Review of The Puppets of Spelhorst, by Kate DiCamillo

The Puppets of Spelhorst

A Norendy Tale

by Kate DiCamillo
illustrated by Julie Morstad

Candlewick Press, 2023. 150 pages.
Review written November 8, 2023, from a library book.
Starred Review

Hooray! Kate DiCamillo has started a series of original fairy tales!

Now, mind you, I’m a fairy tale fan, and this wasn’t my favorite ever. There’s not much magic — well, except puppets that can talk — and no fairies at all. But the feel does fit fairy tales, and I definitely would like to read this book aloud to an audience of primary grade kids. There’s a musical quality to the words and the atmospheric illustrations fit perfectly.

The story itself is about five puppets — “a king and a wolf and a girl and a boy and an owl.” An old sea captain named Spelhorst buys them because the girl reminds them of someone he loved once.

But when the sea captain dies, their adventures begin. The puppets want to be in a story. The wolf keeps going on about his sharp teeth. The king is very proud of his kingly nature. The owl is full of wise sayings. The boy has a quiver full of arrows. And the girl has beautiful eyes that want to see the world.

And the puppets do indeed find a story, complete with some danger in the middle, but ending up with adventure.

To give you an idea of the flavor, here’s a section when the puppets are in a dark trunk on the cart of a rag-and-bone man who takes things that aren’t wanted:

The puppets lay together in the chest. They could hear the rag-and-bone man’s song.

“Who are we?” said the owl.

“Well, I suppose we’re something that’s not wanted,” said the girl.

“Nonsense,” said the king. “Everyone wants a king. That’s the very definition of kingliness.”

“It’s so dark in here,” said the boy.

“Darkness means nothing when your teeth are as sharp as mine,” said the wolf.

“Into the darkness, there sometimes comes a light,” intoned the owl.

I’m definitely looking forward to more idiosyncratic fairy tales from the quirky mind of Kate DiCamillo. (Honestly! How does she think of these things?) This one left me smiling.

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Review of Little Thieves, by Margaret Owen

Little Thieves

by Margaret Owen
read by Saskia Maarleveld

Macmillan Audio, 2021. 14 hours.
Review written October 31, 2022, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review
2022 Cybils Finalist, Young Adult Speculative Fiction
2022 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #1 Teen Fantasy Fiction

Oh, this book is so, so good! I listened to it while on a road trip four hours away to New River Gorge National Park and found myself looking forward to spending more time in the car, almost more mesmerized by the audiobook than I was by the stunning autumn leaves. The narrator did a wonderful job weaving the spell, and I was hooked from the very beginning.

The book begins with a dark tale:

Once upon a time, on the coldest night of midwinter, in the darkest heart of the forest, Death and Fortune came to a crossroads.

They’ve come to the crossroads to meet with a woman and her four-year-old child. The mother believes her child is bad luck. The woman was a thirteenth child, and this child is her thirteenth. So that is how Vanja gets Death and Fortune as her godmothers.

But then we fast forward twelve more years. Vanja is wearing the face of a princess, and she’s planning a jewel heist at the house party of another noble family.

We learn that for a year, Vanja has been masquerading as the princess whom she once served, using the princess’s enchanted pearls that give her a beautiful appearance and play on the desires of those who look upon her. She’s betrothed to the margrave of Boern, but he has been away at war for a year, so she’s had charge of his castle.

As she pulls off the elaborate jewel heist, at the end of the first chapter we read:

Once upon a time, there was a girl as cunning as the fox in winter, as hungry as the wolf at first frost, and cold as the icy wind that kept them at each other’s throats.

Her name was not Gisele, nor was it Marthe, nor even Pfennigeist. My name was — is — Vanja. And this is the story of how I got caught.

I saw on the flap that this book is a retelling of “The Goose Girl,” and for a little while, I was faintly horrified to find myself sympathizing with the horrible maid who stole the princess’s life, a princess I came to love in Shannon Hale’s version, The Goose Girl. But this is a very different retelling! I think it’s kind of funny that now two of my favorite books came from that fairy tale, but in such different versions.

