The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell
Ratings50
Average rating4.1
The Wishing Spell transports a twin brother and sister into the land of fairy tales. The Tenth Kingdom did a very similar storyline 16 years ago. If you want to visit fairy-tale land, just watch that mini series.
It's clear the author of the Wishing Spell, Chris Colfer loves fairy tales. His excitement is obvious, but his writing is incredibly sloppy. The prologue begins with Snow White demanding to know if her evil step mother ever loved her. Why should she answer her? She's evil. Let her stay evil....
Next the story jumps to children in a classroom talking about and writing papers about fairy tales. First of all, the children are 12. I don't think 12 year olds are writing 7 page papers with that sort of advanced language in it. The girl is a goody two shoes, the boy is lazy and blunt. Then they go to the land of fairy tales. Suddenly the girl is an adventure seeker and the boy is a bumbling idiot. Then, nearly every chapter (felt like every page almost) there was another fairy tale character mentioned. It was too much.
In short.... If you love fairy tales, and the new trend of all the fairy tales being in one place, you might enjoy this book. If you like better written fairy tales, or retellings, there are many better options out there. This story just felt like it dragged, and there was nothing really innovative about it.
Ever find yourself wishing for a Happily Ever After? What if, what we thought of fantastic stories are more than that!?
Conner and Alex are off on a fantastic journey, and they are trying to find their way back home. Now if they could only work through the land of stories without being killed or kidnapped.... but that seems to be the least of their worries. With all the twists and turns within the book, you will find this a hard one to put down until you finish the last page!
Some of the writing in the book seems to NOT be for kids, but with a few word changes for the purpose of reading it aloud to my children, it is very much an enjoyable read!
This was the book I've been reading with my nephew and niece for some time now. We finished it! It was wonderful. It captivated the kids (ages 12 and 9), and was really perfect for that age range. I also just loved it myself. A really impressive first novel!
Picked this up based on the reading challenges I am doing for August/September. This is one of my niece's favorite book series and since it fit the prompts I thought I'd pick it up and see why she loves it so much. It was definitely a quick fun read. I loved reading about all the fairy tale characters and seeing them all interact with each other. This is definitely a series that I could have seen myself reading back when I was in middle school. I could totally see this being made into a series on Netflix. Lots of fun and interesting characters in this book. Highly recommend for a series to pick up and read together with your children!
Listened to most of this on audio book and it was very well narrated.
Read this for August/September Bookopoly prompt of reading a Middle Grade book and August/September book bingo challenge of reading an audiobook.
I have a secret passion which makes me happy and that is the wonder of fairy tales, I love the innocence and joy they bring and absolutely adore Once Upon A Time the TV show and one of my favourite mini-series of all time was The 10th Kingdom. Therefore the idea of a book set in the land of fairy tales intrigued and excited me.
Written by Glee actor Chris Colfer I was intrigued to find out how good the book was. I knew it had to have some merits as there have been 2 others in the same series released since and the general reviews seemed good. Also it's important to remember that it is a children's book, therefore I would not have expected it to be a challenging read.
It's the story of twins Alex and Conner who find themselves travelling to a magical ‘Land of Stories' via a book of fairy tales their grandma gives them for their 12th birthday. Suddenly they find themselves in a land full of famous characters they've only read about in the book -Cinderella, Snow White, Red Riding Hood and an Evil Queen. In order to get home they must track down 8 magical and very iconic items to make a wishing spell that will allow them to wish their way home and they get into lots of scrapes and adventures along the way.
The actual story of the book is well put together and engaging and I did like the way it was constructed. However, as an adult reading the book I did find myself becoming a little frustrated with Colfer's lack of descriptive narrative. At times the story felt very clinical. It is constantly wanting to move on from events without taking time to savour them. It read a bit at times like a child's story at school. “This happened and it was bad but never mind this happened next and it was good and then something awful happened but no time to stop so let's move on”
I wanted to revel in the characters and get to know them instead we move through all the fairy tales at breakneck speed. I would have liked more descriptive text and more background to their thoughts and emotions but perhaps that is because I'm an adult. Maybe I crave more than the readers for whom this was intended.
It was an okay read for me but I suspect my 8 year old daughter will absolutely love it and that's great because she is the target audience and now I've read it I can share the story with her.
I would read the second in the series, perhaps next time knowing what to anticipate and also because as a child at heart there is great joy in sharing time with the world of magic and fairy tales.
A very cute reimagining/continuation of the fairy tales we all know and love. However I did not know the original ending of The Little Mermaid but considering who wrote it, I'm not surprised.
What a cute story. my daughter loved reading along with me too! definitely think i'm going to continue this series. Loved all the various fairytale characters.
