which she’s doing at this exact moment as I type this).

Here’s a clip to show you just how silly it is:

Have you read this book, seen the movie? Tell me what you thought.

P.S. Stay tuned! I’ll soon be announcing a HUGE giveaway that you don’t want to miss.

I believe that this is the first Holocaust book that I’ve read that is completely fictionalized. It didn’t feel the same. It took me some time to read and I didn’t devour it like I normally do with Holocaust books. That’s not to say that the story or writing wasn’t great. It was beautifully written and achingly portrayed a awful period of time. I wouldn’t recommend this one for the younger reader as the book was very crude. It had a lot of bad language, graphic scenes, and sexual references. True it was the Holocaust, but this book seemed much worse for some reason.

I loved how Louise Murphy was able to weave in the story of Hansel and Gretel. I thought it was ingenious. But then I came across this review on Amazon that said this:

The Holocaust was not a fairy tale, September 9, 2007

By	Barbara Lipkin “critic” (Naperville, IL USA)

The subject of this novel is all too real, and spinning it into a version of a fairy tale is totally inappropriate. The novel is cleverly written, and the author has contrived the facts of the Holocaust to fit into a fairy tale story. This trivializes the actual events, which destroyed millions of lives. The Holocaust was not a story to be cleverly twisted and “spun” into something else. It really happened, and a novelistic treatment of it still needs to respect the tragedy of it, and not use it for a clever exercise. I don’t know what drew the author to write about this subject. Judging by her name, she isn’t Jewish, Polish, or German. She apparently has no first-hand knowledge of the Holocaust, has never been to Poland, and has no other apparent connection to the events of this novel. So creating this novel was just an outlet for her creative talent, without true emotional content. This subject should not have been used that way.

Hmm . . . interesting. If you click through to the actual review you will see two rebuttals against this review. I agree with the rebuttals but also can see this woman’s point about “contriving the facts of the Holocaust to fit into a fairy tale story.” What do you think?

From the book jacket:

Zel lives on an isolated Swiss alm with Mother, who insists they have everything, for they have each other. But Zel is growing and changing. How cant his be enough for her?

When Zel shows interest in the young nobleman who is so smitten with her after they meet b chance, suddenly Mother sees the future unfolding: and it holds loss – only loss. Swiftly she does the unspeakable. She locks her perfect daughter away in a tower, at the same time imprisoning herself in sel-hatred and the vain hope that in time Zel will make the choice Mother wants. Meanwhile, day after day, for years, the haunted young man searches for the girl.

These three people each tell their parts of this story of pain, loss, betrayal, innocence destroyed, and abuse in the name of love. . . .

I found myself truly enjoying this book. Fantasy is a genre I normally don’t read (although I’m reading more this year), so I did find parts of the book odd. I don’t think that it was the story itself, just my “newby-ness” (yep, I made up that word) to the genre.  I think I wanted it to be more realistic than fantasy, although the fantasy bits, in all actuality were just fine.

In Zel, Zel is torn between showing her devotion to her Mother (who locks her up in a tower) and to her new found love (who has been searching the countryside diligently to find Zel for years). But she can only pick one. This book beautifully narrates the anguish in differentiating between a Mother’s love and a Lover’s love.

Whom would she choose?

I believe she chose correctly . . .

Having said that, I will say this, I quite enjoyed Book of a Thousand Days.  Honestly, I suspected I would!   What a cute story. Dashti, a maid and our narrator, and Lady Saren, her mistress are shut in a tower for seven years. Dashti keeps a diary, the Book of a Thousand Days, to recount the passing of time and unfolding events. I was so worried that the entire story would actually take place in the tower. But what adventures!

I thought Dashti was such a strong character. I don’t know how she kept her patience with Lady Saren, who I wanted to smack around a couple of times myself. I liked the way the story ended and was quite satisfied. Too bad I’m not familiar with the fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm, as this was a retelling. There was probably so much that I was missing due to my lack of insight. But it was fun, it was cute, and I was Dashti’s personal cheerleader hoping that in the end, she’d get everything that we knew she deserved.

Visit Shannon Hales website.   I still have Princess Academy on hold at the library. I’ve been waiting for over a month now. Hope to have it soon!