Out of the Wild (review)

Julie Marchen, Rapunzel's twelve-year-old daughter who first appeared in Into the Wild (BCCB 7/07), now chases her charming father, the prince, from Massachusetts to California in a desperate attempt to prevent him from saving Snow White, who has been snatched by an unknown assailant. Although most of the fairy-tale folk now living in contemporary America are happy with their new lives away from the Grimm world of eating children, fighting dragons, and climbing beanstalks, someone has made a deal with the Wild (the pure essence of all fairy tales), and its thorny tentacles are threatening to bring a return to the days of yore. Unless Julie can recapture the seething green mass of trouble, expose its two-legged co-conspirator, and stop them both, everyone will become part of the never-ending story. Durst drops new readers too abruptly into the nonstop action in this sequel, and newcomers will need to do some catching up in order to grasp the threat represented by the Wild; the plot is also episodic rather than cohesive, so it's more diverting than involving. Readers will nonetheless be amused to see familiar villains and heroes, as well as the varied series of landmarks ranging from Disneyland to the Grand Canyon, on the cross-country chase. Durst's humor continues to be firmly tongue in cheek, as when Snow is temporarily lodged at the American king's castle known as Graceland, or when Julie follows her father on a flying bathmat. With its princesses, cooking cows, wicked librarians, and a teen who can save the world, this sequel will likely appeal to those who enjoyed previously tangling with the Wild.