Elizabeth goes to a fancy private school in New York City- but has no friends. She lives with her dad and her evil stepmother since her mother has died, very similar to a fairy tale we've all heard. Elizabeth also loves fairy tales, especially the real Grimm Brothers fairy tales. Her history teacher recommends her for a job at the New York Circulating Material Repository. It's like a library where users check things out, but instead of books they check out objects- historical, modern or just plain odd. But down in the dungeon is the special collections and the most interesting is the Grimm Collection. The Grimm Collection holds magical objects from fairy tales but something is wrong. Many of the objects are being stolen or losing their magic. Elizabeth and her new friends at work must figure out how to save the Grimm Collection.
Suggested Activities
This book would be great focus in a collection of fairy tales- modern or classic. While I was reading it, I kept thinking of A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz. Gidwitz takes the Grimm fairy tales and adds his own twist on them. Also, this year is the 100 year anniversary of the Grimm Fairy tales. At the school library, you could create a collection of all different kinds of fairy tales-classic, retold, modern. This could be in the collection as something to read when you have finished most of the fairy tales. It does help to be familiar with the fairy tales to read The Grimm Legacy. I know a lot of teachers also do fairy tales in the classroom and this could be used to support their classroom lessons.
Reviews
Elizabeth Rew's Social Studies teacher has just helped her land the perfect parttime high-school job—as a page at the New-York Circulating Material Repository, a quirky cross between a library and a museum, specializing in realia of all sorts and catering to both the business needs and personal whims of researchers, artists, [End Page 43] and curiosity seekers. Perks include a generally friendly and supportive staff; the proximity of Marc Merritt, a school basketball star well above Elizabeth's social set; and some deliciously creepy rumors of a huge bird that haunts the stacks. Best of all is the bonus promised to all pages who work their way up—access to and borrowing privileges from the Grimm Collection, a locked room filled with magical items pertaining to fairy tales collected by the folklorists themselves. Elizabeth and her fellow pages earn their way in and do a bit of forbidden but harmless larking about, borrowing the seven-league boots and a mermaid's hair-enhancing comb. The threatening bird, however, turns out to be quite real, and there are dastardly persons who have been pilfering charmed items for their own permanent collections; it's up to Elizabeth and her new friends to solve the crime and keep the world safe from abused magic. Conversations can be pretty leaden, and character development nearly nonexistent, but the premise of a repository for fairy-tale material culture is bewitching enough to carry an otherwise tepid mystery. Readers who enjoy the tales of Gail Carson Levine (but are still a long way from reveling in Bill Willingham's Fables) can muse on the malignant and benign possibilities of DIY magic.
Bush, E. Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Volume 64, Number 1, September 2010, p. 44 (Article)
Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: 10.1353/bcc.2010.007
My Thoughts
I was dreading reading this book- the cover made it look just so dark. It looked like a high fantasy book to me book and I hate reading high fantasy books. But I was wrong to judge this book by it's cover. I loved everything about it. I enjoyed the library feeling of where she worked, the mystery, the magic and the romance as well. I really liked Elizabeth as a character and her good intentions- that don't always turn out so good. What I really loved most about this book is you never knew who you could trust. I was always guessing at who was responsible for the missing Grimm items and I was usually wrong. I spent about half of the book thinking the basketball stud, Marc, was to blame and then towards the end I started to blame Aaron.( I really didn't want to blame Aaron- he liked Elizabeth! So he couldn't be bad!) But luckily in the end I was wrong about both of them.
I loved this book so much it had me wishing there was a sequel. But I just found out there is a sequel! I can't wait to read it!
Bibliography
Shulman, P. (2010). The grimm legacy. (1st ed. ed., Vol. 1). New York City: Putnam Pub Group.
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