Unleashing Readers – Helping Students Navigate the World of Books

The Mystery of Locked Rooms by Lindsay Currie

April 16, 2024 by Kellee

The Mystery of Locked Rooms
Author: Lindsay Currie
Published April 2nd, 2024 by Sourcebooks Young Readers

Summary: Crack the codes. Find the treasure. Escape the house.

From the acclaimed author of Scritch Scratch and What Lives in the Woods comes a action-packed adventure novel about three friends who team up to find a hidden treasure in an abandoned 1950’s funhouse. Twelve-year-old Sarah Greene wants nothing more from her seventh-grade year than to beat the hardest escape room left in her town with her best friends, West, and Hannah. But when a foreclosure notice shows up on Sarah’s front door, everything changes. Since her father became ill two years ago, things have been bad, but not lose your house bad…until now. Sarah feels helpless until the day Hannah mentions a treasure rumored to be hidden in the walls of an abandoned funhouse.

According to legend, Hans, Stefan, and Karl Stein were orphaned at eight years old and lived with different families until they were able to reunite as adults. Their dream was to build the most epic funhouse in existence. They wanted their experience to be more than mirror mazes and optical illusions, so they not only created elaborate riddles and secret passages, but they also claimed to have hidden a treasure inside the funhouse.

Once in, Sarah, West, and Hannah realize the house is unlike any escape room they’ve attempted. There are challenges, yes, but they feel personal. Like the triplets knew who would get in. It seems impossible, but so does everything about the house. As soon as they’re in she immediately worries that attempting the funhouse is a bad idea but Sarah has no choice but to continue, since her future is at stake.

It’s not all action-adventure—the story also has a lot of heart. Foreclosure is looming for Sarah’s family home, due to the chronic health challenges faced by her father and the strain that has placed on family finances. This is the catalyst for Sarah’s quest to find the rumored Triplet Treasure. Kirkus praised this as a “moving metaphor… Sarah’s enthusiasm for escape rooms becomes a means of tackling the unsolvable puzzle that has left her parent confined to his own escapable room” and goes on to say, “this topic is treated with a gentle touch.”

Praise:

“A riddling, sporting adventure and a story of true friendship.” — Kirkus Reviews

“In this page-turning thriller, Currie (It Found Us) builds suspense via high-stakes brain teasers in dark rooms and periods of isolation as the Deltas endeavor to solve the biggest, most dangerous series of escape rooms they’ve ever faced.” – Publishers Weekly

“This page-turner with touching character moments makes a fun read for anyone who enjoys puzzle solving, escape rooms, and books centered around the power of friendship.” – Booklist

“With highly likable characters, authentic dialogue, and tension-building action, this exciting and engaging story will grab the attention of many readers who will not put it down until the end. Highly recommended” — School Library Journal

About the Author: LINDSAY CURRIE lives in Chicago, Illinois with her husband and three kids. She loves coffee, Halloween, Disney World and things that go bump in the night! She is the author of Scritch Scratch, What Lives in the Woods, The Girl in White, and The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street. Visit her online at lindsaycurrie.com

Review: Do you like escape rooms? Or reading about people escaping escape rooms? Or puzzle books (think Lemencello or Vermeer or Liar’s Society)? Then this is the perfect book for you!

The suspense was palpable throughout the book. Each room the trio encountered was so tricky and because of a choice they make, it could truly be a life or death decision, which makes it hard to put the books down.

I am so impressed with Lindsay Currie’s creation of the puzzles and tricks throughout. They are all so unique and hard to figure out which makes the character’s journey the reader’s journey also.

Tools for Navigation: This book is going to be loved by middle graders who want to read The Inheritance Game or other books in that vein but aren’t ready yet. A perfect ladder before entering the YA realm of mysteries.

Oh! And Lindsay has made such a fun addition to her website all about The Deltas: https://www.lindsaycurrie.com/who-deltas (I’m also sure there will be an educators’ guide on there eventually).

Extension: This would be a great opportunity for students to make their own escape room!

