Books with author Vivian Vande Velde

Wendy isn't as blind as a bat--there are bats that can see better than she can. Which is why, when her new glasses break, she's all too happy to wear the dorky pair of sunglasses she finds on the lawn. They seem to match her prescription, and that's all that matters if she's going to be able to make it through her school day.But the glasses correct her vision too much. She begins to see things that no one else can see: cheerful corpses, frightening crones disguised as teenyboppers, and portals to other worlds--places where people are all too aware of the magical properties of her new shades . . . and will do anything to get them.

Lisette Beaucaire was angry when her parents sent her away from Paris that September day in 1940. And although she knew that with the Nazis occupying the city she'd be safer at her Aunt Josephine's farm in the Dordogne valley, Lisette resented her "exile." She'd miss her friends and the excitement of being thirteen and starting a new school. Instead she'd have nothing to do but amuse her little cousin Cecile. That's what Lisette thought, but she soon found out that she wasn't the only visitor at the farmhouse. And then she encountered Gerard, a visitor from a long time ago, who proved to be a valiant ally at a crucial moment for the people who lived in the farmhouse.

So you think you know the story of Little Red Riding Hood, the girl with the unfortunate name and the inability to tell the difference between her grandmother and a member of a different species? Well, then, try your hand at answering these questions: Which character (not including Little Red herself) is the most fashion challenged? Who (not including the wolf) is the scariest? Who (not including Granny) is the most easily scared? Who is the strangest (notice we're not "not including" anyone, because they're all a little off.)? Who (no fair saying "the author") has stuffing for brains? Master storyteller Vivian Vande Velde crafts eight new stories involving one of the world's most beloved (and mixed-up) characters in literature. You may never look at fairy tales in quite the same way again.

In Heir Apparent there are as many ways to win as there are to get killed. Giannine can testify to how many ways there are to die--it's about all she's been able to do since she started playing. Now all she has to do is get the magic ring, find the stolen treasure, answer the dwarf's dumb riddles, come up with a poem for the head-chopping statue, cope with the army of ghosts, outmaneuver her half brothers, and defeat the man-eating dragon. If she can do all of that, why, she just might save her own life!

Have you ever wondered just what was going on when that odd little man with the long name stepped up and volunteered to spin straw into gold for the miller’s daughter? If you stop and think about it, there are some very peculiar and rather hard-to-explain components to the story. Vivian Vande Velde has wondered too, and she’s come up with these six alternative versions of the old legend. A bevy of miller’s daughters confront their perilous situation in very different ways — sometimes comic, sometimes scary. Most of the time, it’s the daughter who gets off safely, but sometimes, amazingly, Rumpelstiltskin himself wins the day. And in one tale, it is the king who cleverly escapes a quite unexpected fate.

The same day that the villagers of Thornstowe finally hunt down a witch with a reputation for stealing children, a 12-year-old appears in the woods with no memory of her past. Is there a connection between Isabelle, the girl who doesn’t know who she is, and the girl the witch stole six years earlier? One of the few things Isabelle remembers is a chant that keeps running through her head: Old as dirt,dirty as dirt.Ugly as sin,mean as sin.Don’t let the old witch catch you! Could Isabelle have been stolen by the old witch of the woods, or has she lost her memory as the result of an accident? And what about the baby the witch stole right before the villagers attacked? Did either the witch or the baby survive the fire the villagers set? "Isabelle heard no sound beyond the faintest shivering of leaves in a gentle breeze. No sound of pursuit. But surely something was wrong, or she would know who and where she was. So she resumed running. But it wasn’t as effortless as before. Her worry weighed her down as she tried to list the things she knew—and found the list of things she didn't know longer by far."

The wizard has big summer plans: to garden, to fish, and to nap. The only thing better would be if he had someone nice to share the days with. But the only people who show up want him to rescue yet another princess, lift the usual vile curse, confront a fearsome ghost, deal with a pack of magical hooligans, harvest a crop of golden cucumbers, and on and on. . . . A wizard's work is never done!

If Howard had known the old hag was a witch, he never would have taunted her. But he did, and she did what witches do--cursed him--and now he's a goose, which to tell you the truth, is not as serene and peaceful as it might look from the shore. People try to kill geese, for crying out loud, and the other geese are none too nice to newcomers. Howard is desperate to become a human again so he can show that old witch a thing or two. But the only way to break the curse is to do three good deeds--and how can you help others when you've got webbed feet, wings for hands, and can't say anything but "Honk"?

Sixteen-year-old Nyssa can enter into people’s dreams. Although the authorities of the medieval town of Lindenwolde would put her to death if they realized she was a witch, she feels compelled to practice her unique brand of witchcraft to answer the biggest question of her life: who broke into her father’s woodworking shop and killed her parents? Six years after the murder, Nyssa finally gets her chance to enter the dreams of the man she suspects is responsible. Suddenly she finds herself on a reckless, relentless journey that leads her through a maze of adventures—both in the real world and in the world of the unconscious. Nyssa risks death as she finally identifies the murderer in a shocking and unexpected climax.