In this version, the truly terrible villain is actually the margrave the princess was traveling to marry.

And as Vanja pulls off her jewel heist as the Pfennigeist, she learns that the margrave is coming home. And he’s called in the Order of the Prefects of the Godly Courts to uncover the Pfennigeist. And on her way back to the margrave’s castle, she runs afoul of another of the Lower Gods and gets cursed to slowly turn into a statue of jewels by the full moon — unless she makes up for all she has taken.

Of course, that may not be the worst thing, because now that the margrave is back, he wants to get married quickly. And what are these monsters that keep coming after his bride?

But oh, there’s so much more — I’d better not try to tell all the threads woven together and then skillfully unwound.

I will say this is a very loose retelling of the fairy tale, with many more details woven into the story. Instead of being an actual goose girl, the deposed princess works in an orphanage which in German (or something like it) is called Gosling House. A junior prefect who comes to investigate the thefts is named Conrad, and yes, a dead horse is important to the plot by the end.

Besides being a very loose retelling, it’s also much darker than Shannon Hale’s retelling, but after all, we’re pulled into sympathy with the villain of that tale — she hasn’t been treated well by the nobility, including sexual assault by the margrave when she had the appearance of a servant. (Nothing sexual is onstage, but there are some innuendoes and some dark moments.)

But oh my goodness, how well the plot is woven!

I thought of it as an alternate-reality medieval Germany, since they use a Germanic language and The Goose Girl is a fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm. So then I was pulled up short when same-sex relationships and transgender people are seen as entirely normal. Kind of pulled me out of the medieval Germany vibe. But then I laughed at myself. It was a world where the religion involved tribute to the Lower Gods, including gods of place and the gods of Death and Fortune. So without our same Scripture, why wouldn’t same-sex relationships be seen as normal?

But oh my goodness, the plot of this book is wonderful! Vanja’s set up with lots of problems — She also wants to gain enough money to get out of the Blessed Empire so she won’t have to serve one of her godmothers for the rest of her life. But she also needs to evade justice for her thefts and break the curse so she doesn’t get turned into a statue and continue to hide her true identity and stay alive despite the monstrous attacks and also try to avoid marrying the margrave.

Yes, it’s complicated, but magnificently so.

Oh, and the title? It comes from a proverb from the Blessed Empire:

The little thief steals gold, but the great one steals kingdoms;
and only one goes to the gallows.

margaret-owen.com
fiercereads.com

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Review of Windswept, by Margi Preus

Windswept

by Margi Preus

Amulet Books (Abrams), 2022. 288 pages.
Review written September 30, 2022, from an advance reader copy I got at ALA Annual Conference
Starred Review

Windswept is a new fairy tale, crafted full of references to the old Norwegian fairy tales, and some influences from the Brothers Grimm. Since I read lots of fairy tales as a child, I appreciated the way this one wove in themes that show up again and again.

And since they’re Norwegian fairy tales, there have to be trolls! Expect some danger from trolls, and you will not be disappointed.

This fairy tale is set in a future earth without technology, with people living in villages, governed by the Powers That Be. There are lots of artifacts around from the Other Times — especially plastic, which is cluttered all over the place. But the Powers That Be have declared the only books Youngers should read are field guides and factual things like that.

But above all, Youngers must be kept indoors. We’re told the tale from the perspective of Tag, whose real name is Hyacinth, but who was always a tagalong to her three older sisters. But one fateful day almost seven years before her adventure begins, their guard fell asleep and Tag’s sisters went Outside. Tag was slow getting her shoes on, and didn’t quite make it over the threshold, so she saw with her own eyes the snow squall that suddenly descended and the wind that swept her sisters away.

In the seven years since, her father spent all his money looking for them, and died of a broken heart. Instead of keeping a guard, her mother keeps Tag indoors, with all the windows and doors boarded up. There’s one little knothole through which she can see a piece of the Outside.

