This book is about a brother and sister who get left with their evil stepmother who was horrible to the both of them. They decide to run away and leave the bad household of the stepmother and her daughter. They finally went for days and started to get thirsty and hungry because they ran out of the crumbs that they were given. The little boy resisted water at first and then gave in and turned into a fawn after the stepmother casted spells that would turn into consequences if he drank from the water. The little sister and the fawn lived together for a long time. However, the fawn was wounded and later followed home by a King and became the little sister's husband. The stepmother found out the little sister was now a Queen and started making tactics to destroy the happiness that had been made. However, after the wrath of the evil stepmother and daughter, they were finally figured out by the King and they were to be done with. The fawn came back to being little brother and then lived happily ever after with the Queen and King. This is a good read because because it is realistic and some children are actually put in this type of situation with an evil stepmother. The children realized there was happiness elsewhere.

This book is easy for children to relate to because most children have either a little brother or a little sister.

This is a story of magic and adventure. The story is about a brother and sister who venture out into the woods to escape form thier evil stepmother's house. The children escape and fin refuge in a house in the woods but the brother is turned into a fawn after he driks some charmed water that he bought from the evil house. Th sister and the brother who is now a fawn live in the house for many years until the brother, the fawn, is chased by a group of royal hunters. When the brother is caught the sister goes and explains to the king what has happened to her brother.The king falls in love with her, marries her and sets the brother free. In the end the king has the evil stepmother killed after she kills his wife and all of her evil spells are broken.Readers can find inormation an the artist and her works at barbara cooney.com

A little boy and little girl who are brother and a sister live with their wicked witch of a stepmother. They run away and are cursed. The sister finally marries the King and they live happily ever after. This book may need to be used for an older audience because it does talk about drinking beer. That is inappropriate for school. This story is a mix between Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel. Barbara Cooney's website is more of a blog with a list of her books. It is not a very useful website. http://www.barbaracooney.com/

Grade Level: 4
This book is about a brother and sister who get left with their evil stepmother. One day they decide to run away, they travel through the forest hand and hand but soon they run out of food and the little boy wants water. The evil stepmother, who was a witch, put a spell on all the water in the forest to turn whoever take it into an animal. The little boy could not take it anymoer and drank water and turned into a fawn. The brother and sister found a house in the middle of the forest, they lived for many years. Then one day the little brother asked to go out, this just happened to be when the king and his men were hunting. They tried to catch the little boy for three days and never could. On the finally day, they caught him and did not kill him and the little sister met the king and they got married. The stepmother found out and found a way to kill the wife. Once the king saw his wife's spirit he had the stepmother killed and all spells were broken. This is a good and interesting read for students.
Website: http://www.carolhurst.com/authors/bcooney.html