A Whole New World (Twisted Tale Series #1)

by Liz Braswell

Overview

The 1st installment in the New York Times best-selling A TWISTED TALE series asks: What if Aladdin had never found the lamp?

When Jafar steals the Genie’s lamp, he uses his first two wishes to become sultan and the most powerful sorcerer in the world. Agrabah lives in fear, waiting for his third and final wish.To stop the power-mad ruler, Aladdin and the deposed princess Jasmine must unite the people of Agrabah in rebellion. But soon their fight for freedom threatens to tear the kingdom apart in a costly civil war.

What happens next? A Street Rat becomes a leader. A princess becomes a revolutionary. And readers will never look at the story of Aladdin in the same way again.

For more twisted adventures, try the other books in the A TWISTED TALE series:

• Once Upon a Dream by Liz Braswell
• As Old As Time by Liz Braswell
• Reflection by Elizabeth Lim
• Part of Your World by Liz Braswell
• Mirror, Mirror by Jen Calonita
• Conceal, Don’t Feel by Jen Calonita
• Straight On Till Morning by Liz Braswell
• So This is Love by Elizabeth Lim
• Unbirthday by Liz Braswell
• Go the Distance by Jen Calonita
• What Once Was Mine by Liz Braswell

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781484707296
Publisher:	Disney Press
Publication date:	09/01/2015
Series:	Twisted Tale Series
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.40(d)
Lexile:	HL760L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

After the sort of introverted childhood you would expect from a writer, Liz earned a degree in Egyptology at Brown University and then promptly spent the next ten years producing video games. Finally she caved into fate and wrote Snow and Rx under the name Tracy Lynn, followed by The Nine Lives of Chloe King series under her real name, because by then the assassins hunting her were all dead. She lives in Brooklyn with a husband, two children, a cat, a part-time dog, three fish and five coffee trees she insists will start producing beans any day. You can email her at [e-mail] or tweet @LizBraswell.

Editorial Reviews

10/01/2015
Gr 7 Up—The first quarter of this work functions as a novelization of the Disney movie that inspired it, detailing the escapades of young street urchin Aladdin as he steals to survive. After Aladdin encounters the princess Jasmine at the city market, the villainous Jafar, the childlike sultan's grand vizier, uses Aladdin to retrieve a magic lamp from the Cave of Wonders. It is here that the story deviates from Disney, as this time around it is Jafar who claims possession of the lamp and uses the genie inside to murder the sultan and take his throne. Upon escaping from the Cave of Wonders, Aladdin teams up with Jasmine and a band of thieving street rats to stop the evil sorcerer and reclaim the city of Agrabah. The action-packed story maintains a brisk pace, but the characters lack depth and complexity, and though Braswell succeeds in creating a darker tone, she is less successful in her efforts to ground Jasmine and Aladdin's revolution in Agrabah's economic inequities. Furthermore, the novel is a bit heavy-handed thematically, and anachronistic word choices and dialogue have a tendency to pull readers from what is otherwise an interesting, if simplistic, setting. VERDICT An additional purchase where there is an enthusiastic audience for retellings.—Lauren Strohecker, McKinley Elementary School, Abington School District, PA

School Library Journal

2015-06-29
In a Disney-authorized riff on the animated film Aladdin, one crucial plot twist has horrifying results. The first quarter of the book serves up a straightforward novelization of the film, until evil vizier Jafar traps the roguish protagonist underground—in this version, without the magical lamp. Aladdin escapes to find that with the genie's aid, Jafar has publicly murdered the feckless sultan, imprisoned the princess Jasmine, and terrorized the people of Agrabah into submission. Fortunately, Aladdin can call upon the Street Rats to spearhead a revolution, but can a gang of petty thieves prevail over Jafar's black magic? Briskly paced, with nonstop action and clever allusions to classic horror tales, this retelling suffers from paper-thin characterization and abrupt shifts in tone, from saccharine romance to snarky quips to grisly horror, including the tortures and deaths of more than one beloved movie character. The setting and dialogue are rife with jarring anachronisms, and even when some characters are granted added depth—as in the genie's tragic back story and Jafar's terrifying descent into madness—it often backfires, for instance conflicting creepily with the former's jocular wisecracks and latter's cartoonish villainy. Despite a tacked-on happily-ever-after epilogue, the darkness and violence, culminating in a rebel "victory" that is at best ambiguous, leave a bitter aftertaste. Competent enough as fan fiction, but strictly for (not-too-devoted) fans of the movie. (Fantasy. 13-18)

Kirkus Reviews

"A magic carpet ride of a book! A fun and unpredictable retelling of the classic Aladdin story, a must-read for all of us Disney fans!”—Melissa de la Cruz

From the Publisher