Enchanted

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Enchanted, by Alethea Kontis

I haven't been reading much YA lately but I'm glad I picked this one up.  It's like a game of "how many fairy tales can we cram into this story?"  and it's a good read.

Sunday Woodcutter has a large and talented family.  They eke out an existence at the edge of the Wood, relying on their talents and lots of hard work to survive.  Sunday is a dreamer, and she would write stories, except that when she writes something down, it comes true--badly.  So she only writes down the past.  And then one day she meets a talking frog and falls in love with him.

Exciting, not too mushy, and a reasonable book to give to your younger teen while you try to stave off the Twilight phase.  Mind you it's not an amazingly original work that puts a new twist in the re-written fairy-tale genre, and of course it has a girl in a pretty ballgown on the cover (there are at least ballgowns in the story!)...but it's a perfectly good story that I enjoyed.




I would just like to note, though, that spindles aren't sharp.  Sunday learns to spin wool into gold on a "wickedly tipped spindle" and discusses the dangers with her brother.  But spindles aren't sharp.  In fact they must be perfectly smooth everywhere and rounded at the tip, so as not to catch the yarn.  That's why Sleeping Beauty's curse is so surprising; you can't prick your finger on a spindle.  It's impossible, like so many tasks in fairy tales.

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