Briar Rose by Jane Yolen, 1992

Briar Rose by Jane Yolen (of the series of picture books How Do Dinosaurs...) is not a happy book. Unlike many YA retold fairy tales, this story is set in modern times. It is the story of a young woman, Becca, seeking information about her deceased grandmother who insisted that she was a princess--that she, in fact, was Briar Rose. Becca's search leads her to Oswego, the site of a WWII refugee camp, and then to Poland where she dives into disturbing Holocaust history that strangely parallels the story of Briar Rose. Although the parallels are interesting, the characters are somewhat flat, and the ending of the book is graphic in both violence and homosexuality. Not recommended.