But one day another eye appears on the other side of the knothole, and then an invitation pops through.

And when Tag finds a way to accept the invitation, encouraged along by something with a bit of magic, she finds four other Youngers and a little dog who are also defying the Powers That Be. They decide together to do something. And together, they set out on a quest to rescue their siblings, who were all windswept like Tag’s sisters.

Their quest is full of fairy tale logic and a little chaotic, but involves finding what they need to help along the way, with old crones to advise them. Not to mention trolls! And of course the ever-present danger from the wind. And they’d better watch out for small curses.

Of course, one of the best things about Norwegian fairy tales is you often have a little girl doing the impossible and overcoming against all odds. This tale falls nicely into that category.

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Review of Beasts and Beauty, by Soman Chainani

Beasts and Beauty

Dangerous Tales

by Soman Chainani
illustrated by Julia Iredale

Harper, 2021. 320 pages.
Review written January 6, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review
2021 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #7 Teen Fiction

This is a book of fairy tales – delightfully twisted, sinister fairy tales. I had read the first few stories some weeks before, but it ended up being the last book I finished in 2021 – I knew from the beginning that I’d want it to be a Sonderbooks Stand-out.

Here’s how the first story, “Red Riding Hood,” begins:

On the first day of spring, the wolves eat the prettiest girl.

They warn the town which girl they want, slashing the door to her house and urinating on the step. No one sees the wolves, just as no one sees the dew before it sops the grass. As winter wanes, the town thinks the curse is broken, seduced by the mercy of spring. But then the marking comes. Sometimes a few weeks before she will be eaten, sometimes a few days, for wolves decide on a prey in their own time. But once a girl is chosen, she is theirs. Neither child nor family can appeal. On the eve of spring, the wolves howl for their meal and the town marshals her to the edge of the forest and sends her in. Fail to deliver her and worse things will come than the loss of a pretty girl, though no one knows what these worse things could be. Soon the second howl echoes from the forest’s belly: quieter, sated, the wolves’ work done. The people disperse. The girl forgotten. A price to pay for time unfettered.

It’s unquestionably a sinister beginning. But the weak and apparently powerless have a way of triumphing in these stories.

We’ve got Snow White with black skin, Rapunzel’s witch a man, Jack of the Beanstalk looking for his missing father, living with an abusive mother, Hansel and Gretel’s missing mother a baker living in a house of sweets, a new twist on Wendy’s adventures with Peter Pan.

“Dangerous” is a good choice for describing these tales. They’re not the fairy tales you’ve heard before. They’re subversive and triumphant.

somanchainani.com
evernever.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

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Review of The Little Blue Bridge, by Brenda Maier, pictures by Sonia Sanchez

The Little Blue Bridge

by Brenda Maier
pictures by Sonia Sanchez

Scholastic Press, Spring 2021. 40 pages.
Review written March 8, 2021, from an advance reader copy sent by the publisher
Starred Review

The Little Blue Bridge takes the pattern from the Norwegian folk tale, The Billy Goats Gruff, and puts a maker twist on it.

Ruby is always full of ideas. When she sees blueberries across the creek, she suggests to her brothers that they go across to pick some and make blueberry pie. But they leave without her.

However, the only way across the creek is a plank bridge that a bully, Santiago built. He tells the brothers they can’t cross unless they give him a snack, but one by one they promise better snacks in the sibling to come.

Ruby doesn’t have any snacks, so Santiago won’t let her cross. But she’s prepared for that! Ruby competently builds a much better bridge with blue planks.

And the story ties up in a delightful way, with the small sister getting her due and showing up everyone with her ingenuity.

The pictures are full of exuberant action and it all adds up to an utterly delightful story I hope to get to use in story time some day.

brendamaier.com

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Review of Poisoned, by Jennifer Donnelly

Poisoned

by Jennifer Donnelly

Scholastic Press, 2020. 307 pages.
Review written March 6, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

Like her earlier novel, Stepsister, in Poisoned, Jennifer Donnelly takes the basic skeleton from a fairy tale and goes far afield with it, ending up with a story that includes the main plot elements, but with very different applications.