Flagged Passages:

Read This If You Love: Mysteries, Escape rooms

Recommended For:

**Thank you to Sourcebooks for providing a copy for review!**

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR 4/15/24

April 15, 2024April 15, 2024 by Ricki

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?
For readers of all ages

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly blog hop we host which focuses on sharing what we’re reading. This Kid Lit version of IMWAYR focuses primarily on books marketed for kids and teens, but books for readers of all ages are shared. We love this community and how it offers opportunities to share and recommend books with each other.

The original IMWAYR, with an adult literature focus, was started by Sheila at Book Journeys and is now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date. The Kid Lit IMWAYR was co-created by Kellee & Jen at Teach Mentor Texts.

We encourage you to write your own post sharing what you’re reading, link up below, leave a comment, and support other IMWAYR bloggers by visiting and commenting on at least three of the other linked blogs.

Happy reading!

Tuesday: Jerry Craft’s Visit to Kellee’s School

Sunday: Author Guest Post: “Home is Where the Heart Is: Lessons for Writing About Place” by Margaret Finnegan, Author of Sunny Parker is Here to Stay

**Click on any picture/link to view the post**

Kellee

It’s my week off! To learn more about any of these books, click on any title/image to go to the book’s Goodreads page or check out my read bookshelf on Goodreads.

Ricki

I’ve just returned from Philadelphia from the American Educational Research Association’s conference! I will update my books in two weeks!

Ricki

I’ll see you in two weeks!

Tuesday: The Mystery of Locked Rooms by Lindsay Currie

Sunday: Author Guest Post: Author Guest Post: “Location, Location, Location” by Sandy Grubb, Author of Just Like Click

Link up below and go check out what everyone else is reading. Please support other bloggers by viewing and commenting on at least 3 other blogs. If you tweet about your Monday post, tag the tweet with #IMWAYR!

and

Author Guest Post: “Home is Where the Heart is: Lessons for Writing About Place” by Margaret Finnegan, Author of Sunny Parker is Here to Stay

April 14, 2024 by Kellee

“Home is Where the Heart is: Lessons for Writing About Placce”

If you’re going to tell a story, you’re going to need characters, and to understand those characters, you’ll need to understand the world where they exist. That world is often called the setting. But I don’t like that word. It seems passive—like the backdrop of a play. I like the word place, as in the place where you live. The place where you live is anything but passive. Houses settle. Schools hum. Mountains fall and rise, and then do it all over again. The fact is, the world is its own character. And in our favorite stories, the place—the setting, if you must—is a character. It grounds reality, propels action, and enlivens conflict and drama. Sometimes, it’s an impediment to the protagonist. Sometimes, it’s a savior.

For example, my new book Sunny Parker is Here to Stay takes place in an unnamed but affluent community. There is a country club up in the hills, and most people live in large houses. In fact, a lot of the smaller homes have recently been replaced by McMansions.

Can you picture it? Are you getting a sense of its character? Are you getting a sense of how place affects lives?

Okay. Smack in the middle of town there’s a wide boulevard, three lanes in each direction. Just off the boulevard stands The Del Mar Garden Apartments. It’s an affordable housing complex, a pretty decent one, with balconies and a grass-filled courtyard, but it’s a little neglected too. Sunny Parker, our protagonist, lives here.

This new detail complicates things, doesn’t it? Suddenly, this world seems a little less predictable and a little more fractured. But maybe it also seems more interesting, because like any good character it is multi-faceted, and that makes it fun. After all, you never really know how a multi-faceted character is going to act or what it’s going to do.

Helping writers and readers understand that world building is character building can not only help them grow as writers, but, with the right scaffolding, it can prompt them to think about their own world as more than a place for them to exist, but as an active presence in their own lives, one that they help shape, and one that shapes them in return.

With that in mind, here are two lessons about place—one for writers and one for readers.

Writing About Place

Start with a blank piece of paper. Draw the world you know, in this case, the room/place where you sleep (although other spaces could be fun to play around with too). Be sure to label the furniture, windows, etc.
Add sensory details (as words or pictures) so that you can better visualize what things look, sound, feel, smell, and maybe even taste like.
Look at your picture. What contradictions might exist here? Maybe your side of your room is perfectly clean, for example, but your sister’s side looks (and smells) gross. Or maybe the contradiction is outside. Maybe inside the room/place it’s warm and dry, but outside it’s cold and wet.
Now write about what you’ve drawn, especially the contradiction. Be sure to use those sensory details and other words that give a sense of life and action.
Share your writing with a peer. Have them answer this question: What do you think this writing tells you about the person/people who live here?
Reflect in writing for one minute more by answering this question: Did your peer say what you thought they might? If so, what? If not, did their response surprise you? Why?

