#BookReview: Middle-Grade Fantasy With Universal Appeal (and a Hedgehog)

 The Raven Throne, by Stephanie Burgis (Bloomsbury Children's Books)

My introduction to the marvelous fantasy novels of Stephanie Burgis was through her adult novels. I loved the combination of humor, romance, dramatic tension, and quirky, lovable characters. When I snatched up The Raven Throne, I failed to notice that (a) it is a MG novel; (b) it is a sequel. Nevertheless, I dove in, trusting that I was in good authorial hands. I was not disappointed.

Instead, the story picked me up and carried me away, with adolescent triplets struggling to balance their new lives in the royal court of Corvenne with their unique talents, their psychic bond to the land and its creatures, not to mention the dastardly schemes of the self-serving aristocrats they have supplanted.

Cordelia now occupies the Raven Throne, and she’s deeply bonded to the ancient, powerful Raven spirits. But at the opening of the story, she has fallen ill and slips into a coma that threatens not only her life but that of the land itself. Her triplet siblings, warrior Rosalind and musician Giles, are facing their own challenges from the courtiers who surround them, persuading them to behave like “proper” royals and to forsake their unique magical gifts. Their allies turn out to be a hedgehog and a red squirrel (thereby earning my loyalty, since those are my daughter’s favorite animals, besides wolves). I love how universal their plight is. What child has not felt pressure to “behave” and ignore what their intuition tells them—in other words, to become less and different from who they truly are? As an adult reader who has had my share of life experiences that tried to silence or mold me into conformity, my heart went out to these children. Bravo, hedgehog and squirrel, for helping them be themselves!

As the story progresses, there are more instances that struck me as universal choices, ones that Giles and Rosalind rise to with the courage of clear-sighted children. They make mistakes, trust the wrong people, and give in to flattery and false hope. But through it all, their quest to save their sister and all of Corvenne shines through as universal.

A true delight.

Short Book Reviews: Two Through-the-Magical-Door Adventures

Over the Woodward Wall, by A. Deborah Baker (Tordotcom)

Two children, one a conformist, the other a spontaneous adventurer, find themselves transported to a magical world of beauty and peril. Avery is conventional, precise, analytical. Zib is an elemental force of courage and chaos. When their separate, parallel routes to school are blocked by construction, they take a short cut over a wall and end up in the land of Up and Under, befriended by owls and a Crow Girl, who periodically disassembles herself into a murder of crows. Occasionally guided by a glittering Improbable Road, they embark upon a journey home. Other character, both sympathetic and sinister, form often dangerous alliances with the children.

The narrative style is often humorous, always witty, as if the third-person narrator were a character in itself. I suspect that Seanan McGuire, writing as A. Deborah Baker, had a hugely entertaining time writing the book, as the reader will have reading it. A fast, entertaining read.

 

Across the Green Grass Fields, by Seanan McGuire (Tordotcom)

At first I thought from the title that this was a sequel to Over the Woodward Wall (written as A. Deborah Baker), but Across the Green Grass Fields takes place in an entirely different world, with a new protagonist. The prose style is similar, as is the device of a door (or wall) through which children enter a magical world and their adventures there.

In this case, the child is Regan, whose abiding love in life is horses. Although growing up in a loving and supportive family, she’s insecure enough to seek the approval of a domineering, conformist girl. When she confides in her friend the newly disclosed information that she’s intersex (genetically XY but female in appearance, due to androgenic insensitivity syndrome, a neat bit of medical geekery¹), her friend reacts with bigoted cruelty. Regan then escapes (through a magical door, of course) to a land where the first creatures she encounters are unicorns (gorgeous but dumb as rocks) and centaurs (an all-female family that accepts her without question into their loving home).

Immersed in the Hooflands, buoyed by her love of horses and things-horselike (murderous kelpies, for example), Regan grows into a competent, confident adult without the difficult question of which gender camp she fits into. Of course, all is not well in the Hooflands, and various adventures ensue.

I applauded a biologically intersex hero, and the way sex versus gender is beautifully depicted. Even more, having been a horse-obsessed teen myself, I appreciated the empowering and healing nature of the human-equine relationship. I’d love to see more stories like this² – maybe McGuire will create them!

1.  https://isna.org/faq/conditions/ais/
2. Full disclosure: one of my children is a physician specializing in medical care for gender and sexual minorities.