By Soman Chainani
Two best friends are stolen away to a school that trains the heroes and villains of every fairy tale, and dropped into the exact opposite towers from where they belong.
Every four years, two children are taken from the village of Gavaldon and vanish into the School for Good and Evil, where fairy-tale princes and princesses are trained on one side and witches and villains on the other. Beautiful Sophie is certain she's destined for Good; gloomy, prickly Agatha just wants to go home. Then Sophie is dropped into the School for Evil and Agatha into the School for Good, and everything the two of them believed about who they really are gets turned upside down.
This is the longest, densest book on the shelf, and a natural stretch for a Land of Stories reader who wants to sink into a fat fantasy for a good long while. It plays a smart game with the whole idea of fairy tales, asking what if the pretty girl is the villain and the odd one out is the hero, then wraps the question in a boarding-school world your child can get thoroughly lost in. There's a real friendship at its heart, tested hard, which is what keeps the twists from feeling cold.