The Sisters Grimm, Book One: The Fairy-Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley (2005)

Plot Summary:  Twelve year old Sabrina Grimm and her seven year old sister, Daphne, are shuffled from one foster home to another in New York City since their parents have gone missing. The police have found no leads and it seems as if they have just vanished into thin air.  The girls have been sent to one awful foster home after another by their caseworker Ms. Smirt.  Ms. Smirt seems to despise children and just loves to pinch the girls.  Finally, a grandmother they never knew and that they thought was dead takes responsibility for the girls and brings them to live with her in the town of Ferry Landing, NY.  Sabrina is suspicious at first and doesn’t believe that this woman is truly their grandmother.  It just doesn’t make sense.  Mrs. Grimm’s house is odd and she serves food that is weird.   Why would her father tell them his mother was dead?  What reasons would he have from keeping them away from their grandmother, if that is who she is?  Sabrina decides that she and Daphne are going to run away from this place, just as they ran away from the foster homes.

Their plan to run away doesn’t exactly go as planned and the girls find themselves back in their “Granny’s” house.  There are so many odd things going on there-locked rooms, strange voices behind closed doors, and the fact that her so-called grandmother talked to the house.  When their first outing turns out to be a visit to a crime scene, they realize that there is something unusual about their granny.  Sabrina and Daphne learn that Ferryport Landing is the home of the “Everafters”-which is what the fairy-tale creatures call themselves.  Years earlier, when regular people started moving into Ferry port Landing, the Everafters felt threatened and problems arose.  In order to keep peace, a very powerful witch put a spell on the town preventing the Everafters from ever leaving, and the spell would remain in place for as long as there is a living descendant of the Grimm brothers. 

It is then that Sabrina and Daphne find out that they are the direct descendants of the Brothers Grimm and that they come from a long line of fairy tale detectives. They are expected to continue this tradition, and this investigation is only the beginning of Sabrina and Daphne's journey into the world of fairy tales.  When their Granny Relda is taken by a giant, it is up to the girls to save her.

Genre:  Mystery

Suggested age range:  8 through 12

Series Information: To date, 8 books in all: 

Book Two:       The Unusual Suspects (2006)

Book Three:     The Problem Child (2006)

Book Four:      Once Upon a Crime (2007)

Book Five:       Magic and Other Misdemeanors (2007)

Book Six:         Tales from the Hood (2008)

Book Seven:    The Eve rafter War (2009)

Book Eight:      The Inside Story (2010)

Subjects/Themes:  Fairy tale characters, magic, orphans, Brothers Grimm

Awards:  
Beehive Children's Fictional Book Award (nominated for an award) 2007
Wyoming Indian Paintbrush Book Award (nominated for an award) 2008
Grand Canyon Reader Award (nominated for an award) 2009
    
Reviews:

School Library Journal, Booklist, Horn Book Guide, Kirkus, VOYA, and Library Media Connection

all gave this first book in the series good reviews.

Annotation:  This is the first in an excellent mystery series by this author.  Fairy tale fans will love exploring this series with all of its interesting characters rewritten into modern roles.