Fairest

Fairest
Gail Carson Levine
HarperCollins Publishers, 2006
Pages 326
Reading level: 9-12
Genre: Fantasy

Fairest is a spin on the classic Snow White Story. The main character is a girl named Aza, who, instead of being beautiful like the classic Snow White, is very very ugly. She lives is a place where everybody sings. They don't hold balls, they hold Sings. All of their ceremonies, birthdays, weddings, funerals, were sung. Aza, although being very self-conscieous about her looks, has the most beautiful voice in the kingdom. When Aza was just a baby, she was dropped off in a basket at an inn, and the innkeeper and his family took her in. As she got older, Aza learned how to do what she calls "Illuse." This means to make her voice sound as if it is coming from somewhere else One day while she was cleaning the inn, Aza becomes friends with a duchess. This duchess invites Aza to take her sick friends place as an escort for the Kings wedding. Aza happily agrees. At the wedding, Aza discovers that the Kings new bride cannot sing! This is a atrocity. Aza ends up being blackmailed into illusing her voice so everyone else believes the queen in a beautiful singer. Eventually, they get caught, and the queen tells everyone Aza forced her to let Aza illuse. Aza gets thown in jail, but in the process discovers that the queen is using a magic mirror and taking beauty potions. Aza takes some of it, and becomes exceedingly beautiful. While in jail, a man comes and takes Aza out. He tells her that he is there to kill her on the queens orders, but that she is just to beautiful, so instead he takes her to live with the gnomes. The queen discovers she is still alive and tries to poisen her with an apple. When Aza is poisened, she is transported into the mirror. In the mirror lives a man named Skulni. He is the face that talks to whomever looks in. It turns out that whoever drinks the potion takes his place in the mirror when they die. Aza then breaks the mirror, goes back to her body, gets the prince, and lives happily ever after.

Chilren and young adult girls would enjoy this book. Possible even many adults. As a future teacher, I would recommend this book to all of my students.

I can't think of any problems or conflicts this book would cause.

This book was wonderful. I really liked how Aza realizes at the end that beauty is not everything, and that her prince loves her just the way she is. It teaches us that we need to be happy with our talents and not worry about what other people think of us.

Rating: *****