I like the Korean princess representation, but I'm just not enough of a Disney fan to find this really appealing -- there are definitely some fun twisting of tropes, and Mihi is a great character. Just not my cup of tea. Will definitely appeal to a certain sector of princess fanatics. ( )

I have to say, I don't really care for Genevieve, she is kind of mean. Overall, the story is fun and entertaining, I think young readers will enjoy this story. You have to love the sounds that narrator Triya Leong makes for the birds, they were fantastic! Triya did a great job of creating different voices for each character, you always knew who was speaking. ( )

First sentence: Mihi Whan Park was sitting in the library for indoor recess. Again. Two months ago, she'd: 1) discovered a portal to a fairy tale world 2) met Sleeping Beauty, Snow White's evil queen, and Goldilocks's three bears 3) survived a horde of enchanted ladies-in-waiting.

Premise/plot: Mihi and her (new) friends Reese and Savannah return to the dangerous fairy tale realm (the portal is a refrigerator in the school library). Though these three barely escaped the first time round, these three are back again for a second adventure. Why? Well, Genevieve, Mihi's nemesis (frenemy), has ventured into the realm. Mihi thinks that Genevieve will need help to survive and return. She surely knows that it took all three of them [Mihi, Reese, Savannah] to escape the first time. So much trickery and deceit in that realm.

Expect a giant, a beanstalk, and Jack in this second book.



My thoughts: The Rainbow Realm is topsy-turvy and unpredictable. Mihi and friends do have trouble detecting who is being honest and who is lying. To be fair, sometimes it's because they are just in a tough predicament where they have to make a decision to move forward. Even a bad mistake is movement forward. There are a lot of villains in this one. Few are just openly villainous. Many are "I'm just misunderstood" or "I'm trying to rewrite my story." A few villains they trust turn out to be honest (a wolf and fox), but others are just lying (a witch?).

I am not the intended audience for these--obviously. I think they are certainly entertaining...especially for kids in that intended age range. (Perhaps not so much for adults just for the fun of it.) These books--the first two--focus a lot on the tricky relationships. It is so tough to make friends and keep friends. Both books look at what makes a friend a good friend in addition to how to BE a friend even when the other person isn't the kindest or nicest. ( )

Korean-American Mihi dreams of being a princess - being special and fitting in, like her friend Genevieve. But Genevieve is pulling away, and during indoor recess, Mihi finds new friends in the school library: shy, pretty Savannah, who is white, and clever Reese, who is Black. The three sneak into the librarian's office and discover that her fridge is a portal to another world: specifically, the world where all the fairy tales come from. Maybe all three of them are "the princess type" after all! But no: even in Sleeping Beauty's castle, they discover that not everyone gets a happy ending (or wants the one they get), and now all they want is to go home - but how?

The legendary three mice, Sleeping Beauty, and the three bears all have roles to play as Mihi, Savannah, and Reese use their strengths to keep each other safe on their journey and return home in one piece. And maybe, to help Sleeping Beauty change her story, too...

Sequel TK

See also: Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu (but Mihi is shorter, faster-paced, and more upbeat).

Quotes

"Some people have to work harder than everyone else, because the game is rigged against us. We can't just get what we want." (Maven to Mihi, 140)

She'd been running so fast, chasing this dream. She'd been so focused on the person she wanted to be that she hadn't even considered the person she was actually being. (167) ( )

For the most part, I enjoyed the narration of this book. Some of the voices were a little high and hard to listen to but this is always a possibility when trying to voice children.

The story was interesting. It was like The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe meets Disney which created a fun take on princess stories. I like that Mihi eventually realizes that her dream of becoming a princess in not worth the risks to herself and her friends. ( )