Monday 3 September 2012

Book Group!

The Land Of Stories - The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer

Alex and Conner Bailey’s world is about to change.
When the twins’ grandmother gives them a treasured fairy tale book, they have no idea they’re about to enter a land beyond all imagining: the Land of Stories, where fairy tales are real. But as Alex and Conner soon discover, the stories they know so well haven’t ended in this magical land—Goldilocks is a wanted fugitive, Red Riding Hood has her own kingdom, and Queen Cinderella is about to become a mother!
The twins want to get back home. But with the legendary Evil Queen hot on their trail, will they ever find the way?

I heard  about this book many months ago in an interview that Chris Colfer gave to the ladies at The View.  I'm not usually a fan of The View but I am a fan of Chris Colfer's and when he mentioned he was writing a book my ears pricked up.  The fact that it was for kids made me even more intrigued.  Chris is an amazing man who has made such an impact in his short life - He was an openly gay teen and as a result was severely bullied at school.  He wrote and acted in productions at school and when he auditioned for GLEE they created the role of Kurt Hummel specially for Chris, scrapping another planned character.  Chris has gone on to write movie scripts and star in short films, he has won a Golden Globe for his performance as Kurt and has been nominated for 2 Emmy awards.  Last year he was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World!  While all this was happening Chris had time to write this book.

Now to the book - it is one of those books that are a delight to own just for the joy of looking at it.  It is stunning and makes you want to dive into what promises to be a magical tale.
The story is indeed delightful, well written and full of all the things that make up a classic fairy tale.  The human characters have a depth to them that makes you care about what happens to them and the relationship between the siblings is warm and often hilarious.  Many of the characters they meet along the way are known to us already and it is fun to see what these old friends (and foes) are up to now. 

It is the perfect book to read aloud to younger kids, exciting, fun, magical but not too scary.  Older kids (7 up) will also love reading it themselves although I'm tipping they'll also love hearing it read aloud - I'm about to test this on my own kids so I'll let you know their thoughts.
Here is what Chris had to say about the book.... 



2 comments:

Kell said...

Thanks Jen for the heads up on this one. Have just ordered it. xo

Tarrysaser said...

Chris should hire you as his publicity agent! A great review, Jen.