Rachel Matthews (Narrator) ( )

YA (Developmentally Appropriate)
2019

The whole Twisted Tale series would be a good segue into YA for middle grade and tween readers. Disney will be familiar from their childhood - and even current age - but these books give just enough of a dark twist to make it grittier and less fairy tale. In Conceal Don't Feel, we're obviously reading about Anna and Elsa from Frozen. Long ago, the king and queen sent Anna to live with another family. Neither Anna nor Elsa ever knew they were sisters. The queen visits Anna every other month, but Anna doesn't know that the queen is her mother. She dreams of one day moving to Arendelle. Anna has her own likes and dislikes and is more of her own person in this book.

Similar to the movie, Elsa has magic within her, but they king and queen made the decision to send Anna to live with another family to protect her. The family Anna lives with is long time friends with the queen. Elsa only finds about her powers once her parents die suddenly. The journey both sisters must go on to find each other and understand themselves is interesting. All the regular characters are in this book such as Olaf and Hans.

I love Disney, but I'm not a huge Frozen fan. However, I would definitely give the other books in the series a try. I look forward to recommending these to students and children!

This feels like a natural transition from the books and characters of their youth, to a more grown-up and thought provoking story.

I think children will enjoy seeing familiar characters in these stories, but thinking about them in a different way. What if Anna and Elsa weren't sisters? What if Wendy and Tinkerbell were friends? It would make for good discussion group questions as well. Do you like the retelling more than the movie? Do you like how the book ended? How does it compare to how the movie ended? Would the movie be better if it was like the book? What would you do if you didn't know you had a sibling only to find out that they had been hidden from you?


The other books in the series would also be appropriate and have similarly clever titles such as Straight on Til Morning (Peter Pan), Mirror Mirror (Snow White), As Old as Time (Beauty and the Beast), Reflection (Mulan) and Part of Your World (The Little Mermaid). ( )

What if Anna en Elsa never knew each other?
Dit verhaal loopt soms voor een gedeelte gelijk met de film en soms neemt het ook een heel andere wending. Leuk om te lezen hoe Frozen er ook anders uit had kunnen zien.
Dit boek is niet beschikbaar in het Nederlands, maar in het Engels leest het ook heel vlot. ( )

The beginning was kind of cool, then it was pretty much like watching the Frozen movie all over again (but in book form). Kind of a waste of time. I still like Frozen but this book was kind of a waste of time. I had high expectations for this book after reading Part of Your World: Twisted Tale (which by the way, was so awesome!)
So yes, no good. ( )

What if Anna and Elsa never knew each other?

Answer: The same thing that happens in Frozen.

Why do I keep reading these Frozen books that are the same damn thing as the movie? Is it because it’s a perfect story as it is?

This feels like an unnecessary script doctoring somebody found in the Disney archives. Like some executive had a deadline so he gave it to his sister’s kid who just graduated film school and said “here, give me something I can bring to the board meeting on Thursday.”

Like other “Twisted Tales“, the plot hinges on a cruel spin. This time, the spell to remove Anna’s memories goes awry. Now, if Anna and Elsa are too close together, Anna will turn into ice, like in the ending. So Anna is sent to a different village.

Not a great difference, is it? Anna’s the same person–bubbly and social. Elsa’s still introverted and proper. And they both lived somewhat separated in the original movie.

Elsa still creates Olaf. She still meets the deceptive Hans. She still reveals her powers in a fit of emotion. She still builds an ice castle (there’s even a chapter that’s essentially “Let It Go” in prose form. Now that’s exciting stuff.) She’s still captured and taken to the dungeon. Anna still meets Kristoff who takes her to find Elsa (who she thinks is in trouble based on no evidence). She still goes to Oaken’s. She still has a chase with the wolves. She still rushes to save Elsa from Hans at the end and turns into a frozen statue that’s healed by love.

If you change one thing, you’ve got to change the entire story. It’s a butterfly effect. Anna may not have a different personality, but her goals should change. The plot should change. She shouldn’t be concerned about government machinations. It’d be like if I was Kamala Harris’s long lost brother, but didn’t know it, and I had to find her before Mitch McConnell took over. I have no investment in that scenario–I’m distant in both the physical sense and familiar sense. I’ve got my baked goods to worry about.

And if you’re going to make a twisted tale, then the point of the twisting should be to show us a completely different story, not the same. Straight on Till Morning and Part of Your World did that and it worked beautifully. The conclusion of the movie never took place, so the story is totally different and the characters evolve differently. Ariel is consumed with regret and Wendy becomes an action girl. If Anna and Elsa don’t know each other, why not have them meet at the beginning of the story? Then we can watch their relationship form while they have an adventure that has nothing to do with Prince Hans or Olaf or the Duke of Weselton.

But redoing the movie is lazy lazy lazy. It doesn’t give the reader what they want, which is an “alternate universe” Frozen. This is, beat for beat, the same story. Everything’s just in a different order. It’s a waste of your time. Don’t read this book. ( )