OUT OF THE WOODS

Bursting with literary references, this single-plot sequel incorporates familiar tales galore. Romantic Aurora, feisty/grumpy Storm and preternaturally verbal toddler Anything are enjoying domestic peace when wicked witch Belladonna hunts them down to eat Aurora’s heart and steal Storm’s magical pipe (a corrupting, all-powerful object constantly seeking its true owner, à la the One Ring). Archetypes weave through the plot (Snow White, Orpheus and Eurydice, Pandora’s Box, the Frog Prince, Red Riding Hood), while classic motifs pop up everywhere (wicked stepmother, magical talisman, three sisters). Allusions so subtle they might be nonexistent twinkle a playful presence (does that tavern invoke The Muppet Movie?). This has a looser weave than Into the Woods (2007), with its metaphysical rules inorganic and rushed. The sisters are frustratingly naïve, instantly believing news from unreliable sources that a loved one is dead, over and over again. However, the ending’s particularly nice, neither happily-ever-after nor not so, and the overall double-meta is delicious, with characters from the Grimms’ tales (and the Grimms themselves) and Greek myths both part of the sisters’ cultural landscape and elements in the story itself. Grey’s illustrations not seen. (Fantasy. 8-11)