Common Sense Media Review
By Mary Eisenhart
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Tale of Disney villains' kids has cliché plot, characters.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 10+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
Parent and Kid Reviews
Based on 4 parent reviews
Based on 12 kid reviews
Kids say this book offers a blend of dark adventure and character development, particularly focusing on relationships between the villains' kids while providing intriguing background stories. While some readers find it cliché or poorly written compared to other fantasy tales, many enjoy its fun, engaging narrative and recommend it for younger audiences who can handle its more mature themes.
- dark adventure
- character development
- fun narrative
- mixed reviews
- suitable for kids
Summarized with AI
Summarized with AI
What's the Story?
On the ISLE OF THE LOST, where every villain of every Disney cartoon ever made lives in disgruntled, magic-free exile, mean girl Mal (daughter of Maleficent), beauty-obsessed Evie (daughter of the Evil Queen in Snow White), thieving Jay (son of Jafar from Aladdin), and nerdy Carlos (son of Cruella de Vil) embark on a quest to find Maleficent's scepter -- not because they're friends but because one of them's bullied into going along, and the others tend to have ulterior motives that involve harming one kid or another. Meanwhile, in the kingdom of Auradon, the villains are gone but, as Prince Ben, son of Beauty and the Beast, discovers, there's trouble in paradise.
Is It Any Good?
Spin-offs of classic tales are as old as the hills, and lots of them are great; this one, however, reads like a glib, cynical effort to wring a few more bucks out of venerable Disney properties. Gothic/YA author Melissa de la Cruz seems to have been given the thankless task of bringing to life a raft of characters who are essentially ciphers, with clumsy, broad-brush results that leave you with little reason to care about them or their issues:
"Evie was torn. On the one hand, she knew she should stay away from Mal if she wanted to be safe, but on the other, she never got to hang out with kids her age.
"Evil Queen nodded. 'Sure! I'll see you at home, sweetie.' As she left, she mouthed, 'Reapply your lip gloss!'"
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about spin-off stories Do you like them, or do you think once is enough for a set of characters?
Do you know any kids whose parents seem like kind of awful people, but the kids are nice? What kinds of difficulties does this cause?
Pick a Disney villain not in this book and create a character who's his or her child. What's the kid like? Would you be friends with him or her?
Book Details
- Author :
- Genre : Fantasy
- Topics : Fantasy ( Magic , Fairy Tales ) , Adventures , Book Characters
- Book type : Fiction
- Publisher : Disney-Hyperion
- Publication date : May 5, 2015
- Number of pages : 320
- Available on : Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, Apple Books, Kindle
- Last updated : October 9, 2025
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