The Wizard, the Witch & Two Girls from Jersey (review)
2006; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 60; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bcc.2006.0574
ISSN1558-6766
Autores Tópico(s)Themes in Literature Analysis
ResumoReviewed by: The Wizard, the Witch & Two Girls from Jersey Karen Coats Papademetriou, Lisa The Wizard, the Witch & Two Girls from Jersey. Razorbill, 2006273p Paper ed. ISBN 1-59514-074-3$8.99 R Gr. 6-9 Ever since Peter Jackson combined hobbits with hotties on the big screen, it was inevitable that we'd see a collision wherein chick lit meets epic fantasy, and here it [End Page 27] is. Veronica, a bookish Latina, and Heather, a Jersey girl par excellence who didn't even know that her favorite coffee bar was in a bookstore, tussle over the last copy of a fictional fantasy classic on the eve of an English paper due date and get zapped by an errant scanner into the second chapter of the book. They accidentally kill the princess heroine, and Heather is mistaken for her by a wizard, while Veronica, due to an unfortunate rip in the last letter of her Vassar sweatshirt, is mistaken for her servant. Thus this light-hearted, action-packed parody begins. The girls encounter all of the stock events of the hero quest—the assembly of a stalwart company, fights with hags and giant spiders, treacherous terrain, kidnapping by soulless henchmen riding leathery-winged avians, etc.—with Veronica reminding readers of numerous intertextual references along the way and trying desperately to get them back on plot. Papademetriou steps on all toes equally here; her send-up is funny enough to have both fantasy fans and mall-obsessed girls laughing at their own pretensions. Many of the jokes are suitably corny (Kiblar elves, for instance, whose specialty is tree-baked cookies) and accessible for those who haven't read every fantasy referent, so that the Heathers can have as much fun as the Veronicas. The plot zips along from one near-fatal encounter to the next, but not at the expense of character development; both Veronica and Heather are given sensitively constructed backstories that make them likable and provide credible motivation for their actions and decisions. Give this to folks who liked the movie of Ella Enchanted (BCCB 5/97) better than the book. Copyright © 2006 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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