My latest middle grade project, Pandora’s Popcorn Potion, is a kind of fractured fairy tale, so I picked this up after I finished the first draft to see what my comps are doing.  I thought it would be light and sassy–which it was–but had no idea it would also bring tears to my eyes!  After finishing it, I turned to my hubby and said ‘this is the kind of book I want to write when I grow up.’  I hope the author Sara Lewis Holmes doesn’t feel too odd about that! lol

So, what did I like so much?  For starters, I empathized with Cadence, aka Rapunzel.  She’s stuck, not only in a physical sense because she has to go to homework club and she doesn’t fit in with the kids at school, but also in an emotional sense.  She’s in homework club after school instead of home with her dad because he’s been checked into the hospital after having a breakdown, and is struggling with Clinical Depression, aka The Evil Spell.

Which makes the book sounds a wee bit depressing, but it’s not at all, and that’s why I loved it so much.  There are plenty of books out there dealing with dark, difficult stuff.  Few of them make us feel like we’ve been given a flashlight (a big sturdy silver one like Cadence loves) to make us feel warm and okay.  Humor can do that–it’s why I love it.  And it can also open people up to an idea or concept that they otherwise can’t face.  Let them sidle up to it.  So Cadence writes letters and tells herself stories while she makes sense of what’s happened to her dad and figures out how to rescue herself from the stuck place she’s in.  And we laugh with her and read our way out, too.  It’s exactly the kind of book that would have been perfect for me as a young teen who had a few Rapunzel elements in my life.

“Why was that girl so afraid of heights?  I love climbing up and looking around the world!  Silly child.  I do like her idea of choosing a fairy tale self, though.  You keep pushing me toward Puss n’ Boots, but I think I like the Sleeping Beauty story best.  In fact, I think I’ll go work on that now.  Please tip toe as you leave.”

Sleeping…that doesn’t sound so bad right now, though I don’t think I’d want to be Sleeping Beauty.  Which fairy tale character would you be, if you had to pick?  Which is your favorite?

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