Concerning & Potentially Concerning Content

For this book we decided to simply describe the first chapter, which should be more than enough to let Christian parents decide on this story. We open on a kingdom full of children writhing in their beds waiting to find out if they will be the one kidnapped by a red-eyed beast who would rip them from their sheets and stifle their screams. We are then introduced to Sophie, a main character who is overly focused on her looks and just herself in general. Within the first few pages she has referred to two separate people as fat (one compared to a blimp). She then reads a story of a wicked hag who is rolled down a hill in a nail-spiked barrel, until all that remains is her bracelet… made of little boy’s bones. She then heads off to visit a girl she has “befriended” … who lives in a cemetery. Along the way she recalls the things she has done to outwardly appear “good”. She is interrupted and is very rude to a boy, calling him ugly and an idiot. She is then upset with herself… but only because having pretended to be kind to him would have been better for her. It turns out this “friend” she was going to see is just another part of the project to appear good. Why this pretending? She wants to be one of the children selected to be kidnapped by the witch. Later she sees a girl that she views as a rival for this “opportunity” and looks down on her and mocks her for wanting to have a normal life, which she describes as wanting a mundane marriage to a man who will grow fat, lazy and demanding. She calls this rival a nothing (compared to a proper princess like herself). As for her “friend”, when she asks this “princess” why everyone assumes she will be taken and become evil and eventually a witch she responds by reminding her that for a competition one time she submitted a story of Snow White being eaten and Cinderella drowning herself in a tub. We also find out her father left her, explaining that he was returning to his wife. And keep in mind that is only chapter one…