Fiction Friday- The Fairy Tale Detectives

For today's post, I am linking up with The Teaching Thief for her Fiction Friday link up.  What an awesome way to share great books and add some new titles to my already long list of books I want to read!  I want to share the first book in the Sisters Grimm series by Michael Buckley entitled The Fairy Tale Detectives.

This is the story of Sabrina and Daphne Grimm, two sisters whose parents have mysteriously disappeared.  After spending a year going from foster home to foster home, the girls are being shipped to Fairy Port Landing to live with a woman who claims to be their grandmother (they had been told by their father that she was dead).

Once the girls arrive in Fairy Port Landing, things get stranger by the minute. They are served a strange supper of spaghetti and purple meatballs, their new home is full of books with odds titles like "Three Hundred Ways to Cook a Dragon" and little bugs like fireflies attack the girls when they attempt to escape.  That's not all. Granny Relda, as Daphne calls her, takes the girls to investigate the mysterious destruction of a farmer's house.  While examining the rubble, Mayor Charming shows up with his assistant (a very short fellow named Seven) and tries to discourage any further investigation.  However, Granny doesn't give up and even suggests that the cause of the destruction was a giant.  Sabrina is convinced the old lady is off her rocker and plans to escape at their first opportunity, but when it arrives, so does a giant and it carries off Granny and her companion Mr. Cannis.  It is now up to the girls to save their grandmother and her friend, along with the whole town full of fairy tale characters, from the wicked giant and and even sneaker villan.

This book if full of action, funny characters and mystery.  The author Michael Buckley describes the story and its characters in a way that make it an excellent text for showing descriptive writing and helping students work on visualization.  It is a great read aloud (though a bit long) and was a perfect kick off for many of my students who wanted to read a new series.  Enjoy!