Once Upon a Family

Amanda Rawson Hill's Once Upon a Family is a warm, gently magical story for 9 year olds about a girl who is absolutely sure her soon-to-be stepdad is the villain of the piece.

What happens

Winnie and her mum have always been a team of two. Every summer they go somewhere new together. Then Mum gets engaged to a man she met online, and they move from Denver to a beige house on a cul-de-sac in Wyoming.

Winnie knows her fairy tales. Mum teaches them at college, after all. And in fairy tales, stepfathers and stepsiblings are never good news.

So she treats it like a story she can rewrite. She writes herself in as the clever Princess Winnie, rescuing Queen Shannon from an evil sorcerer called Jeff. She puts Jeff through a series of "stepdad tests" (he passes every single one, even the grape juice). And she's trying to be the shopper who buys the one-millionth item at the supermarket, because the prize is a holiday to Fiji for two. Just her and Mum.

Poor Jeff. He's kind, he makes brilliant doughnuts and he writes the funniest shopping list in the book. Winnie adds his green peppers in scrambled eggs to her list of evidence anyway!

Sam, her soon-to-be stepbrother, is six and, in her notebook, a dragon. He's obsessed with aeroplanes and only has two jokes, both about bodily functions. Their pretend flights in the back of the car are some of the sweetest bits.

Then there's the magic. A small black bird flashes gold over their heads, and odd little lights keep rising into the dark near the oak tree next door. Something very strange is going on with wishes.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Winnie lives with anxiety, which she's named Eustace (full name Eustace Clarence Scrubb), and you hear his nasty voice in her head. There are hints that one of Mum's past boyfriends was a genuinely frightening person, though the opening chapters don't say what happened. Her real dad left before she was born.

For a worried child, that could feel very close to home. For a lot of readers it'll be a comfort, because Winnie's calming tricks are right there on the page and she keeps using them.

What to read next

If they'd like more children who think a parent dating is a terrible idea, try The Penderwicks on Gardam Street. Four girls hear that their father is about to start going on dates, and they are NOT having it.