Townley, Roderick. The Constellation of Sylvie.

TOWNLEY, Roderick. The constellation of Sylvie. Simon & Schuster, Atheneum. 208p. c2006. 0-689-85713-6. $16.95. J

The Great Good Thing, so the story goes, was a charming but financially unsuccessful tale. When its avid Reader grew up, she reintroduced the book to acclaim, and then wrote her own sequel and put herself into the plot. The heroine of the new story is Sylvie, a spunky princess. She and the kingdom act out typical fantasy stories as the Reader progresses through the book, but they do the unexpected: look up at the Reader. As a result, the fairy tale characters get caught up in an unexpected adventure. The new Reader is Kara, a young astronaut on her way to Jupiter with two male colleagues. Just as Sylvie is the target of an obsessive man, so is Kara victimized by Wink. The two worlds interact, largely because the author is in the book itself and can help characters "read" the Reader. Both sides threaten to be destroyed, needing each other in order to be saved.

This fantasy, a sequel to Townley's (successful) The Great Good Thing and Into the Labyrinth, is built on the premise that Readers make characters come alive. As long as one can accept this framework, then the story works. THIS Reader found the interplay a bit "affected," but younger readers will probably have a good time with the story. That the tale features strong females, and melds fantasy and SE should capture the attention of a special reading niche. Dr. Lesley Farmer, Lib. Svcs., CSULB, Long Beach, CA