Reading about place

Start with a book. Identify passages that describe an important place in the book.
Draw it out on a piece of paper. No need to be fancy, but do try to get those sensory words in there.
Reflect in writing on your drawing. What is your picture trying to tell you about the personality of the place. For example, is it warm, cozy, scary? What clues does the personality of the place tell you about the people or animals in the story?

Published April 23rd, 2024 by Atheneum Books for Young Readers

About the Book: A determined girl spends the summer before middle school learning to stand up for her low-income community in this funny, fast-paced read just right for fans of Kelly Yang’s Front Desk.

Sunny Parker loves the Del Mar Garden Apartments, the affordable housing complex where she lives. And she especially loves her neighbors. From her best friend, Haley Michaels, to Mrs. Garcia and her two kids—developmentally disabled son AJ and bitter but big-hearted daughter Izzy—every resident has a story and a special place in Sunny’s heart.

Sunny never thought living at the Del Mar Garden Apartments made her different—until the city proposes turning an old, abandoned school into a new affordable housing complex and the backlash of her affluent neighborhood teaches Sunny the hard way that not everyone appreciates the community she calls home. Her dad, the Del Mar’s manager-slash-handyman, wants Sunny to lay low. But as hurtful rhetoric spreads and the city’s public hearing approaches, Sunny realizes that sometimes there’s too much at stake to stay silent.

With her friends behind her, Sunny Parker is determined to change the narrative—because she and her community are here to stay!

About the Author: Margaret Finnegan is the author of the Junior Library Guild Selections New Kids and Underdogs, We Could Be Heroes, and Susie B. Won’t Back Down. Her other work has appeared in FamilyFun, the Los Angeles Times, Salon, and other publications. She lives in South Pasadena, California, where she enjoys spending time with her family, walking her dog, and baking really good chocolate cakes. Visit her online at MargaretFinnegan.com or on Instagram at FinneganBegin.

Thank you, Margaret, for sharing these setting reading and writing tips!

Student Voices: Jerry Craft’s Visit to Kellee’s Middle School

April 9, 2024 by Kellee

I am so lucky because my principal began an initiative at my school where we get to have an author visit our school yearly (2023: Christina Diaz Gonzalez, 2022: Nathan Hale, 2020: Neal Shusterman, 2019: Jennifer A. Nielsen). The author sees all students in the school, so it is a great community literacy event for my school, and I love being able to bring this experience to all of my students each year!

This year, we hosted NEWBERY-WINNING AUTHOR Jerry Craft!
The visit was phenomenal and included 5 presentations for approximately 220 kids and book signings. It was all such an amazing experience!

Here are some reflections from my students after the visit. I asked them to think about what they learned, what they enjoyed, how they were impacted, or anything else they wanted to share:

Having an author visit yearly means a lot because it shows that our school cares for us.
I thought that the day was overall amazing. My biggest takeaway from the experience was that something you hate when you’re young could end up being your passion. This visit impacted me by making me feel like I could do anything. To me, these author visits make me feel like I can do anything with my life and it inspires me to read a lot more. This visit was important to me because I felt that Jerry Craft was really the person who could inspire people to read.
I am very glad that Jerry Craft was able to come to our school because he had a great presentation and he was good at educating all of us in a very fun and entertaining way. I think it was cool how Jerry Craft was able to draw a perfect circle for all of his 5 presentations! That was pretty cool, I can’t even draw a perfect one, lol. This visit impacted me because whenever the authors come to visit our school and tell us about their books, it always inspires me to be more creative and to be able to reach their level of creativity. Having authors come to visits means to me that I can look forward to skipping a class period to listen to an expert about all of their writing strategies, ideas, etc. This visit was important because it is good for us kids to be able to hear about all of the different authors and what they do to make each of their books different than the others.
My biggest take away, was that Jerry Craft said, that he didn’t read a lot as a kid, which was weird to me because I was always told that normally, authors read a lot to get inspiration, but I think is not always like that.

