By Michael Buckley; Illustrations by Peter FergusonAbrams; 2005; 312 pages
Juvenile Fiction; Mystery
Grades: 3-5
ISBN: 978-08-10993-228
Sabine and Daphne are orphan sisters who are sent to live in Ferrysport, New York with their grandmother. There are just two problems: they thought that their grandmother was dead, and this old lady seems to think that fairy tales are real.
My Thoughts:
This book has a great premise: kid detectives in a modern world populated by fairy tale creatures. Also, the incorporation of the Grimm brothers as historians and not mere writers is inspired. The only problem was its execution. The story is uneven. It starts out feeling like the Lemony Snicket books about downtrodden and persecuted orphans. Then it moves to a fractured fairy tale from Rocky and Bullwinkle. It ends with a Benedict Arnold moment and a Bobbsey Twins resolution.
The book itself was well-written. The prose was nice. However the storyline was so uneven and convoluted that the text itself could not redeem it. The illustrations were well done though. The pictures were scattered throughout, but were vague enough and rare enough that readers can still rely on their own imaginations. I would recommend this book to readers who are fairytale fans, or children who enjoy mysteries that are fairly predictable. I would not recommend it to reluctant readers.
The Thoughts of Others:
Booklist published a review by Gillian Engberg in 2005. Engberg had a apathetic reaction to the book. She felt that the"novel gets bogged down in labored world building and sometimes stilted prose." She thought that over all it was redundant and derivative, although the characters would pull fans.
Sharon Grover, in 2006, reviewed the book for School Library Journal. She agreed with Engberg that "readers well grounded in their fairy tales will get the most pleasure from recognizing the characters." She also pointed out that the author does a good job of inserting vocabulary lessons.
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