Dust City by Robert Paul Weston

Can you fight your destiny? Henry Whelp isn't sure. Everyone around his is expecting him to be a big, bad wolf. That's not who Henry is...or who he wants to be. Henry Whelp is the son of the Red Riding Killer - the wolf who committed one of the most horrific, violent murders of a girl and her grandmother in Dust City's history. His father is behind bars, and Henry is in a juvenile detention centre for violent incident. He's desperate not to be like his father. But when Henry's therapist dies in what looks like a staged suicide, Henry starts to learn more about what really happened with his father and the whole fairy dust conspiracy behind it. With the entire Dust City underworld out to get him, will he be able to find out the truth?

I enjoy stories that play with already established characters. One of the strengths of Dust City was that it didn't hit me over the head with "hey, look, that character is Cinderella!" Small hints were dropped, but woven into the bigger story. I liked Henry as a character and understood why the quest was so important to him, and there was a nice gritty realism in this magical, made-up world.

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Read it with:
Beastly by Alexandra Flinn
Zorgamazoo by Robert Paul Weston
What Really Happened to Humpty? by Jeanie Franz Ransom
Little Red Riding Hood by Jerry Pinkney