Book Review: Beanstalker And Other Hilarious Scarytales by Kiersten White

Published July 2017 by Scholastic|224 pages

Where I Got It: I borrowed the hardcover from the library

Series: None

Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy

Once upon a time, a girl skipped into the forest and became a zombie.

Wait, no, that’s not how this story is supposed to go. Let’s try again.

Once upon a time, a boy did a horrible job as a sheep-sitter and burned his tongue on stolen pie.

No, children in these stories are always good and virtuous. From the top.

Once upon a time, a king and queen tried to find a princess for their son to marry, and he wound up fleeing from a group of very hairy vampires.

Hmmm…

What about, once upon a time, a bunch of fairy tales got twisted around to be completely hilarious, a tiny bit icky, and delightfully spooky scarytales… in other words, exactly what fairy tales were meant to be. Grab some flaming torches, maybe don’t accept that bowl of pease porridge, and get ready for a wickedly fun ride with acclaimed author Kiersten White and fairy tales like you’ve never heard them before.

I really liked Beanstalker, but that’s no surprise, considering I love Kiersten White.  What is surprising is that I still haven’t started Slayer, but I’ll have to read it soon.

Beanstalker is a really cute middle grade.  The versions that White did of the different fairy tales are really funny, and really original.  It’s still the fairy tales we all know and love but with vampires and zombies and lots of other cool stuff.

It’s quirky and she did a great job at turning every single story on its head.  I wouldn’t expect anything else from her.  Even if I didn’t know she wrote Beanstalker, I’d know it was written by her, because it has the humor and writing style I’ve gotten to know with all of her books.

I loved how the stories worked really well on their own, but they also came together as a larger story really well.  I enjoyed the stories at the beginning a lot more than the ones later on, but overall, I really liked the stories.  I loved that all of the stories took place in the same kingdom, and how connected all of the characters were.  The Stepmother was pretty interesting.  In that sense, it makes me think of Once Upon A Time, and how connected those characters and worlds were.

The illustrations were really cool, and I liked the rhymes that separated each story.  It would be interesting to see her write these same stories for a slightly older audience, because there are a lot of interesting directions she could go.  Still, I can see a lot of kids really liking it.

4 stars.  Beanstalker is a cute middle grade book, full of really funny re-tellings.  It’s not my favorite Kiersten White book, but I still really liked it!