The Land of Stories (Series) by Chris Colfer

The Mother Goose Diaries

The Mother Goose Diaries purports to be just that—a diary written by the zany Mother Goose character from the Land of Stories. Honestly, I had some pretty high hopes for this one, but it left me feeling a little… meh. I love the eccentric Mother Goose that Colfer created for this series, the misfit fairy who is a bit wild and always up for adventure, but generally has good intentions. That is not quite the Mother Goose that seems to have written this diary. This Mother Goose comes off as more obnoxious than eccentric, and is perhaps too wild. The drug and alcohol references were more blatant and more frequent than expected, considering that this is a middle grade level book. There were definitely interesting uses of history in some places in the book, but at other times the history included seemed flippant and a little annoying.

I think my biggest issue with the book is that I had a hard time seeing it’s connection to the rest of the series. The diary follows Mother Goose through history, but there is minimal mention of the work of the fairies to spread stories of the Fairy Tale World. It is included, but generally glossed over rather quickly. Although the series talks about fairies sharing stories with authors like the Brothers Grimm, they are never mentioned. Nor are the twins, or any of the events from the series brought up at all. I realize that as a companion book this is intended to be separate from the primary series, but felt like there should have been something tying it to the other books.

Queen Red Riding Hood’s Guide to Royalty

As we near the end of our journey through the Land of Stories, we come to Queen Red Riding Hood’s Guide to Royalty, another companion book authored by a character from the series. This book was a pleasant surprise for me. While I find Red’s character hysterical, she often becomes annoying. I thought that a whole book dedicated to her might be a little too much, but I think this was done perfectly. It was a short and quick read, which definitely helped it from being too “over the top.” I really enjoyed reading this, but I suspect that anyone who was not a fan of the original series may not fully appreciate the humor here.

In the later books in the series, Red finds an affinity for reading books from the “Other World,” although she often does not understand them or remember the correct names of authors. It is one of those books that inspired her to write this one, The Prince by “Nicole Macarena.” The book includes a little bit of back story to Red and her place in the kingdom that was not included in the original books, but the majority of it is taken up with her advice. As would be expected from her character, most of it is written rather condescendingly, and much of the time she presents as ridiculous and outrageous. However, there are actually some good points and advice included there, despite their somewhat ludicrous presentation.