| Sleeping Ugly | |||||||
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| General Information | |||||||
| Pages | 64 | ||||||
| Genre | Children's Book | ||||||
| Production Information | |||||||
| Published | May 1, 2004 | ||||||
| Author | Howie Dewin | ||||||
| Editor | Unknown | ||||||
| Publisher | Scholastic Inc. | ||||||
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Sleeping Ugly is the first book in the Shrek Tales series. It was intended to showcase smaller adventures with the cast of Shrek before and/or after the events of Shrek 2.
Overview[]
Shrek has a problem, the local fairy tale children won't leave him alone-and they're driving him crazy! What's an ogre to do? Not to worry, Donkey has a plan: read the kids a story. Shrek agrees, but only if he can tell the story his way. This is the story of Sleeping Ugly-she's not an average princess but then this isn't an average fairy tale. This is a "Shrek" Tale.
Plot[]
In an effort to please the local fairy tale children, Donkey tries to read them the story of Sleeping Beauty. As the story goes, King Stephen and Queen Anne have a daughter named Rose. They have a christening and at it, they betroth her to King Louis’s son, Prince Philip. Three fairies, Mary, Blossom and Wanda, bestow the princess with gifts; but the Evil fairy, Egoella, curses her with the gift of death.
Before the story can go along normally, Shrek snatches the book from Donkey and proceeds to tell the story his way. In an attempt to protect Rose from death, Wanda places a spell that causes Rose to grow up into an ugly teenager until the age of sixteen. At least, that was the plan. She is protected by the three fairies, but is isolated form the outside world in a loft above a Chinese restaurant. The spell also didn't reverse as intended, and only true love's kiss could break the spell.
One day, Rose walks into the forest and meets a young man named Phil. The two soon fall in love through a light hearted rap session, with Phil inviting her to his castle. When she tells the fairies about this, they take her back to King Stephen’s castle, only to realize that there was a massive misunderstanding regarding the true identity of the girl Phil had met. Before they could settle the arguments, Egoella bestows death upon Rose, leading to the entire kingdom to fall asleep to further protect her once more.
In an effort to keep Rose in her slumber, Egoella lures Phillip into her dungeon and lock him up. Soon after, the three fairies learn that Philip was the stranger Rose had met and rescue him from Egoella’s dungeon. With the four united, they defeat the wicked fairy through spit and combat. Philip then awakens Rose with true love’s kiss, breaking her spell and restoring her beauty. Everyone celebrates and they all live happily ever after.
Trivia[]
- The story within the story is a parody of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty and its original source material.
- The Three Little Kittens without Mittens are described to be part of the group of children listening to the story.