Alice's life is about to change.
She's a skinny orphan. She's never been able to hear too well. And she can't speak too well, either. The only person who seems to care for her-one of the nuns at the orphanage-gets taken away from Alice in a freak accident.
And then one day somebody calls Alice by the wrong name.
Miami, she says.
Miami Shaw.
Miami Shaw, who may be Alice's twin sister.
Who lives only a few miles away.
Who has what Alice has always dreamed of-a whole wonderful family. But is there a place in that family for Alice?
From bestselling author Gregory Maguire comes a funny, heartrending story of the strength of sisterhood and the struggle to find a family of one's own.
A terrible storm is raging, and ten-year-old Dinah is huddled by candlelight with her brother, sister, and cousin Gage, who is telling a very unusual tale. It's the story What-the-Dickens, a newly hatched orphan creature who finds he has an attraction to teeth, a crush on a cat named McCavity, and a penchant for getting into trouble. One day he happens upon a feisty girl skibberee who is working as an Agent of Change-trading coins for teeth-and learns that there is a dutiful tribe of skibbereen (call them tooth fairies) to which he hopes to belong. As his tale of discovery unfolds, however, both What-the-Dickens and Dinah come to see that the world is both richer and less sure than they ever imagined.
Who better to wreak havoc with eight beloved fairy tales than Gregory Maguire, the brilliant, funny, and nationally best-selling author of the adult novel Wicked as well as the hilarious middle-grade series The Hamlet Chronicles.
Zany animals of all species run through these fractured tales with alarming speed and dexterity. Who would have thought that the ageless, exquisite Cinderella could be recast as the silly story of an enormous yet lovable elephant who plods along to the ball with glass pie plates on her feet; or that Sleeping Beauty, that most regal of all fairy tales, could be twisted into the story of a frog with a most unusual and promising dance career? Get ready to meet a gorilla queen and a psycho chimp, seven giant giraffes, and one very bad walrus.
