The Fantastical Exploits of Gwendolyn Gray (Book 2), by B. A. Williamson (Jolly Fish Press)
I first had the pleasure of meeting Gwendolyn Gray in her Marvelous Adventures (of GG). I write
and mostly read YA and adult fantasy and science fiction, but I had recently
delved into reading Middle Grade. To my delight I found that literature for
this age group has all the adventure and self-discovery I love, plus a simplicity
and directness that adds depth and honesty. Yep, honesty. Kids this age are
hard, if not impossible, to fool when it comes to emotional truth. They’re old
enough to have attained a considerable degree of agency in their own lives, which
connects them with characters, but young enough to not yet be smothered in hormonal
angst. The best Middle Grade books trust
their young readers to figure out what’s going on and how they feel about it. I
love that! I should also add that no matter what the target audience, the most
powerful ideas are best communicated in simple, direct language. Nowhere is
that more true than in Middle Grade.
So, to Gwendolyn. When I first met her, she was a flame of
color and imagination in a city of unrelenting conformity. Specifically, she
lived in a City – the one and only City – where everything is gray and
monotonous, literally as well as chromatically, and where children and adults alike
spend the better part of their lives under the control of soporific lights
called “lambents.” What distinguishes Gwendolyn, besides her delicious name, is
her imagination, which is so vivid as to constitute a superpower. In that first
book, she battled the Faceless Mister Men, traveled across worlds with her
maybe-not-imaginary friends, Sparrow and Starling, rescues a snarky teenage
pirate king, saved the City from the vile Abscess, and destroyed the lambents.
Of course, the resulting good times cannot last,
and all
Gwendolyn’s achievements have only made matters worse. As she embarks upon her
new adventures, the Mister Men are closing in and matters go from bad to worse
until she’s been erased from the memories of everyone she cares about. She
flees the world of the City for the Library of All Wonder, gateway to every
world ever dreamt of, and ends up in the lands of the Fae, ruled by Titania and
Oberon. That Titania and Oberon,
straight out of “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” attended by a smart-ass, gender-switching
Puck and given to random quotes from Shakespeare. Titania and Oberon are, of
course, fairies of the most dangerous kind, and the bargains they strike are
more dangerous still. Here Gwendolyn aided by a Victorian “inventress,” who
turns out to be the creator of (among many other things), the Library of All
Wonder.
Gwendolyn’s Fantastical
Exploits are just as dramatic and entertaining as her Marvelous Adventures. Perhaps a bit more so, when she finds her own
story in the Library, and when she must reflect on how the things that make her
extraordinary have set her apart from her City and created a lingering sense of
unworthiness. For young people trying to figure out who they are in their own
world, and who they want to become, nothing could be more resonant.
Gwendolyn and her friends came along long after my own
children were grown up, but I hope we are never too “mature” for a rollicking
good story that leaves a sweet yet thoughtful afterglow long after the last
page is turned.
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