The Sisters Grimm is a set of well-paced books on the retold fairy tales theme (something we see in Whatever After, for example). The characters are well written though the situations can be a little scary for second graders. There is some sterotyping of boys and men and perhaps a bit of girls and women too. The books started to lose their punch as they went along, with my second grader losing interest mid way through #3.

Book #1 starts really well. I even got into it more than my second grader. I was like, yeah, nice pacing, nice development of character, foreshadowing, I must study this master of narrative! Then, I believe in the third chapter, where Granny Relda is holding forth on the history of the world, my second grader said aloud what we were all thinking. “Daddy, I’m BORED!” she said.

But it’s true. Where did this infodump come from? More importantly how could a writer who started so well suddenly get stuck spinning their wheels like this?

Things recover but in all the books I got the feeling that they went on a bit too long. I’d say the series, despite some strong writing here and there, is not that punchy.