Twelve year old twins, Alex and Conner inherit a book of fairytales from their grandmother for their birthday. However, it is not an ordinary book, as one night when Alex is trying to sleep, the book starts to glow. Alex discovers that it is a portal into the fairytale world, and when she accidentally falls into the book, Conner has no choice but to go after her. The twins soon discover that although the fairy tale world has all the good characters they had read about, it also contains the bad ones, and soon run into various creatures such as goblins, trolls, the big bad wolf pack, and most terrifying of all, the Evil Queen. The only way for them to get back home is to collect various items from the Kingdoms, and join them together to trigger the Wishing Spell. However, the twins are in a race against time, as the Evil Queen is also looking for the Wishing Spell items. Conner and Alex must find all the items before the Evil Queen if they ever want to get back home.
Although this book was wrote for children, I absolutely adored it. I am a big fan of Chris Colfer, and when I found out that he was publishing a book I just had to read it. The book is action packed, full of suspense and humorous. The original stories of the fairytale characters have been cleverly interwoven into the world of The Land Of Stories, with each Kingdom being ruled by queens such as Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Cinderella. As I loved reading fairytales as a child, I found it interesting how Colfer had interpreted what had happened to the various fairytale characters after the original stories had ended. I also enjoyed how the plot progressed, and the information about the twins father before he had died integrated into the story further on. Although there were many plot points that I figured out myself long before the twins, there was one that I did not figure out at all, and that tied up all the loose ends. I also enjoyed the fact that although Colfer intends on making The Land Of Stories into a series, the first book did not end on a cliff-hanger, and everything was figured out. Overall the book was brilliant and Chris should be very proud for having such a successful debut novel. I am looking forward to future instalments in this series.
