Bruno’s polished vignettes at each chapter’s head and elsewhere add sophisticated visual notes. Though the proposition eventually founders on the twin rocks of true friendship and family ties, talk of “balance” in the aftermath at least promises to give Evil a fighting chance in future fairy tales. As the tale moves slowly toward climactic battles and choices, Chainani further lightens the load by stuffing it with memes ranging from a magic ring that must be destroyed and a “maleficent” gown for Sophie to this oddly familiar line: “Of all the tales in all the kingdoms in all the Woods, you had to walk into mine.” Rafal’s plan turns out to be an attempt to prove that love can be twisted into an instrument of Evil. This turns out to be a company of geriatric versions of characters, from Hansel and Gretel (in wheelchairs) to fat and shrewish Cinderella, led by an enigmatic Merlin. Meanwhile, amid a general slaughter of dwarves and billy goats, Agatha and her rigid but educable true love, Tedros, flee for protection to the League of Thirteen. Hook to various evil stepmothers to take stabs (literally) at changing the ends of their stories. Good has won every fairy-tale contest with Evil for centuries, but a dark sorcerer’s scheme to turn the tables comes to fruition in this ponderous closer.īroadening conflict swirls around frenemies Agatha and Sophie as the latter joins rejuvenated School Master Rafal, who has dispatched an army of villains from Capt. Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish). This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. Gradually-too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic-it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. 11-13)Ĭhainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.Įvery four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Though Wilkinson barely sketches in the historical setting, and mishandles the plot-dropping one scary pursuer abruptly and setting up a climactic battle with another by having Danzi commit a seriously against-type betrayal-she throws an engrossing barrage of challenges and reversals of fortune at her trio of well-drawn travelers, and all three acquit themselves well. Not quite alone: readers will figure out long before she does what the Dragon Stone really is. Repeatedly getting each other out of scrapes along the way, Ping develops a great attachment to her terse, grumpy companion, while discovering within herself both latent magical powers and the resourcefulness to carry on when, at journey’s end, Danzi and Hua leave her alone. Fugitives from a remote Imperial Palace, Ping, furry Hua and frail Long Danzi, last of the Emperor’s captive dragons, set out for the ocean, carrying a “Dragon Stone” with which Danzi is strangely obsessed. In this award-winning but uneven import, a young slave, her pet rat and a very old dragon flee across the ancient empire of the Han.
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