Concerning & Potentially Concerning Content

The downside of many of these ‘reinventing of classic fairy tales’ (see below) is that the new invention often replaces the original solid characters focused on all good traits with more modern, certainly less-good replacements. This is the case here. Gone are the noble princesses and princes that embody a virtuous life. Replaced with more selfish, inwardly focused characters (with the same names) that may have a virtue or two here or there. This doesn’t mean your children shouldn’t read the books, but it is interesting to keep in mind, especially here where there is a direct replacement (there is a Briar Rose here, but she is FAR from the Sleeping Beauty we knew). While there are no deeply dark elements in this lighter book the main villain, is said to be a witch. She says she was treated as if she was bad so she might as well become bad. Her most concerning contributions come when she is describing her plan, and says it is ‘a massacre with pizazz and people understand this to mean that her hostages will be killed. There is one scene where they enter her fortress and say they see ‘generic witch stuff’, mentioning voodoo dolls, dead ravens, skeleton, etc. There is also a slightly creepy picture of her at one point. While there is less concerning content than many books focused on humor, there is still plenty of examples where the author chooses to cross the line. There is a place where one hero feels guilty for flirting with his friend’s fiancé, but then says, ‘but at the same time she was just, like, you know, wow.’, justifying his actions. There is a mention of ‘running a pair of Sleeping Beauties’ bloomers up the flag pole’ (not a sexual reference, just unnecessary). One hero mentions rescuing people, but does it for his own glory. There is a bit of the ‘men are incompetent’ theme, common in our society, running through the book. On mention of 12 being an ‘awkward stage’. One of the better characters lies to get out of something she doesn’t want to do. There are some random unfortunate words or phrases, such as idiot, old lady, annoying, jerk, whatever, stupid, jerk-face, pathetic loser, leader of a zombie marching band.