The Sisters Grimm - Michael Buckley

Michael Buckley has so far written three books in his "The Sisters Grimm" series (although only two are out in the UK as yet); the first is The Sisters Grimm: The Fairy Tale Detectives. Sabrina and Daphne Grimm are orphaned sisters who are sent to live with their grandmother, Relda Grimm (whom their father had always told them was dead). Relda Grimm lives in the town of Ferryport Landing in rural New York State, a town that experiences an extraordinary number of unexplained and unusual crimes. As it turns out, the two girls and their grandmother are the descendants of the Brothers Grimm, who were not folklorists, as most people believe, but were historians and detectives of actual magical phenomena perpetrated by the Everafters, a race of magical beings known to most as the characters in Grimms' Fairy Tales. The Grimm family has a legacy to keep the Everafters in line and Sabrina and Daphne are the last of the Grimm heirs. In the first book in the series, the two girls find themselves dealing with a giant who has been rampaging through the town in its search for an Englishman named Jack, who was recently working at a Big and Tall store in the town.

In The Sisters Grimm: The Unusual Suspects Daphne and Sabrina start school, at Ferryport Landing Elementary School; Snow White is Daphne's teacher, whilst Sabrina is taught by a regular human, Mr Grumpner. The girls discover a plot involving the unusual children of several Everafter couples and an attempt to break out of Ferryport Landing and take over the world for fairy tales.

These books are quite good fun; I can easily imagine that they are very popular with children. I was reminded of the books for grown ups of Jasper Fforde, where Thursday Next is a LiteraTec who deals with crimes relating to books, and who often has conversations with literary characters (including Humpty Dumpty, the Cheshire Cat and Miss Havisham).

The second of Buckley's books ends on a cliff hanger, rather annoyingly given that The Sisters Grimm: The Problem Child is only just out in the US !

There is an interview with Michael Buckley, conducted by Kelly of Big A, little a in the April issue of The Edge of the Forest, and if you want more information on the series as a whole, visit The Sisters Grimm website.