Once Upon a Time II: Horns and Wrinkles

I just finished reading Horns and Wrinkles by Joseph Helgerson and it fits nicely into the "fantasy" category of the Once Upon a Time II Reading Challenge.

This fun, witty and well-written fantasy tells of Claire, who lives near a magical stretch of the Mississippi River between Minnesota and Wisconsin and of the adventure, or should I say trouble, she gets into because of her bully of a cousin, Duke.

The book opens with Duke hanging her by the ankles off a bridge over the Mississippi:

The river I was hanging over was the Mississippi, which was flooding, all muddy and solid-looking as a freight train, about twenty feet below my ponytail. It was early May. None of the trees had turned green yet, but you could smell it coming fast.

Duke's bullying--and the magic of the river--lands him with a rhino-nose, with troll friends and no desire to go back home. That means that Claire, with the help of a magical old lady, other trolls, some lying crickets and some good luck, has to rescue him from a horrible fate.

The result is a ripping good yarn combined with colorful, sometimes beautiful, prose. Horns and Wrinkles is now in my top 20 favorite children's fantasies. It was pure chance that I came across it, but now I'm going to give it a blanket recommendation--read it! :D

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Also being used as the letter H in the A-Z Title Reading Challenge, and for the category To-Be-Read in the 888 Challenge, as this has sat on my TBR shelf for nearly 2 months now..