It showed me that you should always go into something saying you can do it because if you say you can’t you won’t be able to. You have to put your mind to it so you can do it.
Having an author visit yearly help is important and means a lot to me because I love seeing how different authors see different things in different ways and the challenges they face to become who they are in the present. It also helps me learn more about myself because taking some bits of what they say can reflect choices in my present and future and I appreciate the authors for coming and Mrs. Moye for getting these authors for us to enjoy and being caring for us.
The biggest takeaway I took from that visit is that no matter how much you prepare for something, you never know what you are going to end up as.
The visit impacted me by showing authors are people too they don’t just write books because they have to but because they are inspired.
I feel like hearing from an author yearly is just amazing and how they got from the beginning of their life to how they are right now.
I thought this visit was important because it helped me understand different people POVs and how their life as an author works.
I loved the way he talked about his goals and how his dreams never stop.
Having a yearly author visit to me means that I get to learn the creative processes of famous authors.

Learning about the work that goes into making books makes me feel more connected to the books that I read.
It feels special that we learn something from someone who created a successful book.
It made me realize I could do so much in life if i don’t give up and keeping working toward it.
I think my biggest takeaway was how, in the end, he kind of “taught” us how to draw different things and how even if you think you won’t be able to draw something good, you can if you believe you’ll be able to.
This visit was important because it showed me that even when people don’t think you’ll be able to do anything with your dream if you believe you can, you can show other people that they’re wrong.
As this will be my last year, I saw that over the years, all authors have said different things that impacted me throughout my life in middle school.
I really enjoyed the day. Mr. Craft was super nice and I found his presentation very interesting. My biggest takeaway was that even if you fail a lot, never give up and keep trying because you will succeed eventually. One thing that impacted me was how Mr. Craft said a lot about how you can do anything even if you think you can’t. Take the little steps that lead up to that goal. I like having a yearly author visitor because it helps me learn more about the people who wrote some of the books that I really liked and how they made them. I like seeing what problems they faced because I could somehow relate to them as well. This visit was important because meeting an author who tells you about their experiences writing their books is really impactful. Their stories and how they accomplished their goals was interesting and relatable to some.
My biggest takeaway was that not everything will be perfect, but sometimes it’s for the best.

Another teacher also shared her students’ responses to “What I liked the best was…”

How he explained that he went from being bad at writing books to being basically famous.
When he explained about his life and how was it. That you can do whatever you want if you propose it.
My favorite moment from the author’s visit was seeing his drawing skills live and seeing the Raina Telgemeier books in his presentation. I was surprised to learn that he was inspired by Raina Telgemeier who is also one of my favorite authors.
I thought it was interesting how he got the inspiration of real places of his life
When he talked about the awards he won as a book writer and how he did it.
I wanna read New Kid now because its very inspirational to others.
When Mr.Craft showed us an easier way you can draw and not just throw away messed up drawings into better drawing by seeing what you can make out of the messed up drawing.
When he started to talk about how he didn’t like to read but now he writes books and has to read for inspiration.
When jerry craft started drawing iconic media characters with mundane items. I want to learn more about shape theory.

BUT THERE WAS MORE!

The next day, Jerry Craft surprised my school by COMING BACK TO PLAY IN OUR STUDENT VS. STAFF BASKETBALL GAME!!!

This is more than I could have ever asked for!!!

As you can see from the comments and love, my students and I would highly recommend Jerry for a school visit!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR 4/8/24

April 8, 2024 by Kellee

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?
For readers of all ages

Happy reading!

Tuesday: The Princess Protection Program by Alex London

Saturday: Sofia’s Kids’ Corner: Today, Tonight, Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon

**Click on any picture/link to view the post**

Kellee

Middle Grade

The Princess Protection Program by Alex London: I loved reviewing this book last week! I am such a fan of twists on fairy tales, especially when they are unique and like none I’ve read before, and The Princess Protection Program fits this! The idea of princesses being able to leave to our world and automatically go to a school with a fairy godmother protecting them from monsters that are trying to eat them to return to their tales is the perfect new twist for fairy tales. I loved getting to know all of the princesses (and Charlie!) and learning about everything with them. The characters are what make the beginning of the book, but then the twist of the story happens and it breaks the plot open and also adds in so much chaos at the end of the book that the end just speeds by as the conclusion nears.

