The Search for Happily-Ever-After - Hardcover

Baehr, Patricia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0816736588 ISBN 13: 9780816736584

Publisher: Bridgewater Books, 1995

Synopsis

Tired of not measuring up to her sisters, Ketti finds herself transported through a wormhole to a land of fairy tale characters where she helps Cinderella's coachman-rat achieve his "happily-ever-after"

About this title

From School Library Journal:

Grade 3-5?The book's title brings to mind a fairy tale, and in this case several fairy tales are stirred up into quite a pleasant concoction for well-read (or read to) youngsters. Ketti is the middle child and feels she isn't special at all?until she meets a rat who learned to talk when he was Cinderella's coachman. He whisks her through a wormhole into fairy-tale land to find a prince to kiss Sleeping Beauty. Pint-size literary allusions abound as Ketti is embroiled in a heroic adventure to earn her (and the rat's) happily-ever-after. Ketti learns, of course, that she is special and that there's no place like home. She is a refreshing, strong female character who faces danger without tears and solves problems with dispatch. Though children who are not familiar with the fairy tales might enjoy this story, much would be missed. A fine fantasy to tweak young readers' imaginations without quite as much irreverence as Jon Scieszka's The Stinky Cheese Man (Viking, 1992) or Eugene Trivizas's The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig (McElderry, 1993). A delight.?Jody McCoy, Casady School, Oklahoma City
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

Gr. 3^-6. Another in the fiction trend of having contemporary children revisit some variation of a fairy tale, Baehr's story spirits Ketti Watson, a discontented 11-year-old, back to the time of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty in an attempt to find her own and Cinderella's coachman rat's "happily-ever-after." Through convoluted visits to Hansel and Gretel, the dancing princesses, the golden goose--and, of course, Cinderella and Briar Rose--Ketti gradually learns that she alone controls her happily-ever-after, a task far easier once she realizes how truly loved she is by her family. While many of the fairy tale characters' philosophical musings about sibling rivalry are less than subtle and the ending is somewhat abrupt, children who have enjoyed fairy tales in the past might possibly enjoy seeing favorite characters in expanded roles. Frances Bradburn

About this edition

• Publisher: Bridgewater Books
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0816736588
• ISBN 13: 9780816736584
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 142
• Illustrator: Chavez Randel J.