A Whole New World: A Twisted Tale

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.