Awards

• Short-listed for Massachusetts Children's Book Award 2006

Overview

Who better to wreak havoc with eight beloved fairytales than Gregory Maguire, the brilliantly funny author of the adult novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, as well as of the hilarious middle-grade series, The Hamlet Chronicles. Zany animals of all species run through these fractured tales with alarming speed and dexterity. Who would have thought that Sleeping Beauty, that most regal of all fairy- tales, could be twisted into the story of a frog with a most unusual and promising dance career? Get ready to meet a gorilla queen and a psycho chimp, seven giant giraffes; and one very bad walrus.

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9780060564179

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Reviews

Here are amusing retellings of eight familiar fairy tales with the characters as animals, ... --New York Times Book Review

From the elegantly addled brain of the author who brought us not only Wicked but haunted hairdos and stupid cupids, come eight deeply and profoundly silly stories. They have been twisted, turned inside-out, and re-imagined, so while they remain recognizable, their animal cast is only the beginning of their metamorphosis. Puns, literary and political references, wordplay, and sly wisdom abound. Children will be screaming with laughter, no matter if they get it or not, and adults will be convulsed. Take, for example, Hamster and Gerbil, the adopted children of the Beavers. When Papa Beaver is widowed and marries a Skunk who leaves the children in the woods, they find a delicious house made of lettuce and hollow steak bones, but the old porcupine inside has other plans for the children involving an oven. There's no way to summarize the high hilarity of So What and the Seven Giraffes or Little Red Robin Hood and Rumplesnakeskin should be read carefully, with no liquid refreshment in hand or mouth. Dizzyingly funny. (Fractured fairy tales. 8-12) (Kirkus Reviews)

a delightful collection, sure to be popular with sophsticated readers. --ALA Booklist

. a delightful collection, sure to be popular with sophsticated readers. -- ALA Booklist

Author Information

Gregory Maguire is the New York Times bestselling author of the Wicked Years, a series that includes Wicked--the beloved classic that is the basis for the blockbuster Tony Award-winning Broadway musical of the same name and the major motion picture--Son of a Witch, A Lion Among Men, and Out of Oz. His series Another Day continues the story of Oz with The Brides of Maracoor, The Oracle of Maracoor, and The Witch of Maracoor, and his other novels include A Wild Winter Swan, Hiddensee, After Alice, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Lost, and Mirror Mirror. He lives in New England and France. Chris L. Demarest, illustrator of many children's books, including Firefighters A to Z, I Invited a Dragon to Dinner, Mayday! Mayday!, T. Rex at Swan Lake, and the Supertwins series, lives in Claremont, New Hampshire.

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