Brave Red, Smart Frog by Emily Jenkins

3 stars A nice collection of fairy tales. It contains the stories, “Snow White”, “The Frog Prince”, “Three Wishes”, “Toads and Pearls”, “Red Riding Hood”, “The Three Great Noodles”, and “Hansel and Gretel”. The book does not adhere strictly to the originals nor are they reinvented into completely new tales. Instead, as Jenkins writes in…

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Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman

3 stars While I love reading Neil Gaiman’s work, sometimes I am left with something I don’t entirely know what to do with. This is one of those times. As I’ve only read the graphic novel format, I don’t know if all of the text is included in this adaptation, however at times I felt…

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Hearts, Keys, and Puppetry by Neil Gaiman and the Twitterverse

3 stars A unique concept with interesting results. Overall, the book was pretty good. I think its important to take into account how it came about and the way it was written. The pacing was rather fast and meandering, which is understandable given its writing process. Likewise, there isn’t much character development and I didn’t…

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Much Ado About Mean Girls by Ian Doescher

4 stars A fantastic retelling of Mean Girls in the style of William Shakespeare. This book is clever, hilarious, and a delight to read. This book is such a fun way to combine classic literature and popular culture. The unique blend makes Shakespeare’s style of writing more understandable and approachable for modern readers as the…

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What is Given from the Heart by Patricia C. McKissack

3 stars A sweet story about kindness and caring for others. The artwork in this book is lovely. I really enjoyed the various textures used. There are some rather dark themes in the beginning, such as the main character’s father going to sleep on the porch and not waking up, which may not be a…

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The Jumbies (The Jumbies #1) by Tracey Baptiste

4 stars An interesting read filled with magic, adventure, and elements of Haitian folklore. As Baptiste points out in her Author’s note, in comparison to European fairy tales, there are not a lot of Haitian folklore and jumbie fairy tales in mainstream literature. It’s great to see this series start to fill that gap. The…

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