Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley

4 1/2 stars!

I started reading this book to my 8 year old daughter, a chapter at a time before bed. Soon she was so engrossed that she started reading ahead whenever she got the chance. Two days later she was done and I was dying to know what happened to the plucky heroines!

This is a great twist on the orphaned children genre. Not only does it feature a pair of self-sufficient girls brimming with chutzpah, but there is magic aplenty. (I think that's a required ingredient for kid's lit these days.) Buckley has the tone down perfectly - the book is just scary and complex enough for an audience of children, and never patronizing. He manages to set the stage for a whole lot of sequels without leaving his audience hanging.

This, however, may be the greatest thing about the Grimm sisters series - they have a theme song! This may be the direct result of the movie making machine that will soon engulf this lovely group of books. I am generally not a fan of making terrific kids books into movies, because I have such a strong bias about reading versus watching. This book, however, would make a really great movie in the hands of a good director.

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