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Enchanted | November 28, 2012

by Alethea Kontis (Harcourt Children's Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's Books, May 2012)

Sunday Woodcutter has a unique talent: everything she writes comes true. And as the seventh child of a seventh child, that’s not the only magic she’s used to living with. From an adventurous, pirate-queen sister, to one with a magically hard-working disposition, there’s rarely a dull—or quiet—moment at the Woodcutter house. To get away from her loving but occasionally overbearing family, Sunday tells her stories to a frog in the woods, eventually falling in love with the amphibian auditor. She knows he’s actually a man trapped by a spell, but when true love’s kiss finally works, Sunday discovers that her beloved is not Prince Charming, but he is instead responsible for her brother’s disappearance and her family’s sworn enemy. Can he convince her differently?

This lovely book presents a delightful amalgam of fairy tales, but unlike other books that seek out the darkness in these stories, Enchanted revels in the fun of the form. By mashing together scores of tales, from Snow White to Jack and the Beanstalk to the Frog Prince, Kontis creates a world of that is intricately supported by its own interior logic, and she plays with character types to develop a strong ensemble cast. It’s a loving tribute to fairy tales and a riveting read, full of surprising twists that only well-crafted magic can bestow.

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