Fairy Tale Detectives

A much-loved YA series comes alive in animation for The Sisters Grimm

- WORDS: TARA BENNETT

IN THE EARLY 2000S, MICHAEL Buckley was working intermittently in television when he came up with the idea for an animated series about two orphaned sisters named Sabrina and Daphne Grimm.

Descendants of the Brothers Grimm, after their parents disappear, the sisters discover from their grandmother Relda that they’re destined to manage magical beings known as Everafters. While television execs liked the premise, no one bought the idea, so Buckley ended up selling it as a book. The Fairy-Tale Detectives, published in 2005, was the first in what would become nine hugely successful books in YA series The Sisters Grimm.

Gen Z kids ate up Buckley’s clever mysteries, but the author tells Red Alert that getting the books adapted wasn’t easy. Buckley chuckles.

"I got people saying, "Could you put vampires in it?' when Twilight was really big. Then someone said, 'Could you make them into boys?' I was like, 'You don't even get the title. We've got a real problem.""

It wasn’t until 2023, when producer Theresa Park introduced Buckley to Apple TV+ and showrunner Amy Higgins, that the right adaptation alchemy finally clicked.