Review: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer

Title: The Wishing Spell

Author: Chris Colfer

Information on series:   The Land of Stories:  Book 1

Audience:   Ages 9-12

Rating (scale of 1-5, with 5 being highest:  3

TL;DR:  A fast-paced story where fairy tale characters and people from our world interact.

Longer Review:   It’s been a rough year twins, Alex and Connor.  Their father who told them fantastical stories to cheer them up died and their Mother has to work double shifts to make ends meet.   Their grandmother gives them a special gift on their 12th birthday, a book called “The Land of Stories”.  This book includes the stories their father told them.  They end up going into the book into the real Land of Stories where Cinderella, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood and many other fairy tale characters live.  In order to get back home they need to gather things like Cinderella’s glass slipper.  While gathering things they find themselves in all sorts of trouble.

This was a fun book.    How fun would it be to find out all the stories you’ve heard are real?  It was predictable in many parts but it is written for 9-12 year olds.

Readalikes:

The Fairy-Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley:  First book in a series.  Sisters Daphne and Sabrina Grimm find out they are related to the famous Grimm brothers and their town is full of fairy tale characters.

The Storybook of Legends by Shannon Hale:  First book in a series.  At Ever After High, a boarding school for the sons and daughters of famous fairy-tale characters, students Apple White and Raven Queen must choose whether to follow their destinies

Review: Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente

 Title: Six-Gun Snow White

Author: Catherynne M. Valente

Information on series: Not part of a series

Audience: Adult, though with appeal for some older teens

Rating (scale of 1-5, with 5 being highest): 4.5

TL;DR: A violent, witty novella-length retelling of Snow White set in the Old West written with a very distinctive and lyrical narrative voice.

Longer review: My love of fairy tales brought me to the fantasy section as a child, and served as my gateway to dragons and wizards and all the rest. There is something magical about a well-written retelling that allows you to experience a familiar favorite, as if for the first time.

Catherynne M. Valente has drawn on myth and folklore in many of her award-winning novels and shorter fiction for both adults and younger readers (you might recognize her as the author of the middle-grade The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making). Valente has described her style as “mythpunk” (à la cyberpunk). Her Six-Gun Snow White is, no surprise, a retelling of Snow White set in the American Old West.

What made Valente’s retelling stand out for me was the narrative voice. It’s a distinctive, witty style with grammar and vocabulary that brought the Old West setting and characters to life. This could very easily have become a gimmick, but instead the style helped to underscore what Valente had to say about gender, race, and magic. In fact, this proved to be the sort of book where I found myself going back to reread passages and mark favorite quotes. I’ll limit myself to sharing two here:

“In my experience, folk find it nigh on impossible to call a thing what it is.” (page 10)

“You can tell a true story about your parents if you’re a damn sight good at sorting lies like laundry, but no one can tell a true story about themselves.” (page 69)

It’s a violent, bittersweet story that will appeal most to readers who look for language and style over plot and characters. A taste for dark humor would not go amiss either.

Read alikes:

Pretty Deadly by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Emma Rios, & Jordie Bellaire: This graphic novel is another fairy tale set in the Old West, though it is an original tale that rather than a one-for-one retelling. The story is complex, and the artwork is often stunning.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman: Like Valente, Gaiman often draws on folklore and mythology for inspiration in his stories. The mythology in The Ocean at the End of the Lane is familiar in the way that nightmares are familiar. This is also a novella, and the writing is lyrical, though it’s a very different poetry.

Deerskin by Robin McKinley: McKinley wrote some of the first fairy tale retellings I ever read, so it’s possible I’m including this more from nostalgia than for its appeal factors. That said, Deerskin is a dark story of abuse, escape, and recovery lyrically told.