April 20, 2011

The Grimm Legacy



By Polly Shulman
Rating: 4 1/4 stars

Just imagine that there was a lending library in New York that didn't lend books or movies or magazines.  Instead you can borrow period clothing, shoes, and antique artifacts.  When Elizabeth is recommended by her teacher to become a page at the New York Circulating Material Repository, she is thrilled.  But as she makes a few friends among the other pages (including her school's cute basketball star, Marc), she learns there are even more unusual things in the collection, particularly the Grimm Collection.  The Grimm Collection holds magical items that we all know from their fairy tales--like the magic mirror from Snow White or the slippers from the Twelve Dancing Princesses.  But someone has been stealing items from the collection, and replacing them with fakes.  Elizabeth can't tell who the thief might be.  Could it be Marc? Anjali?  Aaron?  Or one of the librarians?  Then the mystery deepens when Anjali disappears.  Was she kidnapped?  And what can a few library pages with access to a magical collection do to help?  This is a very entertaining mix of fantasy and mystery that will keep readers interested from beginning to end and wishing there really was a collection like this one to borrow from.