Skip to main content

Five Faves: Middle Grade Fractured Fairy Tales

By

Did you love reading Ella Enchanted? Are you obsessed with Peter and the Starcatchers? Sometimes it's fun to read a twist on a classic tale. Whether it's someone from today jumping into a familiar tale, or characters from fairy tales making different choices then the ones you'd expect, fractured fairy tales are a delight! So here are some middle grade fractured fairy tales to try out!

Princess Protection Program
By Alex London
New York: Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2024. Fiction. 212 pages.

When she's woken by a kiss from a prince she's never met and definitely doesn't want to spend forever with, Rosamund (Sleeping Beauty) flees her tale. When Rosamund arrives at Orphans' Home Educational Academy, or HEA, with no idea how she got there, the headmistress invites her to stay with the other wayward fairy tale characters who have also escaped their endings. But as they venture out into today's modern world, it appears that their academy isn't exactly as it appears. Will they stay at HEA or travel back to finish their own stories?

Ravenous Things
By Derrick Chow
Los Angeles: Disney-Hyperion, 2022. Fiction. 325 pages.

In this modern retelling of the Pied Piper, twelve-year-old Reggie feels alone. His father passed away two years before, and his paranoid mother is increasingly unwilling to leave the house. So when a strange man tells Reggie that he can give him his heart's desire, he jumps at the chance. He, and a gaggle of other children, take a subway ride that promises to reunite them with their loved ones. When everything is not as it appears, the children must fight together to escape the clutches of the piper or be trapped in the tunnels forever. This book is a great choice for spooky season.

Written by Tae Keller
Illustrated by Geraldine Rodriguez
New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2022. Fiction.228 pages.

Mihi is obsessed with fairy tales and wants nothing more than to be a princess. After a game of Snow White goes awry and Mihi is sent into the library for lunch, she (along with Reese and Savannah who are also in the library for lunch) find a portal through a fridge to a fairy tale world. The Rainbow World is full of characters from all of Mihi's favorite stories and nursery rhymes. When Mihi trains to become the princess she thinks she was always meant to be, she realizes that being a princess and the Rainbow World may not be all that it appeared at first glance. For anyone who's always wanted to be a princess, this one's a keeper!

By Alyssa Moon
Los Angeles: Disney-Hyperion, 2021. Fiction. 313 pages.

Delphine, a mouse, works as a dressmaker inside Cinderella's chateau. After she is attacked by rats (who are under a truce with the mice) who try to steel her sewing needle, Delphine finds herself heaved into an adventure. Details from Cinderella are woven through the tale as readers become familiar with the world of the mice. For fans of Redwall, this book is a great choice.

By Cynthia Leitich Smith
New York: Heartdrum, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2021. Fiction. 307 pages.

In this twist on Peter Pan, stepsisters Lily and Wendy are invited to travel to Neverland. Wendy, along with the girls' younger brother Michael, decide to go and are whisked away by Peter and his fairy, Belle. When Lily realizes that all is not as it appears in Neverland, she has to follow after her siblings or risk losing them forever.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Kareem Between

By
  Kareem Between By Shifa Saltagi Safadi New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2024. Fiction. 324 pages.  Kareem loves football and as he gets ready to start seventh grade he dreams of someday becoming the first Syrian American NFL player. Seventh grade is not off to a great start for Kareem, after football tryouts don't go as he had planned, his best friend moves away, and his mom returns to Syria to help bring his sick grandfather to the US for treatment. So when Austin, the quarterback and coach's son, offers to talk to his dad and get Kareem on the football team in the spring, if he will cheat and do his homework for him, Kareem agrees. Kareem really wants to fit in at school and he is desperate to find a friend, but deep down he knows that doing Austin's homework isn't the right thing to do. And to make things harder, Kareem's mom asks him to be a friend to Fadi, a Syrian Christian refugee. He knows he should stand up for Fadi and help him adjust to the new school,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: A World Without Summer

By
A World Without Summer: A Volcano Erupts, a Creature Awakens, and the Sun Goes Out Written by Nicholas Day Illustrated by Yas Imamura New York: Random House Studio, 2025. Informational. 294 pages. In 1815 on a small island in Indonesia, Mount Tambora erupted. The blast was the largest in human history, and one of the deadliest. Though it couldn't be understood at the time, the deadly blast half a world away would lead to catastrophic famine in Europe, prompt westward expansion in America, and inspire the novel Frankenstein  by Mary Shelley. The global climate disaster following the explosion also led to inventions like modern meteorology and the early invention of the bicycle. The people living at the time couldn't have seen how everything was connected, but this fast paced narrative assures that readers will. As he did in 2024's Sibert winner The Mona Lisa Vanishes, Nicholas Day does an impressive job of weaving together different historical events into one single, compell...
Post a Comment
Read more

If You Like...KPop Demon Hunters

By
KPop Demon Hunters has been one of the most talked-about movies of the summer. If you loved this movie as much as I did, you don't want the magic (or the music) to stop. Try reading these books that touch on some of the same topics and themes as the animated hit! Brick Dust and Bones By M. R. Fournet New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2023. Fiction. 247 pages. Orphaned Marius works in the family business--as their cemetery's ghost caretaker. However, Marius also moonlights as a monster hunter in order to earn the costly Mystic currency he needs to bring his mother back from the dead. As the window to bring his mother back begins to close, Marius's exploits get more and more dangerous, and he may have set his sights on a monster too big to handle on his own. Like Mira, Marius longs for familial connection, and his work as a monster hunter will satisfy the thrill of demon hunting for fans the movie. Where's Halmoni? By Julie J. Kim Seattle, WA: Little Bigfoot, 2017. Comics. W...
Post a Comment
Read more