Young Adult

The Lilies by Quinn Diacon-Furtagdo: This book was time-travel, secret society, boarding school, multi-point of view madness of a book that is hard to put down! It has so many layers and was even more messed up than I assumed it was going to be based on the summary, which made it even more of a whirlwind of a read.
Rez Ball by Byron Graves: This book has received so much praise. I blew it off as just another basketball book. I was wrong. This book is so much more than basketball. I was so invested in Tre’s story, so much so that I cried TWICE (one happiness, one sadness) in this basketball book. And I loved listening to the book even more as I could hear the Ojibwe language authentically, instead of as assumptions in my brain.
The Brothers Hawthorne by Jennifer Lynn Barnes: I questioning Barnes writing more books about the Hawthornes and hesitated reading this book, but I am glad I finally gave in and read it because it was just as good as the original trilogy. So many mind games and puzzles–a fun read overall. I look forward to its sequel.

Picture Book

Log Life by Amy Hevron: What an adorable book that packs a punch of information! Hevron’s illustrations remind me of Mouse Paint but more–full of cuteness, expression, and fun characters. Additionally, she teaches the reader so much about nurse logs with these cute characters! I loved learning about how a tree becomes a nursing log and how it becomes part of the ecosystem.

To learn more about any of these books, click on any title/image to go to the book’s Goodreads page or check out my read bookshelf on Goodreads.

Ricki

It is my week off–see you next week!

Kellee

Tuesday: Jerry Craft’s Visit to Kellee’s School

Sunday: Author Guest Post: “Home is Where the Heart Is: Lessons for Writing About Place” by Margaret Finnegan, Author of Sunny Parker is Here to Stay

and

Sofia’s Kids’ Corner: Today, Tonight, Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon

April 6, 2024 by Ricki

Sofia is a 12-year-old brilliant reader who aspires to be a book reviewer. Since she was 8 years old, on select Saturdays, Sofia shares her favorite books with other kids! She is one of the most well-read middle schoolers that we know, so she is highly qualified for this role!

Dear readers,

Hi and welcome back to Sofia’s Reading Corner where I recommend amazing YA books! This time I will be reviewing Today, Tonight, Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon! This book was honestly amazing and I was hooked!! I read it in two days which usually never happens, especially with a 400 page book! It was more of a comfy enemies to friends to lovers book which, if you don’t know what that means, it’s exactly what it sounds like: They were first enemies, then worked together and became friends and finally fell in love with each other. I rated this book 4.5 stars on Goodreads and the average rating is 4.09 which is pretty good!

Rowan Roth is finishing high school when it becomes time to play the infamous senior scavenger hunt. She is a straight A’s student and would be the best, except there is a boy named Neil who hates her. They are always competing with each other to be the greatest and as the year is coming to an end, they can’t wait to see who is the best, which in her eyes is becoming valedictorian. Rowan has a list of things she wants to accomplish by the end of high school and becoming valedictorian might be her last chance at crossing at least one off her list. When Neil is named valedictorian, her only chance at crossing something off her success list is winning Howl, the senior game I was talking about earlier.

The game is about trying to complete a checklist and taking pictures at each spot to show that you have completed the task. You can team up but you also can’t really trust anybody because another main part of the game is getting people out. To understand how to get people out, you need to know that everybody is wearing some sort of bracelet and at the beginning of the game, everybody gets a name on a piece of paper of the person they have to “kill”. Then once they get them out, they get the name that person had to “kill” and so on. You must imagine how hard it is to team up with somebody if they could have your name! Anyway, Neil and Rowan team up thinking that they could work together until the end and then destroy each other but as they get to know each other more, Rowan realizes that Neil isn’t that bad, and he is maybe even the boy of her dreams.

On Amazon, this book is recommended for ages 12 and up and I mostly agree. There is a mention of them taking marijuana towards the end of the book which means it is definitely for more mature 12 year olds. There is also a closed door sex scene which basically means there was acknowledgment of sex but it wasn’t really described.

