ONCE UPON A SCREAM

A drop of blood unleashes an evil fairy in this installment in a middle-grade series featuring Disney villains.

Maleficent features in this updated retelling of “Sleeping Beauty” in which readers meet Dawn Flores, who’s been sent to live for six months in rural Castletown after getting in trouble for helping her best friends shoplift. Sixth grader Dawn is staying in the Deep South with her married aunts, Fleur and Merry, and she dislikes everything about the countryside and misses her family, friends, and city life. Dawn soon finds herself at odds with popular classmate Leah, the mayor’s daughter. Leah socially excludes and publicly humiliates Dawn, stoking her desire for revenge. While helping her aunts clean out a dusty shed of estate-sale acquisitions for Spindles ’N’ Things, their antiques shop, Dawn accidentally pricks her finger on the spindle of an old spinning wheel, unleashing a frightening, evil magical force. Maleficent wants to reclaim her stolen spinning wheel, and she ensnares gullible Dawn in a scheme to help her amplify her powers. The magical tricks deployed by Maleficent include bewitching animals, casting sleeping curses, and possessing people—all while Dawn and her new friend, Phillipa, attempt to maintain control of a losing situation. Despite some tense moments, the predictable plot spins mechanically, bogged down by heavy-handed descriptive language that tells more than it shows. Dawn’s shoplifting friends are brown-skinned; other cast members follow a White default.

Mild scares woven from well-worn threads.