VVMBookBlog

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt

This is two stories which seem to alternate, but come together magically at the end. A calico cat meets a hound dog and an unusual friendship begins. When Sabine and Puck are born to the calico cat, the four become an odd family. Gar Face is the owner of Ranger, the dog, is mean and causes tragedy to the new family. In the other story, a shape-shifting water serpent has been asleep in the Piney Woods mystical forest and is coming to life again. Although it seems like a typical animal story or a good versus evil story, it is more.

The cover is not fitting of the book. Keep in mind the old saying, “Don’t judge the book by it’s cover.”

Princess Rose and her eleven princess sisters have a big secret.  Every night at midnight they are compelled to go dance for the evil King Under Stone, but magically, the only evidence of this curse to others in their kingdom is the girls’ worn out dancing shoes and their visible exhaustion.  And they can’t tell why or the curse will make life worse for them!

So Galen, home from the war and now a gardener’s apprentice at the palace, has made the dangerous decision to follow the princesses and find out what’s happening to them.  Some magical gifts and messages he received on his way home from war now give him extra powers and courage to find out the secret of the dancing princesses.

I really enjoyed this retelling of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, even though fantasy stories aren’t usually my favorites.  I think readers who like the Cinderella-type stories will like this one, too.

Temping Fate by Esther Friesner

Llana needs a summer job. She would prefer something out of her boring town, but she is ready to do anything. When she goes to a apply at a temp agency, she gets the feeling that things are a bit strange. After meeting the manager of the temp agency, Llana is ready to leave without a job. The contract she is asked to sign is equally frightening, “… accepts no responsibility whatsoever for employees’ loss of life, limb, lucidity, lawyers, or lemurs…” Then she is given an envelope full of money for her first week’s work. This encourages her to give the job a try.

When she gets on the job site, she realizes things are only getting weirder. Her temp job requires her to use a typewriter (not computer, typewriter) to fill out death receipts. Soon she realizes her summer job will be different. She becomes involved with gods and heroes. Those interested in mythology will notice the myths and characters of the myths involved in the novel.

Cecelia is 14 years old and has always known the secret that she was the true princess of the kingdom of Suala.  By day she is the poor peasant girl orphan living in a remote village but by night she is being tutored in palace life by Sir Stephen, a knight from the kingdom.  When she senses that her identity has been revealed and she is in danger, she and her friend, Harper, leave their homes and make their way to the palace, only to find out that there are eleven other girls there with the same story!  Now who is the true princess?

If you’ve read and liked Just Ella by the same author or similar “Cinderella”-type stories, you’ll enjoy the twists and turns faced by Cecelia and her friends as they try to figure out this princess mystery.

Bert and Will are the twin sons of the baron of Ambercrest, born many years after the events surrounding the Snow White and Seven Dwarfs story.  The two boys get into trouble often, usually because of Bert who is the braver and more mischievous of the twins.  When their antics become too much for their father, the baron, he decides to separate them for the summer and send Will off to his Uncle Hugh at The Crags, a more rustic castle in the north.

Bert knows this move will be hard on the more timid Will, so the two boys switch identities and Bert soon finds himself exploring the mysteries of The Crags, leaving Will back at home.  One of these mysteries is a secret passage leading from his room to an enchanted mirror (remember Snow White?) that is ready to satisfy all his wishes.  Or is it?

Read The Mirror’s Tale, a 2008 Maud Hart Lovelace book, to find out the story about this magical mirror and what happened to the Seven Dwarfs, called Dwergh in this story, in the years after Snow White is rescued.