“You don’t need a prince to save you. I don’t have a lot of patience for stories in which women are saved by men.” -Neil Gaiman

Title: The Sleeper and the Spindle

Author: Neil Gaiman 

Illustrator: Chris Riddell

Published: October 23, 2014

Medium: Print (hardcover)

Pages: 72

Genre: Fantasy, Fairy Tale

Rating:

Summary: A queen is notified by her dwarf companions that a sleeping curse has come over a nearby kingdom. The curse stems from the princess castle, where the princess sleeps under the same curse. Despite the fact that it is the day before her wedding, the queen strikes out to save the princess alongside her three dwarves. When she gets to the top of the castle and awakens the princess, she gets a dark surprise.

Thoughts: I thought everything about this book was beautiful! The artwork throughout was gorgeous, with golden ink to bring out some of the details. The story was interesting and the twist at the end, though a little telegraphed, was still a new twist on the original story that I had not yet seen. The queen gets to be the hero, in all aspects. She even awakens the princess with a kiss. From what I have read of other reviews, many of the negative comments were less on the book itself and more on the marketing done pre-release. Much of the marketing made the story appear to be an LGBT fairy tale, when in reality, the queens kiss was less based in love and more based in necessity. So the marketing was very misleading and lead to many disappointed readers when the book actually came out. Without false expectations though, this book was wonderful and I loved it!