The Wishing Spell

The Wishing Spell is the first book in The Land of Stories series by the American writer and actor Chris Colfer, published in 2012. It began as an idea he had while he was still at school, and it takes the fairy tales children are raised on and asks what became of the characters afterwards.

A book of fairy tales turns out to be a way into the land the stories come from. The two children who hold it find the familiar figures leading lives of their own: Red Riding Hood has become a warrior with a taste for bounty hunting, the Frog Prince is in hiding, and Snow White is pregnant and governing a kingdom made of territories that do not get along.

The children have to cross those territories to reach Snow White's castle, because the Wishing Spell they need in order to go home is there, and other people want it as badly as they do. Colfer keeps the comedy and the danger in the same frame, and the fairy tale world he builds is a place with politics as well as magic.