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Shannon Hale's Ever After High - The Storybook of Legends is a fantasy for 9 year olds about the Evil Queen's daughter, who would very much rather not be evil.
At Ever After High the pupils are the children of fairy tale characters. On Legacy Day you sign the Storybook of Legends and you're magically tied to your parent's story. You live it all over again.
Your reader gets to watch one of those ceremonies right at the start. A tiny boy rides up to the podium on the back of a mouse and signs as the next Tom Thumb. A girl in her mother's witch hat signs with a frown and wipes a tear off her cheek.
Raven Queen signs next year. Her mother's story is the one with the poisoned apple in it.
The problem is that Raven isn't wicked at all. She apologises to rats. She babysits the cook's twins. She once tried to warm up her dad's dinner with magic and set the whole table on fire instead.
Then she has to go and talk to her mother about Legacy Day. The Evil Queen is locked in a mirror prison, wearing a striped jumpsuit, still lovely, still telling Raven that being kind is a disappointment.
That's the strongest bit of the book and the most uncomfortable one. Her mum is funny and charming and not remotely safe. She asks Raven to put a hand on the glass, and Raven very nearly does.
Meanwhile Snow White's daughter Apple White is adored by absolutely everyone and desperate for her happy ending to start. Which needs Raven to poison her. The two of them even manage to joke about it, sort of.
Apple isn't just a smiley princess either. She hears her own servants discussing her face and wonders whether that's honestly all anyone sees in her.
The jokes come thick and fast. Nobody texts, they hext. A good party is a page ripper. Prince Charming's dad is mostly famous for falling in love with a girl in a glass coffin. If your reader loves spotting that sort of thing, they'll be very happy here.
One thing to know before you hand it over. The mother and daughter scenes are heavy going in places, because the Evil Queen mocks Raven's dad, picks at her and tries to use her. Nothing violent happens on the page, but a child who finds a cold parent upsetting might feel it. A child who already loves stories about deciding who you're going to be will race through it.
If the idea of a fairy tale that won't behave itself appeals, Beauty Queen is in the library too. Abby gets pulled through a magic mirror into Beauty and the Beast and finds the Beast can't stand Beauty, so the whole story has to be put right from the inside.
A library hand-picked by an English teacher, delivered through a calm, ad-free app. If your child already loves reading, we keep up.
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