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The Fairy's Mistake

Gail Carson Levine

HarperCollins, 1999

ISBN 0-06-028061-1

n/a

Started Feb 28/Finished Feb 28 (emu)

Review, by emu: Gail Carson Levine is also the author of Ella Enchanted, which (movie nonwithstanding) is a very good parody-retelling of Cinderella. This story is the first of "The Princess Tales", and runs along similar lines... Except I can't remember for the life of me what the original story is called. x_x;;; There are two sisters, the rotten one who is favored by her mother and gets to do nothing while the other one is sweet and kind but does all the chores. The sweet one goes to the well to get some water and finds an old woman there, who politely asks for a drink, which the girl gives her. The old woman is a fairy in disguise, who blesses the girl for her kindness by causing fine gems to come out of her mouth when she speaks. After her sister and mother learn of this, the sister goes to the well and finds only an old knight there, who asks for a drink but instead gets rudeness from the sister. The knight, of course, is still the fairy, and she curses the sister so that insects and reptiles come from her mouth when she speaks. and things go downhill from there. What should have been a blessing instead causes the greedy prince of the realm to carry the sweet girl, Rosella, off and coerce her into producing gems to fill the kingdom's coffers while his people remain poor and suffer. The rotten girl, Myrtle, uses her curse to bully people into doing whatever she wants and is soon living the high life with her mother back in the village. The fairy has to then rectify her mistake, which she does quite cleverly. Reommended to anyone who likes fairy tales, or just to anyone who likes a good story.

The Fairy's Mistake	Gail Carson Levine
HarperCollins, 1999	ISBN 0-06-028061-1
n/a	Started Feb 28/Finished Feb 28 (emu)
Review, by emu: Gail Carson Levine is also the author of Ella Enchanted, which (movie nonwithstanding) is a very good parody-retelling of Cinderella. This story is the first of "The Princess Tales", and runs along similar lines... Except I can't remember for the life of me what the original story is called. x_x;;; There are two sisters, the rotten one who is favored by her mother and gets to do nothing while the other one is sweet and kind but does all the chores. The sweet one goes to the well to get some water and finds an old woman there, who politely asks for a drink, which the girl gives her. The old woman is a fairy in disguise, who blesses the girl for her kindness by causing fine gems to come out of her mouth when she speaks. After her sister and mother learn of this, the sister goes to the well and finds only an old knight there, who asks for a drink but instead gets rudeness from the sister. The knight, of course, is still the fairy, and she curses the sister so that insects and reptiles come from her mouth when she speaks. and things go downhill from there. What should have been a blessing instead causes the greedy prince of the realm to carry the sweet girl, Rosella, off and coerce her into producing gems to fill the kingdom's coffers while his people remain poor and suffer. The rotten girl, Myrtle, uses her curse to bully people into doing whatever she wants and is soon living the high life with her mother back in the village. The fairy has to then rectify her mistake, which she does quite cleverly. Reommended to anyone who likes fairy tales, or just to anyone who likes a good story.