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Briar and Rose and Jack

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Briar and Rose and Jack
By Katherine Coville
Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019. 360 p.

In this classic fairytale mashup a king and a queen give birth to twin daughters which the queen names Briar and Rose. Since the first born daughter has a heavy brow and a sagging eye the king and his counselors aren’t sure that she would make a good ruler someday. So they hide her identity and name the second born daughter as their heir. They throw a huge celebration and invite all the fairies in the land (except the Gray Fairy who is mean and always ruins things). Briar’s godmother (who was at the birth of the twins and knows the truth) is sad that Rose will get all of the fairies gifts. So she magically switches the babies during the fairy gifts. Of course the Gray fairy crashes the party and gives a “prick her finger and die” gift that is turned into a “prick your finger and sleep” gift; however, because of the magical swapping the godmother has no idea which girl is slated to slumber. 

Meanwhile the kingdom is bullied by a huge giant that comes and destroys part of the kingdom and takes half of the crops and gold. One of the poorer families most affected by this is Jack. Eventually Jack becomes friends with Briar (an “orphan” raised by the king) and Rose. The three are just children but they decide that they want to work to defeat the giant since the grownups won’t. Of course everything comes crashing to a head just before the girls turn 16 and the giant is being especially destructive.

This is a fun mash-up of multiple fairy tales. The main characters are charming, the magic is abundant, and there is a good mixture of middle-grade adventure and romance (there is the kiss near the end where the princess wakes up).
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