and perhaps even find a true love of her own. She must find Gwen’s true love to kiss her awake.īut who is her true love? The irritating Digby? The happy-go-lucky Prince Andreas, who is holding a contest to find his bride? The conniving Clarence, whose sinister motives couldn’t possibly spell true love? Joined by one of her father’s guards, Liam, who happened to be out of the castle when the sleeping spell struck, Annie travels through a fairy tale land populated with characters both familiar and new as she tries to fix her sister and her family.

When Gwennie pricks her finger and the whole castle falls asleep, only Annie is awake, and only Annie-blessed (or cursed?) with being impervious to magic-can venture out beyond the rose-covered hedge for help. In this stand-alone fairy tale, Princess Annie is the younger sister to Gwen, the princess destined to be Sleeping Beauty. In my attempt to get into a normal start-a-book-finish-a-book rhythm, I took a deliberate break and read this little middle grade book as a sort of palate cleanser.įirst sentence: “We can’t let it happen again,” Queen Karolina said, dabbing at the tears that glistened in her deep blue eyes. (Mar.I’m going through a weird phase right now, where I pick up a book I’ve been looking forward to, can’t get into it, find something else that I randomly start and can’t stop. The uplifting ending comes with a twist that restores order all around, and readers will likely enjoy watching Vagin's trio of archetypal villains grovel. Though this tale may be more abstract than the collaborators' past efforts, the duo anchors the lofty ideas in tangible ways: Amonth's daughter weaves a tapestry of times past, his son reads by candlelight and Amonth plays the flute. She learns a great deal from the kind Amonth and his family, who offer her food and lodging, and she, in turn, shows them that they have what is needed to better their lives: a knowledge of history, letters and music. Each day she sets out into the kingdom to work, unrecognized, among her countrymen. When Miranda is 12, her parents both die, and ''three angry nobles fighting over who should be king'' ban her from the throne. All except for the baby princess her fairy godmother hears her cries and grants her ''the gift of being wide awake all your waking hours.'' Vagin's portraits of fish, fowl and beast napping on table and lawn as well as cooks snoring in the kitchen inject a strong dose of humor into the dreary castle backdrop. But on the day appointed for the celebration, none of the guests show up, and all the castle soon falls asleep. At long last, a baby girl is born to the king and queen. As in The King's Equal and Celia and the Sweet, Sweet Water, Paterson and Vagin create a portrait of a strong female protagonist in their latest original folktale.

A tale of the wide awake princess