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Booktalking Colorado Full Record:
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Title: |
Briar Rose |
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Author: |
Yolen, Jane |
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Date Published: |
1992 |
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Genre: |
Horror |
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Grade Level: |
8 - 12 |
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Booktalker: |
Bonnie Phinney |
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Booktalk:
Becca had heard the story a million times before, when she was a child. It was the only story her grandma ever told.
“Once upon a time,” the story began, “the queen gave birth to a baby girl with a crown of red hair. And it was time for a party…All the good fairies in the kingdom were invited…but not the bad fairy…the one with big black boots and silver eagles on her hat. But she came…And she put a curse on Briar Rose.”
Over and over, Becca urged her grandma on.
“When the princess was seventeen, without further warning, a mist covered the entire kingdom…And everyone fell asleep, all kinds of citizens. So fast asleep were they, they were not able to wake for 100 years…and all around the castle a briary hedge began to grow, with thorns as sharp as barbs.”
Tell us about the prince. Tell us about the prince. Becca loved that part best.
“And after 100 years a prince came from a nearby country…and the thorns parted before him…As he walked through the castle he marveled at how many lay asleep – the good people and the not-so-good, the young and the not-so-young. Finally he came to the tower room and saw the most beautiful woman he had ever seen…He put his mouth to hers, giving her breath for breath…And the princess awoke, saying, ‘I am alive, my dear prince. You have given me back the world.’ … And after she was married, she had a baby girl … and they lived happily ever after.”
Now Becca’s grandmother was gone, and she, Becca, had sworn a promise. You see, Becca’s grandmother had insisted that SHE was Briar Rose and Becca had promised to find the castle and the prince. But how? No one even knew where she had come from. Among the belongings found in the old woman's room was a box, filled with memorabilia: a passport, old photographs and newspaper clippings, and a ring. Clues. Clues to her grandmother’s past – as well as her own. Becca sets out to unravel her grandmother’s obsession with Sleeping Beauty and, more importantly, to unravel the mystery of her grandmother.
Her journey takes her to an old refugee camp in up-state New York, and then to Poland, to a town named Chelmno, to a story more chilling than any fairy tale could ever be. A bright tale of sleeping beauty, intertwined with a dark tale of the holocaust …
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