Rating: WORTHY!
Errata:
On one page I read, "She treaded water" - the past tense of 'to tread' is 'trod' (and also 'trodden'). It's not 'treaded' - not unless she put a tire tread on the water, which I guess is entirely possible if you can do magic....
Later I read, "But it's not like I can just look up in a phone book..." In context, this should have read, 'look her up in a phone book', or depending on what precisely the author meant, 'look in a phone book'. Either way something was wrong here!
Past tenses seemed to be a problem for Shannon Hale because later I also read, "Apple reached out and pet the dragon's tail...." This should have read 'petted'. While language is dynamic and changes over time, perhaps now faster than ever in history, some authors don't seem to get that there's actually a difference between reported speech and narration. Reported speech can be completely informal. Narration and description need to give at least a nod to grammar and correct tense!
Quite frankly, this book was an embarrassment to me and has been kept hidden away on my shelf like some sort of family black sheep. Finally I decided to take it out and read it and damn the torpedoes, and it has turned out to be highly entertaining, inventive, amusing, and fully-engaging. It's one of the best books I've ever read. Note that it's the Storybook of Legends, not leg ends, which would be quite effete....
I should not have been surprised, I guess, because I've had a positive history with its author Shannon Hale. This is, I think, the fourth or fifth thing of hers I've read and liked, but strictly speaking, it's not wholly original with her. The story has its roots in Mattel's monster dolls line. From that they created a fairy-tale doll line, and from that came a web series, a movie, and these books. Shannon Hale was, I guess, commissioned to write this one, and she did an amazing job with it. This was definitely my kind of novel even though it's not my kind of age range!
I can't promise to follow the whole series (I'm not a series sort of a guy), and especially since other volumes are written by other authors, but it was a highly enjoyable read, surprisingly. I came to admire the author both for her inventiveness and her winning sense of humor.
It's a sort of middle-grade fairy-tale fantasy in a series, no less! The series is called 'Ever After High', and it's about these children of famous fairy-tale characters returning to school after the holidays. Raven Queen is the daughter of the Evil Queen from "Snow White". Apple White is the daughter of Snow White. Cedar Wood is the daughter of Pinocchio, and Madeleine Hatter is the daughter of the Mad Hatter. Cerise Hood is the troubled daughter of red Riding Hood.
I think Maddie is my favorite character because she is so unapologetically nuts, and at several points actually has exchanges with the narrator of the novel, which I loved. Raven runs a close second as my favorite, and is an outstandingly intelligent and strong young woman. She's balking at being an evil queen like her mother was. She's supposed to feed the poisoned apple to Apple, but she doesn't want to be evil, and this makes people nervous because they think if she doesn't fulfill her role, then others' stories might fail and the whole of fairyland might collapse, so the plot is engaging, too.
The book ain't cheap! It was priced at fifteen dollars, but I recall picking it up at bargain discount at Costco several years ago. It intrigued me, but it seemed so juvenile that I hid it away until now. It's a hardcover which was printed in all these pastel shades, with the edges of the paper colored, and the pages having a colored border. After several years of looking at it and turning away, I decided to take the plunge and it proved so entertaining that I wished I had not let it sit for so long! It was a breath of fresh air and I enjoyed it for its irreverence and endless diversion - never boring, always...entrancing! I commend it fully.
