The Search for Happily-Ever-After by Patricia Baehr

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. A delight.?Jody McCoy, Casady School, Oklahoma CityĬopyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. 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).

Though children who are not familiar with the fairy tales might enjoy this story, much would be missed. She is a refreshing, strong female character who faces danger without tears and solves problems with dispatch. Ketti learns, of course, that she is special and that there's no place like home. Pint-size literary allusions abound as Ketti is embroiled in a heroic adventure to earn her (and the rat's) happily-ever-after.

He whisks her through a wormhole into fairy-tale land to find a prince to kiss Sleeping Beauty. 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. 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.

The Search for Happily-Ever-After by Patricia Baehr