Both stories begin with gore. In Stepsister, the stepsister cuts off her toes to try to fit her foot into the glass slipper. In Poisoned, a huntsman skillfully succeeds in cutting out Sophie’s heart and putting it into a box.

Fortunately, seven brothers living in the woods find her, and one of them is a skilled clockmaker. He makes her a clockwork heart. It happened on the morning of Sophie’s birthday, when she would have become queen. Everyone had told her that she was too soft-hearted to be a good ruler, but she had found a handsome prince to marry, who would be able to make the tough decisions.

It does turn out that Sophie’s stepmother, who ordered the killing, wasn’t entirely to blame. She was ordered to have Sophie’s heart put in the box by a sinister dark king, Corvus, the King of Crows, who comes to her in her magic mirror.

But clockwork doesn’t last forever. So after Sophie learns what the brothers did, she decides she will go find the prince she’d agreed to marry, the man who said he loved her, and ask him to use his army to attack the castle of the King of Crows. Never mind that he seems to have accepted the story of her death and doesn’t seem to be looking for her.

Both of Jennifer Donnelly’s fairy tale retellings also put a feminist spin on things. Yes, dear reader, it will turn out that Sophie can’t rely on a handsome prince to save her and must do so herself. In fact, it may turn out that her soft heart is exactly what she needs to defeat the dark king.

Another marvelously spun tale, making you look at a familiar story in a completely different way.

jenniferdonnelly.com
scholastic.com

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Review of Once Upon a Goat, by Dan Richards, illustrated by Eric Barclay

Once Upon a Goat

by Dan Richards
pictures by Eric Barclay

Alfred A. Knopf, 2019. 32 pages.
Starred Review
Review written September 10, 2019, from a library book

Here’s a silly twist on a fairy tale pulled off with just the right humorous touch.

The book opens with a king and queen who wish for a child.

“Yes, but where would we put it?” asked the king.
“Next to the vase on the hearth, naturally,” replied the queen.
“Or beside the roses in the garden,” the king added.
“Oh, yes. Perfect,” agreed the queen.

When their fairy godmother shows up, they tell her about their wishes.

“We’re not particular,” said the queen. “Glowing skin, bright eyes, and hair like ocean waves should do.”

“Hmm . . . ,” said their fairy godmother.
“A boy would be great,” added the king. “But any kid will do.”
“Of course,” answered their fairy godmother. “Look on your doorstep when the moon is full.”

At the next full moon, they eagerly look outside – and a little goat is sitting there! The king realizes he shouldn’t have said that any kid would do. They try to send the goat away, but it’s a blustery night, and they bring him in for just one night… and the night turns into many more.

The illustrations are a huge part of the fun as the little kid enjoys the run of the palace and the palace guards keep their faces stoic. And we’ve got more to the story when the fairy godmother comes back.

I can’t read this book without smiling.

danrichardsbooks.com
ericbarclay.com
rhcbooks.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

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Review of Damsel, by Elana K. Arnold

Damsel

by Elana K. Arnold
performed by Elizabeth Knowelden

HarperAudio, 2018. 7.75 hours on 7 discs.
Starred Review
2019 Printz Honor winner
Review written October 16, 2019, from a library audiobook.

First let me say that I have a new favorite audiobook narrator. Yes, Elizabeth Knowelden has a wonderful accent and her voice is a delight to listen to, but she also has the ability to pack every word with drama. When I raved about her reading this book and tried to imitate her, I simply sounded overdramatic, but when she does it, she makes every word seem important. She achieves exactly the right amount of emphasis and compels your attention.

The book itself is amazing.

Now, there’s a startling ending – but I had a strong clue what that ending would be from hearing the author’s Printz Honor speech. I had a feeling that Ama would not meekly succumb to the forces urging her to be a good little girl and submit. Let me say only that this book is perfect for the “Me Too” generation.

