by Stephanie Graegin
40 pages / 2020
Rating: Good/GREAT/Give

Fern is a bear, an author, an illustrator, and a best friend to Otto, the adventurous cat who shares her treehouse abode. Fern has authored a book, and naturally, it is about her best friend and the activities they get up to together, like eating lunch and napping in the sun.

Otto likes napping, but he isn’t wild about being immortalized in a book as a napper. He wants the story to be about something more adventurous. And that means Fern and Otto need to head outside and find excitement. So off they head into the woods, two friends looking for some sort of heart-pumping happenings.

This already delightful book amps up the delight when Fern and Otto come across all sorts of fairytale events – they bump into the Tortoise and the Hare right as their race is about to start – only to have Otto insist they keep walking so they can find something more interesting. Kids will enjoy spotting familiar fairytale critters (like the Three Little Pigs shuttling their supplies) who show up in the background a few pages before Fern and Otto eventually bump into them.

Fern and Otto are both clueless as they just miss one adventure after another, meeting Goldilocks, but leaving before the Three Bears show up, and walking with Little Red Riding Hood, but heading their own way just before she reaches Grandma’s house. The Gingerbread Man, Hansel and Gretel, Chicken Little, and many more make quick appearances.

It’s only when the two best friends stumble across a witch that they realize that excitement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and home sounds pretty good right about then.

The fractured fairytales are great fun, and I also appreciated this for the kid-level look it provides of the creative process – we get to see Fern write her book, work with feedback, and then rewrite it.

Two thumbs way up!