{"id":10124,"date":"2024-03-02T20:25:21","date_gmt":"2024-03-03T00:25:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=10124"},"modified":"2024-03-02T20:28:16","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T00:28:16","slug":"book-review-grimmworld-the-witch-in-the-woods-by-michaelbrent-collings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-grimmworld-the-witch-in-the-woods-by-michaelbrent-collings\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Grimmworld: The Witch in the Woods by Michaelbrent Collings"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cover<\/a><\/p>\n

Grimmworld: The Witch in the Woods<\/em>, by Michaelbrent Collings<\/p>\n

Shadow Mountain Publishing, March 2024 (not yet released)<\/p>\n

ISBN: 9781639932320<\/p>\n

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition<\/p>\n

Buy:\u00a0Bookshop.org<\/a> |\u00a0\u00a0Amazon.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Michaelbrent Collings writes good thrillers, and writes them fast: his pace has always been Dean Koontz-like. Grimmworld<\/em> is his first attempt at a middle grade fantasy novel, and not surprisingly, it\u2019s very good. \u00a0Collings has no trouble shifting his high-octane writing to fantasy, Kids and adults both will love this.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The book is a nifty new way to use Grimm\u2019s Fairy Tales <\/em>for backdrop.\u00a0 The first 90 pages are a bit slow, but it\u2019s just the setup for the real story.\u00a0 Twins Jake and Willow Grimm are living in a new town, where their parents are involved in top secret research.\u00a0 Through a collision of multiverses, the twins wind up in Grimmworld, where all the old fairy tales actually happen, for real.\u00a0 However, the endings are very different in Grimmworld, and not happy ones, either– the original Brothers Grimm changed the endings when they wrote them.\u00a0 Once the story shifts to Grimmworld, it takes off, and kicks into high gear. Jake and Willow do get some scientific explanation for the different worlds from a friend and wizard, Old Eli.\u00a0 Collings does a nice job balancing a plausible scientific theory and making it understandable to young readers..\u00a0 The \u2018bubble\u2019 analogy the author used really helps tie this section together.\u00a0 The lovable, enigmatic mole-rat, Chet, also helps the twins, although his Cheshire-cat style of talking does drive them somewhat nuts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The last half of the book is fantastic, with Jake and Willow attempting to save Hansel and Gretel from the witch\u2019s oven.\u00a0 There are a lot of outstanding riddles and puzzles in this section: riddling hasn\u2019t been this much fun since Bilbo went toe to toe with Gollum all those years ago.\u00a0 The ‘slow camel’ race and magic tree demonstrate real planning on the author\u2019s part, and they are simple enough for readers to follow.\u00a0 It\u2019s the perfect wrap-up to a very good story.\u00a0 Thankfully, this isn\u2019t the end: Collings has already promised another if he gets a good response from readers.\u00a0 Based on this, he won\u2019t have any trouble getting it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bottom line is, this does what a good middle grade fantasy should do: thrill younger and older readers alike.\u00a0 Schools should have this, to help kids see that reading has a LOT more to offer than staring at cell phones.\u00a0 As for the author, who knows what else he has in his bag of tricks? Recommended.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grimmworld: The Witch in the Woods, by Michaelbrent Collings Shadow Mountain Publishing, March 2024 (not yet released) ISBN: 9781639932320 Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition Buy:\u00a0Bookshop.org |\u00a0\u00a0Amazon.com   Michaelbrent Collings writes good thrillers, and writes them fast: his pace has always been Dean Koontz-like. Grimmworld is his first attempt at a middle grade fantasy novel, and not<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2918,1068,5581,5583,645,749,2243,5536,2407,5183,5582],"class_list":["post-10124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dark-fairy-tales","tag-dark-fantasy","tag-grimmworld","tag-hansel-and-gretel","tag-horror-book-reviews","tag-horror-books","tag-michaelbrent-collings","tag-middle-grade-fantasy","tag-middle-grade-fiction","tag-multiverse","tag-the-witch-in-the-woods"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10124"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10128,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10124\/revisions\/10128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}