For generations, the prince of the kingdom of Harding, in order to become king after his father dies, must conquer a dragon and rescue a damsel. He will bring the damsel back to his castle and marry her at the Winter Solstice. They will have one child, a son, who will repeat this process after them.

Ama wakes up in Prince Emory’s arms, and he tells her that he rescued her from a dragon. She doesn’t remember anything from her life before. As they journey back to the castle, Emory kills a mother lynx that he thought was threatening Ama (she wasn’t), and Ama takes the baby with her to the castle. She names the baby lynx Sorrow.

At the castle, Ama must learn her place. There are still some months before midwinter, and she must learn her role in the scheme of things. But it’s almost as hard for Ama to fall into place as it is for Sorrow.

The reading of this story is outstanding, but this is not a family tale. There are many vulgar moments, and sexual things explicitly described. And Prince Emory is not a nice man.

Honestly, if I didn’t expect Ama to triumph, I would not have been able to listen to this story, so I think it’s safe to tell you that the horrible things that happen along the way make the ending of this audiobook all the more sweet.

elanakarnold.com
harperaudio.com

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Review of Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik

Spinning Silver

by Naomi Novik

Del Rey, 2018. 466 pages.
Starred Review
2019 Alex Award Winner
Review written April 11, 2019, from a library book

Ahhhh, such a lovely book! I love reworked fairy tales, and this one only had the beginnings of an idea from one, but spun an intricate tale with a mythic feel.

Here’s how the book begins:

The real story isn’t half as pretty as the one you’ve heard. The real story is, the miller’s daughter with her long golden hair wants to catch a lord, a prince, a rich man’s son, so she goes to the moneylender and borrows for a ring and a necklace and decks herself out for the festival. And she’s beautiful enough, so the lord, the prince, the rich man’s son notices her, and dances with her, and tumbles her in a quiet hayloft when the dancing is over, and afterwards he goes home and marries the rich woman his family has picked out for him. Then the miller’s despoiled daughter tells everyone that the moneylender’s in league with the devil, and the village runs him out or maybe even stones him, so at least she gets to keep the jewels for a dowry, and the blacksmith marries her before that firstborn child comes along a little early.

Because that’s what the story’s really about: getting out of paying your debts. That’s not how they tell it, but I knew. My father was a moneylender, you see.

He wasn’t very good at it. If someone didn’t pay him back on time, he never so much as mentioned it to them. Only if our cupboards were really bare, or our shoes were falling off our feet, and my mother spoke quietly with him after I was in bed, then he’d go, unhappy, and knock on a few doors, and make it sound like an apology when he asked for some of what they owed. And if there was money in the house and someone asked to borrow, he hated to say no, even if we didn’t really have enough ourselves. So all his money, most of which had been my mother’s money, her dowry, stayed in other people’s houses. And everyone else liked it that way, even though they knew they ought to be ashamed of themselves, so they told the story often, even or especially when I could hear it.

But when things get desperate and her mother gets sick, the narrator, Meryam, decides to take on the duties of moneylender herself. She gets out her father’s ledgers and demands what is owed. And people pay her.

In fact, she’s so good at it, she gloats a little that she can turn silver into gold. And the king of the Staryk people hears her. Three times, he leaves her silver that she must turn into gold. If she doesn’t, she knows she’ll be destroyed. If she does – he’s going to marry her. And that is only the beginning of her troubles.

That is one of the three main threads in this book. Another involves the recipient of the jewelry she has made with the silver from the Staryk – jewelry that attracts a fire demon who is inhabiting the tsar, the tsar who needs a wife. The other thread involves a poor family who owes money to the moneylender. When he can’t pay it, Meryam takes the services of his daughter Wanda to pay off the debt. Wanda likes spending her days at the home of the moneylender more than staying at home.

All three young women are thought to be powerless in their world, and all three discover their power and their usefulness.

