From School Library Journal
Grade 3-6-This installment in the series features Princess Sonora as Sleeping Beauty. The fairies in this fractured tale endow the princess with a few too many gifts at her naming ceremony; not only is she "the smartest human in the world," but she is also "ten times as smart as any human in the world." As a result, Sonora crawls only in perfectly straight lines and perfectly round circles, reminds the Royal Nursemaids to wash behind her ears, and diagnoses her own illnesses. She also refuses to sleep, preferring to spend her evenings reading, or thinking up questions and then answering them-she knows she'll get plenty of sleep during the 100 years promised by the spiteful fairy Belladonna. The more-than-a-little precocious princess decides that she will choose the most opportune moment to prick her finger, thereby putting the castle grounds to sleep. However, things don't go exactly as planned. Levine's witty takeoff is clever and humorous, but without the depth or thorough character development that so distinguished Ella Enchanted (HarperCollins, 1997). This amusing, light read will stir children's imaginations and encourage them to explore further the richness of fairy tales.
Robin L. Gibson, Muskingum County Library System, Zanesville, OH Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
Gail Carson Levine grew up in New York City and has been writing all her life. Her first book for children,
Ella Enchanted, was a 1998 Newbery Honor Book. Levine's other books include
Dave At Night, an ALA Notable Book and Best Book for Young Adults;
The Wish;
The Two Princesses of Bamarre; and her Princess Tales books:
The Princess Test,
The Fairy's Mistake,
Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep,
Cinderellis and the Glass Hill,
For Biddle's Sake and
The Fairy's Return. She is also the author of the picture book
Betsy Who Cried Wolf, illustrated by Scott Nash.
Gail, her husband, David, and their Airedale, Baxter, live in a two-hundred-year-old farmhouse in the Hudson River Valley.
In Her Own Words...
"I grew up in New York City. In elementary school I was a charter member of the Scribble Scrabble Club, and in high school my poems were published in an anthology of student poetry. I didn't want to be a writer. First I wanted to act and then I wanted to be a painter like my big sister. In college, I was a Philosophy major, and my prose style was very dry and dull! My interest in the theater led me to my first writing experience as an adult. My husband David wrote the music and lyrics and I wrote the book for a children's musical, Spacenapped that was produced by a neighborhood theater in Brooklyn.
"And my painting brought me to writing for children in earnest. I took a class in writing and illustrating children's books and found that I was much more interested in the writing than in the illustrating.
"Most of my job life has had to do with welfare, first helping people find work and then as an administrator. The earlier experience was more direct and satisfying, and I enjoy thinking that a bunch of people somewhere are doing better today than they might have done if not for me."
