Adam Gidwitz – my new literary crush. He is a former teacher who now writes THE MOST BRILLIANT books for kids imaginable. I was absolutely gobsmacked by A Tale Dark and Grimm. It was like nothing I’ve read before. It was like he reached into my soul and wrote the book that I should’ve written if I actually had any talent or motivation whatsoever. I knew I’d be reading the sequels, but as always, I was a little skeptical. Could it measure up?
Yes, absolutely.
This isn’t even really a sequel. It could absolutely be read independently – although what would be the fun in that since you’d miss the brilliant first book???
In a Glass Grimmly follows a similar pattern to the first book – two children on an epic fairy tale type quest with each chapter describing a particular episode. A Tale Dark and Grimm was based pretty faithfully on Grimm’s fairy tales – mostly the lesser known ones like Faithful Johannes, but with some of the more familiar ones like Hansel and Gretel making appearances too.
This book delves into a wider range of literature – that of Hans Christian Anderson, Christina Rossetti, Joseph Jacobs, Mother Goose, etc. – and Gidwitz gets more creative with his own twists – so much so that often the original tale is all but unrecognizable. And, it’s just about as brilliant as the first. The first will always be my favorite, but this one was pretty great and now I can’t wait to read The Grimm Conclusion!
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