I loved this book so much! Like I said, it was a page turner and I LOVE that about books! I also loved Solomon’s way of writing, it made me feel fully immersed! I also liked the complex plot and how the romantic part of it wasn’t overdone! I really think this should be something you read, no matter how old you are and it was just too good to put into words! Happy reading!

**Thanks so much, Sofia! We are really excited to read this book!

The Princess Protection Program by Alex London

April 2, 2024 by Kellee

The Princess Protection Program
Author: Alex London
Published February 13th, 2024 by Greenwillow Books

Summary: Every fairy tale ends with its characters living happily ever after, right? A valiant prince quests long and hard to reach the castle where the sleeping princess lies. And with a kiss, he will awaken her.

But what if the princess does NOT think a kiss from a stranger is a very pleasant way to wake up? Yuck!

When Rosamund flees her prince, a Door of Opportunity opens, and she steps through to the Home Educational Academy (the HEA for short). Rosamund has found the Princess Protection Program, where fugitive fairy tale princesses escape unwanted affections, untimely ends, and all the other perils of their stories.

But as Rosamund adjusts to life in the real world and makes her first real friends (Rana, who left her story after an incident with a frog; Sirena, a former mermaid; Cindy and Charlie, who didn’t want to get married after just one dance; and others), she has more and more questions. Does anyone ever graduate from the HEA? Why doesn’t anyone seem to remember former students? Is the kindly fairy headmistress all she appears to be? Is anyone? And the most important question of all: Can Rosamund change her story?

Acclaimed and bestselling author Alex London weaves together several beloved fairy tales in this fast-paced, funny, and slyly subversive adventure about finding your place in the world and taking control of your own story. The daring escapes, sinister monsters, familiar friends, and surprise twists will keep even reluctant readers glued to the pages. The Princess Protection Program is for fans of the Never Afters and the Descendants series, The School for Good and Evil, and the Fairly True.

About the Author: Alex London is the acclaimed author of more than thirty books for children and teens. His middle grade novels include The Princess Protection Program, Search & Rescue, Dog Tags, and two titles in the 39 Clues series. For young adults, he’s the author of the cyberpunk duology Proxy and the epic fantasy series Black Wings Beating, which were both named to numerous best-of-the-year lists. He has been a journalist and human rights researcher reporting from conflict zones and refugee camps, a young adult librarian with the New York Public Library, and a snorkel salesman. He lives with his husband, daughter, and hound dog in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Visit him at calexanderlondon.com.

Instagram:
Blue Slip Media: @blue_slip_media
Greenwillow/Harper: @harperkids
Alex London: alexander_london

Facebook:
Blue Slip Media: @blue-slip-media
Greenwillow/Harper: HarperKidsBooks

Twitter/X:
Blue Slip Media: @blueslipper & @barbfisch
Greenwillow/Harper: HarperKids
Alex London: @ca_london

Review: I am such a fan of twists on fairy tales, especially when they are unique and like none I’ve read before, and The Princess Protection Program fits this! The idea of princesses being able to leave to our world and automatically go to a school with a fairy godmother protecting them from monsters that are trying to eat them to return to their tales is the perfect new twist for fairy tales. I loved getting to know all of the princesses (and Charlie!) and learning about everything with them. The characters are what make the beginning of the book, but then the twist of the story happens and it breaks the plot open and also adds in so much chaos at the end of the book that the end just speeds by as the conclusion nears. Fans of the books I listed below will definitely love this one!

Tools for Navigation: This book is filled with allusions and allegory; there is so much to unpack! Rosamund’s journey also fits the Hero’s Journey!

Discussion Questions:

Why would the princesses want to leave their story?
Which princess do you think had the worst fate in their story?
What other princesses/characters can you think of that might have wanted to leave their story if they had a chance?
Why do the professors not like all of Rosamund’s questions?
Were any of the princesses different than what you expected reading their fairy tales?
Did you see the twist coming?

Flagged Passages: Chapter One: Beauty Awakened

Once upon a time, there was a young princess, as kind and curious as she was clever, who a witch cursed into a deep and endless sleep. Her castle sat silent in a clearing at the center of a deep, dark wood for a hundred winters and a hundred springs. Around it the forest teemed with poisonous flowers and enchanted thorns. The castle would have sat like that for a hundred more winters and a hundred more springs, had not the prince, as valiant as he was brave, found it at last.

