Magic doesn’t always
improve things!
Fiction – Juvenile/YA – Medieval Fantasy
261 pages
10 - 14 5 – 8
2010
Wide-Awake Princess #1
When a
curse is set in motion Annie, the younger sister of Sleeping Beauty, is the
only one immune to the enchanted sleep placed on the castle. Annie, with a little help from her friends,
has to find her sister’s one true love to save the kingdom.
I found this story idea so
fascinating and to me my delight I found its execution nicely handled. The interweaving of fairy tales was well
planned and the comfortable writing style a great asset to keeping it somewhat
romantic, but not offputtingly so. Ms.
Baker sets the stage perfectly for the body of the story with a great prologue,
and allows this fun story to mature at a comfortable rate. I appreciated some Annie’s insights on how
much magic messes up things and that it isn’t a crutch for her.
Ms. Baker does a great job
both in world creation and character construction. Annie is a delightfully real girl, with no
artifice added either through the use of magic like others of her noble class
in the book or by the author trying to create a character full of perfection. The different places and kingdoms have enough
of their own culture to contrast with what Annie is used to create the feeling
that we are all experience new things together.
My only real complaint is that the nobility titles were not used
correctly, which is rather minor and probably would only bother me, but
unlikely to cause the intended audience any problems.
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