In this bewitching companion to A Tale Dark and Grimm, Adam Gidwitz blends Grimm tales with the works of Hans Christian Andersen.
"Once upon a time, fairy tales were horrible," says the snarky narrator, who returns to share the truth behind these fairy tales. Often the narrator's gallows humor balances warnings to readers about the depths of the stories' darkness, cruelty and bloodshed. A wishing well grants a frog his desire to speak to a beautiful sky-eyed princess, in hopes that she will be his friend. Instead, she attempts to murder him by hurling him against a wall and breaks his heart (and his leg). Then: "Things get worse." After Jill, daughter to a beautiful yet cruel queen, is humiliated ("Emperor's New Clothes"–style) at a royal procession, she encounters that same talking frog, and together they run away to her cousin Jack. A deceptive old woman gets Jack and Jill to swear on their lives (literally)--despite the first of the frog's many protests--to find the Seeing Glass, lost for 1,000 years. In return, they will be worshipped by the whole world. From there, a magic bean sprouts into a beanstalk, and an adventure with brutal giants, cunning goblins and mermaids begins. (Oh, and Jack falls down the hill, and breaks his head wide open--pool of blood included.)
Readers will once again appreciate the narrative logic Gidwitz weaves through these otherwise unconnected retellings and will laugh past his warnings to an uplifting theme about accepting oneself. --Adam Silvera, reviewer and former bookseller