Then, as soon as they pulled out of the driveway, We said we’d rather stay home with Grandma. To get some apple cider at Whipple’s Orchard. “Mom and Dad decided to drive out into the country 'I like your ideas on parenting, you'd make a good provider, and I have a weakness for short men.” ' Really?' said Rumpelstiltskin, and he blushed all the way from the top of his head to the tip of his toes (which admittedly wasn't very far, because he was so short). 'You've got to be kidding,' Meredith said. In return, once you become queen, you must let me adopt your firstborn child. 'I will spin the straw into gold, just like before. And there was only one thing in the world he really wanted-a little child to love and care for.

After all, getting to be the queen was a big step up for a miller's daughter. Now that, thought Rumpelstiltskin, has possibilities. 'Well, the situation has changed just a bit,' said the miller's daughter (who also had a name-it was Meredith). 'I suppose you want me to spin it into gold.' The journey is worthwhile for other reasons than thrills: opening young lives to a sense of wonder, exposing old hurts for healing, and saying good-bye when the time comes.“That's quite a pile,' he said. Tension drops a bit at the end (spoiler: a lawyer saves the day!) but loose ends of the story are tied up nevertheless. The story goes in directions we don’t expect and introduces characters with genuine motives and personalities-even, or especially, the villain. Like a genie in a lamp, Sophie is a slave to whoever owns the dish. And soon Joplin understands why: it harbors a spirit-a girl who actually lived in another time and place-who can grant wishes once the platter is whole. The antique dealer her aunt Jen suggested to repair it seems to want it very badly. But that’s not the worst: the smashed Delftware platter in the cake tin, the only item she claimed from her grandfather’s possessions, may turn out to be serious trouble. Unfortunately, Camrath got very weird toward the end, and his weirdness, splashed all over the internet on his demise, made Joplin the butt of stupid pranks at school. Not that it means much to Joplin-she never met the man because her mom (now divorced) never saw and seldom spoke of him. Salinger) that his death rocked the literary world. Camrath, was a reclusive novelist with such a powerful mystique (think J. An 11-year-old girl discovers some truths about herself and her family in this novel with a touch of magic and mystery.

Bella at midnight by diane stanley