He hacked his way past the poisonous flowers and the enchanted thorns. He dodged hungry shadows and fearsome beasts, fought cursed fungus, and forded a river of nightmares. He even outwitted a witch’s riddle, which, much to his surprise, wasn’t all that tricky.

“If you don’t keep me, I break. What am I?”

“Um, a promise?” he’d answered.

“Are you certain?” the witch cackled at him. “If you answer wrong, you shall never escape these woods!”

He puffed out his chest.

“I am certain, witch!” he bellowed. The witch shrieked, then vanished in a puff of green smoke. Beyond her, the thorned vines parted to show his way to the castle in the clearing.

He had expected all this to be harder. It was his destiny, after all, and destiny should not be so easy.

Inside, the castle was still. Golden light streaked through stained glass windows. He made his way to the chapel, where he would find his princess. He had been promised this princess in visions and dreams, and even by his very own fairy godmother. The princess would be his one true love from the moment he first laid eyes on her until his last, dying day.

He really hoped she was pretty.

And there she was, the cursed Princess Rosamund, asleep in a bed that stood upon a dais surrounded by wildflowers and an abundance of soothing lavender. She was drenched in golden light, as lovely as the day she’d fallen into that deep sleep one hundred years ago.

“A true beauty,” he whispered to himself, relieved. “Sleeping perfection.”

He knelt before the dais and said a quiet thanks, for he was a polite prince, and grateful that all his dreams were coming true.

Then he rose, stepped up beside the bed, and stood over the sleeping princess, whose story he had been told since childhood: a witch had cursed her father’s kingdom to perish and her to sleep until she was awoken by a kiss of the truehearted.

Well, this prince knew his heart was true.

“My entire life has led me here,” he told the sleeping princess. “I swear to you, I shall love you better than the moon loves the sunset, better than boats love the rising tide, better than a flower loves the . . . err . . . um . . . something? Not dew. Bees, maybe? Err . . .”

He’d forgotten his oath, even though he’d practiced it for the entire quest. Then again, it was not his words that mattered, but the truth in his heart and the passion in his kiss. The oaths were just for posterity, a word

he didn’t really understand anyway. Posterity didn’t have chapped lips and body odor from all that questing. The prince did.

With no further ado, he pressed his lips to the sleeping princess’s and held them there with his eyes closed for a count of three, which was how long his squire had told him a real kiss was meant to last. The prince had never kissed anyone before, not even the squire who’d suggested they practice. He wished he had practiced now. He didn’t know if he was doing kissing right at all.

He opened first one eye and then the other.

To his delight, the princess had opened her eyes, both of them, and was staring up at him with a look of deep passion.

Or was that surprise?

“Fear not, princess,” he told her softly. “It is I, Prince Percy the Valiant, and it is my destiny to wake you and marry you and love you for the rest of our blessed lives.”

Her eyes narrowed. Her forehead furrowed.

“Am I not all you dreamed of these hundred years?” he asked her, his confidence faltering. He had not considered that she might not think him pretty.

“Um,” she said, which was not the most inspiring first word of their life together, but she had been asleep for a long time.

He leaned back, giving her space as the color returned to her cheeks, the focus to her eyes. He could give her a moment to come to her senses. He himself was a beast first thing in the morning, as she would surely learn in the course of their marriage.

To his surprise, she sat bolt upright. Like an unbroken mare kicking out at a new rider, she shoved him off her bed and sent him tumbling from the dais. He nearly fell over onto his princely posterior, which was not at all the first impression he preferred to make.

“Princess!” he called as she leapt in bare feet down to the chapel floor. The wildflowers around her withered as the magic faded.

She looked him up and down, brow still furrowed.

Then she ran.

Read This If You Love: Fairy Tale Reform School by Jen Calonita, Disney Twisted Tales, Land of Stories series by Chris Colfer, Books by Jessica Day George, Whatever After series by Sarah Mlynowski

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**Thank you to Blue Slip Media for providing a copy for review!**