There’s plenty of magic in this story, with the Staryk prolonging winter, so crops fail and people die, and magical bridges between the Staryk world of ice and the sunlit world. And the plot twists and turns and what we mostly want is for these resourceful women to discover their power and be able to help the people they love.

Naomi Novik spins a magical and mesmerizing tale with threads within threads.

naominovik.com
randomhousebooks.com

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Review of Stepsister, by Jennifer Donnelly

Stepsister

by Jennifer Donnelly

Scholastic Press, May 14, 2019. 342 pages.
Starred Review
Review written February 13, 2019, from an advance reader copy I got at ALA Midwinter Meeting.

Stepsister was my airplane reading on my way back from ALA Midwinter Meeting and made the long flight a delight. It tells about Isabelle, one of Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters.

The story begins when Isabelle is ready to cut off her toes so they will fit into the glass slipper the prince has brought, after her sister Octavia was discovered to have cut off her heel.

“We should’ve heated the blade for Tavi,” Maman fretted now. “Why didn’t I think of it? Heat sears the vessels. It stops the bleeding. Ah, well. It will go better for you, Isabelle.”

It’s not easy, but Isabelle cuts off this part of herself, as she has cut off metaphorical parts of herself all during her life at Maman’s bidding.

And yet, when Maman demanded that she get up, Isabelle did. She opened her eyes, took a deep breath to steady herself, and stood.

Isabelle could do this impossible thing because she had a gift – a gift far more valuable than a pretty face or dainty feet.

Isabelle had a strong will.

She did not know that this was a good thing for a girl to have, because everyone had always told her it was a terrible thing. Everyone said a girl with a strong will would come to a bad end. Everyone said a girl’s will must be bent to the wishes of those who know what’s best for her.

Isabelle was young, only sixteen; she had not yet learned that Everyone is a fool.

Anyone who knows the fairy tale “Cinderella” knows that this didn’t go well for Isabelle. However, that’s only the beginning of this book.

There’s a Prologue that came before this, and we learn that the three Fates have a wager going wiith Chance, who appears as a bold and handsome young man.

He was dressed in a sky-blue frockcoat, leather britches, and tall boots. A gold ring dangled from one ear; a cutlass hung from his hip. His face was as beautiful as daybreak, his smile as bewitching as midnight. His eyes promised the world, and everything in it.

Isabelle is the very mortal whose life map (showing her fate) Chance has stolen. The Fates are not happy about it.

“All this trouble for a mere girl?” asked the crone, regarding Chance closely. “She’s nothing, a nobody. She possesses neither beauty nor wit. She’s selfish. Mean. Why her?”

“Because I can’t resist a challenge,” Chance replied. He rerolled the map with one hand, steadying it against his chest, then tucked it back inside his coat. “And what girl wouldn’t choose what I offer?” He gestured at himself, as if even he couldn’t believe how irresistible he was. “I’ll give her the chance to change the path she is on. The chance to make her own path.”

“Fool,” said the crone. “You understand nothing of mortals. We Fates map out their lives because they wish it. Mortals do not like uncertainty. They do not like change. Change is frightening. Change is painful.”

“Change is a kiss in the dark. A rose in the snow. A wild road on a windy night,” Chance countered.

“Monsters live in the dark. Roses die in the snow. Girls get lost on wild roads,” the crone shot back.

So there’s something at stake as Isabelle’s life plays out. The stepsisters’ story becomes known to the people around them, giving them contempt from the other villagers. Then war comes close to the region. Isabelle hears from a fairy queen a way to change her fate, but will she dare seize that? And meanwhile, neither Chance nor the crone of the Fates is shy about inserting themselves into Isabelle’s story to make sure they win the wager.

Yes, some may say you need to cut off pieces of yourself to make your way in the world. But this book suggests that it’s possible to recover those pieces again and take your fate in your own hands. A wonderful story about what happens after the fairy tale.

jenniferdonnelly.com
scholastic.com

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