A delicious, pink-and-purple-frosted existential cupcake.
Having failed to go poof when she refused to sign the Storybook of Legends on Legacy Day, Raven Queen, daughter of the Evil Queen, must now face the consequences.
The first consequence is a mega-epic food fight between Royals and Rebels. Seeking to restore order to Ever After High, Headmaster Grimm declares an early celebration of Yester Day so the students can connect with their elders, who properly followed their destinies—or have they? Desperate for leadership wisdom, Raven’s roommate, Apple White (daughter of Snow), visits senile Old King Cole, tyrannical Empress Buff (as in those new clothes) and her mother, whose best advice is “to smile and make eye contact.” Raven chooses to interview Red Riding Hood, whose distinctly unsanctioned, still-clandestine romance with “Baddy” resulted in their half-wolf daughter, Cerise. When the disruption at Ever After High leads to the banishment of their friend Madeline Hatter, Raven and Apple team up for a dangerous, last-ditch effort to save her that is very much against the rules. As in series opener The Storybook of Legends (2013), Hale goes to town with her premise, stretching the rules of her universe as much as Raven does. Particularly funny is Humphrey Dumpty as a hacker and rapper extraordinaire. But she never lets readers forget that the central question of her tale, the one that plagues her characters, is whether destiny prevents or is freedom.
A delicious, pink-and-purple-frosted existential cupcake. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: March 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-316-28201-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2014
Continuing efforts to find a two-legged audience for the woodland tales of Maynard Moose, veteran yarnspinner Claflin follows up The Uglified Ducky (2008) with another “distremely” hilarious mashup. Related in moose dialect, the tale has young Punzel cutting off her “goldie” locks after they become “all full of sticks and twigs and little nastified wudgies of glop” and then tangle hopelessly in the bushes during her flight from a witchy hair stylist. With help from “eight or nine seven dwarfs” with names like Clumsy, Hyper, Grizelda and Ambidexterous, she escapes for a while but eventually falls victim to the witch’s poisoned watermelon. Her glass coffin becomes a tourist-magnet centerpiece for a dwarf-run amusement park until the clumsy Handsome Prince comes riding along on a snow-white moose to fall onto the coffin and wake her. Using dark backdrops that brighten the colors of the blocky figures in the foreground, Stimson places the escapade in a traditional medieval setting. He endows the fugitive damsel with oversized spectacles and slips in droll details like Japanese tourists visiting a “Punzeldog” stand at the roadside attraction. In the end, Punzel falls for the moose, the Prince marries the witch and all “lived happily for never afterwords.” Moral? “[T]here ain’t no moral,” the antlered narrator concludes. Plenty of belly laughs, though. Packaged with a recorded version delivered in a Bullwinkle-ish lisp. (glossary) (Fractured fairy tale. 8-11)
Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-87483-914-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: August House
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The sixth title in Draper’s Disaster Strikes series is based on the ice storm that wiped out much of the northeast United States and eastern Canada in 1998. The horrific storm that cripples Montreal unfolds from the paired perspectives of Alice and Sophie, two cousins who lead very different lives. Alice lives in Montreal with her father, who works for Montreal Hydro. She is a talented figure skater who cares little for competing. Sophie lives outside the city on a dairy farm with her maman, papa and younger brother, Sébastien. Sophie loves the cows, especially her newborn calf, Mélisande. The two girls have grown close since the death of Alice’s mother three years before. The third-person chapters alternate between the girls and recount the first eight days of the storm. Alice is left alone to fend for herself while her father works round the clock trying to restore power. Sophie’s family fares a little better, as they have a woodstove, but the loss of electricity leaves them unable to milk their 50 cows. From dead cows to looting to staying in a shelter, Draper covers the terror and impact of the storm. She also weaves in a subtle environmental message about overreliance on electricity. A bit dense in factual information, this is nevertheless an unusual story of survival. (author’s note, ice-storm trivia) (Historical fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-55050-451-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Coteau Books
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
