GOOSE CHASE

Kindl, who brought readers the perfectly droll Owl in Love (1993) and the magically metaphoric Woman in the Wall (1997), this time offers a winsome and wickedly funny fairytale fractured in multiple places. Taking elements freely from a handful—at least—of familiar fairytales, she's made one of energy and spirit and no small amount of high hilarity. When the tale opens, the Goose Girl, the narrator, is stuck in a tower, kept prisoner because she doesn't like her prospective marital choices. The Prince is sweet but dim; and the King is wicked and blackhearted. The Goose Girl, whose name is actually Alexandria Aurora Fortunato, has been blessed with a number of attributes that could be useful: her tears are diamonds, and when she combs her hair, gold dust falls from it. But, she finds this all to be a pain, and she suspects the royal men's interest in her stems from her profitability. She escapes the tower because her 12 geese rescue her, and she continues to have adventures fending off ogresses (one with two heads) and escaping from capture and imprisonment, alone as well as with the feckless prince, whose heart has led him in search of her and whose mouth gets them in deeper trouble with great regularity. The geese pop up regularly, too, and Alexandria's golden hair has a recurring role as an escape tool. When true love blossoms, the Goose Girl is found to be royal, and her geese freed to be her sisters once again, readers will rejoice. Running the gamut from quiet chuckles to laugh-out-loud guffaws, this promises delight in great profusion to generations of readers now and to come. (Fiction. 10-14)