Whatever After 4 – Dream On

Dream On is the fourth Whatever After book by Sarah Mlynowski, a funny fairy tale adventure for 8 year olds where a sleepover ends up inside Sleeping Beauty.

What happens

Abby is having her very first sleepover since moving to Smithville. Her new best friend Robin is staying, there are s'mores to make (toasted marshmallow sandwiches, if you've not met them) and nobody is going to sleep.

There's just one worry. The big old mirror in the basement is magic. Knock three times and it hisses, turns purple and pulls you into a fairy tale. Abby and her little brother Jonah have been through before, and Robin isn't supposed to know.

They nod off anyway. Abby wakes just before midnight and the pull-out bed is empty.

Robin is sleepwalking. She bumps into the mirror once, twice, three times.

They land in a tower. At the top there's a woman at a spinning wheel, and before Abby can stop her Robin has pricked her elbow on the spindle and nodded off on a lumpy cot.

Then the real princess comes stomping up the stairs. What does she say when she sees the spindle? "Finally!"

Princess Brianna WANTS the curse. She's been hunting for a spindle since she turned fifteen, because sleeping for a hundred years means waking up in the future (she's betting on a little box that pulls you upstairs). She pricks her finger and nothing happens. Robin has used the spell up.

So Abby has a list. Wake her friend. Get a princess to sleep. Find a way home before Robin's mum comes to collect her at ten.

Abby tells it all herself, very fast, and it's like she's talking straight at you. She's bossy and funny and still cross that she isn't allowed a mobile phone. Jonah is seven and thought the sleepwalking Robin was a zombie, which he says was awesome.

Getting Brianna to drop off is the silliest part. Abby tries a lullaby and then counting turtles. Jonah bangs two copper pots together at exactly the wrong moment.

It helps if your reader knows Sleeping Beauty. If they don't, Abby whispers the whole tale to Jonah while they hide behind the bed. (Rapunzel is the tale after this one.)

What to read next

Another girl lands inside this very story in The Day I Fell Into a Fairytale. Lana's mum reads her Sleeping Beauty one night. Then Lana slides down a chute in a supermarket and comes out in a castle kitchen where the cook, the kitchen boy and even a mouse are fast asleep.