2018 School Spending Survey Report
Bewitching
336p. (The Kendra Chronicles). HarperCollins/HarperTeen. 2012. Tr $17.99. ISBN 978-0-06-202414-5; PLB $18.89. ISBN 978-0-06-202415-2; ebook $9.99. ISBN 978-0-06-210406-9. LC 2011024244.
COPY ISBN
Flinn re-imagines four fairy tales, connected through Kendra, the witch from Beastly. The traditional tales are faithfully transposed into believable new frameworks; most compelling is the story about modern-day Emma and her stepfather's daughter, beautiful and kind Lisette. Flinn skillfully keeps sympathy with Emma, making readers cheer for her, not Cinderella stand-in Lisette, to rock the ball and get the guy. A historical note is included.
Kendra Hilferty, a five-hundred-year-old witch who chooses to live as a teen, shares tales—which happen to include eyewitness accounts of “Hansel and Gretel,” “The Princess and the Pea,” and “The Little Mermaid”—from her long life. Magic, far from being a vehicle for good in these stories, is usually an agent of chaos; surprises and role reversals abound. Interspersed between these supernatural stories is a contemporary inversion of “Cinderella.” When mousy, bookish Emma first meets Lisette, her stepfather’s beautiful biological daughter, Emma worries that she’ll become the wicked stepsister to Lisette’s Cinderella. But when Lisette razes a steady path of destruction through Emma’s life, Emma must learn to navigate in a world in which appearances and reality rarely match up. Her personal journey is alternately heartbreaking and inspiring. Kendra’s voice—mischievous, but also wary—provides a contemporary edge. “It would be easy to turn Lisette into a frog but . . . in today’s society of litigation and reality television, someone is just as likely to trumpet [her] misfortune from the rooftops as hide in a basement.” Over the course of the book, Kendra becomes Emma’s friend and protector, and her magical hijinks—mainly, inflicting physical discomfort on snotty popular girls who tease Emma—read as delicious wish fulfillment. In the end, though, Emma achieves happiness in spite of Kendra’s help, which makes her success all the more gratifying.
Flinn here re-imagines four fairy tales, connected through Kendra, the witch who put the spell on Kyle in Beastly. Kendra explains how, in the seventeenth century, an evil witch living in a gingerbread house helped her develop her powers ("Hansel and Gretel"). Then she introduces Emma, a modern-day girl who's thrilled that her stepfather's daughter, the beautiful and kind Lisette, has just joined the family ("Cinderella"). When Lisette steals the attention of their father and of Emma's boyfriend, however, it's clear that Lisette isn't as sweet as she appears. As Kendra ponders whether to help Emma, she tells two stories in which she'd intervened with mixed success: eighteenth-century Prince Louis's determination to find a wife despite his "helicopter mother" ("The Princess and the Pea") and a mermaid's quest to find the man she rescued from the Titanic (a decidedly non-Disney "Little Mermaid"). The traditional tales are faithfully transposed into believable new frameworks, perhaps inspiring readers to compare them with the original versions. Of the four stories, Emma's is the most compelling. Readers will easily be able to relate to its themes of jealousy, loneliness, and longing. Flinn skillfully keeps sympathy firmly with Emma, making readers cheer for her, not Cinderella stand-in Lisette, to rock the ball and get the guy. A historical note is included. rachel l. smith
ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LOG IN
We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing
ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LOG IN
Thank you for visiting.
We’ve noticed you are using a private browser. To continue, please log in or create an account.
Be the first reader to comment.
Comment Policy:
Comment should not be empty !!!