A Long Long Sleep

Gr 9 Up—Rosalinda Samantha Fitzroy is a girl out of time in Anna Sheehan's futuristic retelling (Candlewick, 2011) of Sleeping Beauty. Sixty-two years ago, she was a carefree 16-year-old. Everything changed when her ultra-wealthy parents, owners of an interplanetary company named Unicorp, put her in her stasis tube and abandoned her. Now she's awake and everyone she knows is dead. Struggling to adjust and deal with all the press attention and the fact that she is the heir to her parents' interplanetary empire, she makes friends with Bren, the boy who woke her up with a kiss, and an alien named Otto. When a Plastine—a plasticized corpse mercenary—is sent to assassinate her by someone within Unicorp, things take a dangerous turn. Forced to dig up her painful past and some dark family secrets, Rosalinda worries that her past really isn't ancient history. Who can she trust? Will she ever be able to adjust to the future? Narrator Angela Dawe does a good job of voicing Rosalinda's emotions. Although the flashbacks are a little confusing to follow, the other transitions are done well. While the characters' voices sound similar, their personalities and language styles are all unique. An engaging listen.—Kira Moody, Whitmore Public Library, Salt Lake City, UT