21. Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep

Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep
By Carson Levine
Illustrated by Mark Elliott
HarperCollins, 1999

Genre
Fractured Fairy Tale, Humor

Awards
None Known

Review

Princess Sonora was blessed by a fairy to be 10x as smart as anyone in the world! But she was also cursed to fall asleep for 100 years when she pricked herself on a spinning needle.  Sonora decided that since she'd be sleeping so long later, there was no need for sleep now and spent her time reading all the books in the royal libraries.  She found answers to all the questions she could think of (and made sure she told everyone about them) and made more efficient ways for the servants to do their chores, but everyone just found her to be annoying.  Sonora's parents had found a prince for her to marry, but he was boring! Sonora decided that after his visit, she would prick herself by choice with a spindle hidden in her closet so she could fall asleep and avoid the marriage all together.  This plan didn't work and Sonora accidentally pricks herself while the prince is still in the castle, so he fell asleep along with Sonora and the rest of the castle.  An astonished shepherd saw the castle become covered in a wall of thorns.  Eventually, Prince Christopher, a descendant of Prince Melvin XX and had always been curious about everything, decided to investigate the “missing” kingdom.  He found Sonora asleep, covered in cobwebs.  After much debate of what to do, he decided to kiss her.  Naturally, Sonora woke up.  So happy to have found someone who can answer his questions, and happy she had found someone who wanted to hear her answers, the couple decided to get married.  This short but humorous retelling of Sleeping Beauty will make readers chuckle at the “intelligence” of Sonora and the reactions of other characters. There are illustrations every few chapters that add to the story and show significant occurrences.

Opinion
A very amusing retelling that younger tweens will like just for the blatant humor and older readers will enjoy for the way it makes fun of predictable fairy tale characters.

Ideas
This book is a great example of a fractured fairy tale and is a good way to introduce this genre to tweens, either in the classroom or at the library with a display.

15. Mirror Mirror

Mirror Mirror
By Marilyn Singer
Illustrated by Josée Masse
Dutton Children's Books, 2010

Genre
Poetry, Picture Book

Awards

• Goodreads Choice Nominee for Picture Book (2010)
• Cybils Award in Poetry (2010)
• Horn Book Fanfare Best Poetry Book list (2010)
• Betsy Bird's 100 Magnificent Children's Books of 2010
• Publisher's Weekly Best Children's Books of 2010
• Booklist Editor's Choice list (2010)
• Washington Post's Top 15 Books of 2010
• NCBLA - Notable Children's Books in the English Language Arts (2011)
• ALA Notable (2011)
• Texas Bluebonnet Award Nominee (2011-2012)
• Flicker Tale Children's Book Award Nominee for Picture Book (2012)
• Land of Enchantment Picture Book Award (2012)

Review
A beautifully illustrated picture book of poems that can be read up to down, or down to up! Author Marilyn Singer writes poems about fairy tales that can be reversed, showing a completely different poem.  While made in the form of a picture book, older audiences will enjoy her poetic style as well as younger children.  Singer even challenges her readers at the end of the book to make up their own reversible poem.  The illustrations are colorful and eye-catching, also showing both sides of the story that is told by the two poems opposite the picture.

Opinion
This book is skillfully written, though the poems aren't as amusing as I thought they would be.  I feel like this poem style is limiting with the choice of vocabulary as the sentences have to work both backwards and forwards, even though the punctuation can be moved around, but the poems are still vague and sometimes difficult to understand, like they were just words and ideas from a specific fairy tale put into a poem, hoping to flow well, but not succeeding (like the poem entitled Mirror Mirror).  However, some of them were very enjoyable with The Doubtful Duckling, Bears in the News, and Have Another Chocolate being my favorites because of their clever way of telling both sides in a way that didn't necessitate having a picture to know what was going on.

Ideas
The author challenges her readers to try their hand at making their own poems like this.  This would be a fun activity for most of the ages in the tween group, letting them use this book as an example.

2. Maleficent

Maleficent
Directed by Robert Stromberg
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2014

Genre
Fantasy, Fairy Tale Retelling

Honors
None known

Review
This movie is a retelling of Disney's Sleeping Beauty from the prospective of Maleficent, the protagonist in the original film.  The story follows Maleficent as a young girl enjoying her wings, the freedom of her land (the Moors), and befriending a young human boy named Stephan.  Humans were not allowed in the Moors due to a history of war between the two lands, until Stefan begins spending time with Maleficent.  The two grow up and Maleficent falls in love with him, but Stefan sees a chance to become king in his own realm if he can prove Maleficent is dead.  He drugs her one night, but can’t bring himself to kill her, so he cuts off her wings for his prize.  He goes on to become king, marrying the princess and having a daughter named Aurora.  Maleficent shows up at the celebration of Aurora's birth and curses her to fall into a coma at 16 after pricking her finger on a spinning needle.  But as Maleficent watches the child, she unintentionally grows fond of her and tries to remove the curse, but fails.  This movie has beautiful scenery, but is very dark at times.  It has a general theme of overcoming that can speak to many audiences, though younger children may be frightened at times.  This is a must-see for any fairy tale lovers.

Opinion
Many reviewers, and even Angelina Jolie, consider the scene where Maleficent's wings are stolen by Stefan to be a rape metaphor.  While nothing graphic is shown, this is a very dark scene and can cause a deep emotional reaction.  I feel that most tweens will focus more on the literal occurrences in the movie, but this interpretation is certainly something to be aware of.  Angelina Jolie played her part very well, though most of her character was portrayed through actions and CGI; she spoke much less than I thought she would.  Her facial expressions and behaviors did a good job of portraying her character's feelings without introducing the presence of a narrator reminiscing.  I felt that the characters aside from Maleficent were very non-dimensional and unexplored, and even Maleficent was slightly shallow (though certainly more complete than the others).  The 3-D effects seemed in good taste, not overused or ineffective, and the scenery was believable and beautiful.

Ideas
This is a good family movie, but likely not something to let children watch alone.  This film may provoke discussion about some of the "big questions": why do bad things happen to good people and why do people do bad things? It's a good example of overcoming a desire for revenge and remembering who you are outside of anger.