The Sleeper and The Spindle is available from Bloomsbury priced £12.99. The story is full of dark humour and twists your expectations in the places where you think you know what’s going to happen (hint, you don’t!). I love the way the story is told, that the Queen is in the middle of dressing up in her wedding finery and just puts the whole thing on hold to don her chain mail,to go and save the day. Just a heads up, this is not an LGBT retelling of Sleeping Beauty there has been a lot of talk about the illustration of the Queen kissing Sleeping Beauty, but this is just to wake her up. The story has some quite interesting twists and turns, the illustrations are beautiful and it is an overall lovely book, which would make a brilliant present for someone. The Queen is concerned that the curse will soon encompass her lands, so she goes off to wake the Princess, and save her kingdom. Names are in short supply in this telling. There are rumours that the curse was placed on a princess by a Witch/ Enchantress/ Evil Queen. I’m not really sure if anyone needs a quick synopsis, but just in case, here goes.Ī queen is getting ready for her wedding day when her friends, the dwarves, come to tell her that a kingdom not far away is under a sleeping curse, and that the area affected is expanding everyday. It is a very quick read 67 pages and it took me less than 20 minutes to read. This beautiful re-imagining of Sleeping Beauty was the winner of the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2016.

A queen might just prove herself a hero, if a princess needs rescuing… This fairy tale is spun with a thread of dark magic, which twists and turns and glints and shines. There are some good, brave, hardy dwarfs a castle, shrouded in thorns and a princess, cursed by a witch, so rumor has it, to sleep forever.īut no one is waiting for a noble prince to appear on his trusty steed here. There’s a young queen, about to be married. It was the closest kingdom to the queen’s, as the crow flies, but not even the crows flew it. I picked this up as a complete impulse buy when I was in Waterstones it was so beautiful I had to get it.

Chris riddell sleeper and the spindle