Troll Bridge
Monsters

In my opinion, a creative retelling of a fairy tale can cover a multitude of sins. This one combined elements of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" and "The Billy Goats Gruff." A clever idea, but there was a multitude of weaknesses--an abrubt ending, flat characters, and weak poetry (it was meant to be......more

In this modern fairy tale, eleven state fair princesses are kidnapped by a large ugly troll, when a old convenant is broken between a Minnesotan town and its fabled monsters. It's up to one concert harpist and a boy band to rescue the girls, with the aid of a cunning fox. A unique story because it's......more

This book was quite fun, mindless, but fun. I'm always curious about how author's treat fairy tales in this day and age, so this one did have my interest piqued from the start. However, the story itself is very light and on a surface level. It doesn't really dig beyond an entertaining surface to pro......more

Bright flowing language, a few sparks of music (amid a lot of attempts) and a fair corkscrew at the end help redeem this. The characters are stereotypical cable-tv-for-tweens superstars-who-are-really-just-cool-kids-underneath who get on each other's nerves and prejudge each other in the usual ways.......more

Great concepts (the dairy princesses and their butter statue) and interesting ideas (the troll families) but it just didn't quite hang together for me. But, hey, it's Jane Yolen, Jane Yolen could make readable fantasy out of wallpaper peeling.......more