This is the first book in a trilogy.
Book 2: The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There
Book 3: The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two
This is a book for people who love words and worlds. The Fairyland that Valente has conceived is beyond intricate, I can only think of Carroll’s Wonderland as a comparison point. They both feature odd creatures and powerful capricious Queens and a host of rules that are complicated and difficult to follow. Unlike Alice, twelve year old September does not fall down a rabbit hole. Rather she climbs over her sink (losing a shoe in the process) to join the Green Wind who has come explicitly for her. She is admitted to Fairyland without papers because the Green Wind indicates that he has taken her for the purpose of Ravishing (this is not expounded upon, thank goodness).
Once there, September finds a quest for herself (retrieving a witch’s stolen spoon from the Marquess), a friend in the form of a Wyvern and heads off for the capital of Pandemonium. She meets the fearsome Marquess and then must begin yet another journey and then of course, terrible things befall her along the way. But there is much magic and there are friends and magical creatures who help, so it is not all sadness and difficulty.
I found this to be a terribly difficult book. In fact, I couldn’t concentrate on it unless I had absolute quiet. The world-building was very complex, with an amazing number of magical creatures: djinni, Marid, Wyvern, wairwulf, spriggans, brownies, hamadryads, Jarlhopp, nasnas, goblins, Harpies, pooka, Tsukumogami and many others. All apologies that some of the links go to wikipedia. Some of these creatures have long established roles in folklore that Valente is drawing on while others function similarly but with her own twist. At times the story includes other reference likely to go right over the heads of younger readers, such as mentions of Excalibur and Durendal and information that children get to fairyland by mushroom ring, tornado, wardrobes of winter coats and gaps in the hedgerows (making reference to other literature).
There is some terribly complicated stuff in here about fathers leaving and people making up stories to explain the loss and about the Marquess stealing a spoon vs. the government coming and taking September’s father away to war. There are also asides to September herself which will be hard for the reader to process.
The vocabulary is very, very difficult. I written down examples, some of which I wasn’t 100% sure of myself as well as many that I thought were way above the general vocabulary level of anyone not in high school; “widdershins, perish, hamadryads, spriggans, smelted, brambly, autumnal acquisition, tesseract, paisley cravat, verbiage, exeunt, purview, wastrels, perverse and perilous, thaumaturgists, puissant, paladins, jacquard, bureaucracy, ledger, dilettante, beneficence, magnanimousness, comestibles, morbidity, metamorphosis, indirect dative, cotillion, primordial, ”
Age Recommendation:
Despite its degree of difficulty, the plot seems more aimed at younger readers making this a pick more for very advanced middle grades readers and some tweens than teens. It would also work as a bedtime read aloud for children that may feel they’re a bit old for that sort of thing. I would say 4-6 graders reading above grade level would be able to tackle this. I do believe there is enjoyment to be had from this even if you don’t pick up all the nuance and reference, but for thorough comprehension it will take very strong readers.
Good for:
As Valente herself intimates, this is really a book for lovers of magical worlds and would work for lovers of Alice in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz (keeping in mind that I read the former more than 25 years ago and the later, never) rather than children looking for stories about fairies.
Please excuse my use of the word “people” and “person” below when in fact I am referring to all manner of magical, not quite human creatures. I simply can differentiate them or enumerate them all for you. Besides for the purposes of my write up, they might as well be the same.
Sex, Nudity, Dating – Latitude and Longitude kiss. A girl’s cheek is kissed. There’s mention of her having been ravished although I don’t believe she has been. A girl chooses a path that tells her she will lose her heart. Two witches are married to the same person. A wairwulf kisses September’s cheek. September tells a story about a girl whose father ran off with another lady and the girl’s mother sometimes tells her that she didn’t have a father. A Wyvern insists his mother “mated” with a library and was not abandoned by “some brute bull”. Wyvern mating seasons are brief and infrequent. September doesn’t want to be naked in front of anyone but she does take off her clothes in order to bathe. September has known older girls who dream of going to cities and marrying well. There are men with horses heads who are naked. Witches predict a couple will be unfaithful during marriage. There’s a type of creature who looks for its mate once its children appear and then she looks for a mate that looks like them. There’s a chance a panther will eat some characters. Some bicycles (velos) feel a mating drive. They mate then die. A Marid kisses a woman’s hand in a courtly manner. Some velos nuzzle each others handlebars and are in a rush to get home (presumably, although it is not stated, to mate). September takes off her dress and sails naked. Evidently the inanimate object in our home become alive when they reach 100 and have unhappy love affairs. A woman marries and finds she is with child.
Profanity – None.
Death, Violence and Gore – A leopard bites. A girl is warned that if she breaks the rules she may be executed. You cannot bring bullets, knives or maces to fairyland because iron is not permitted. A rule of entering fairyland is that there must be blood so a girl pricks her finger. The Green Wind threatens to thrash someone. The Marquess killed witches, hunting them with a bow. Someone perished in a spectacular display of Science (industrial chemicals). September suggests someone be squashed or roasted. A Pooka is worried she’ll be eaten and drowned. September bleeds and feels much pain when her shadow is cut from her. Witches predict a man’s early death. People are chased with a whip. A picture shows a woman with a hunter’s bow. September asks the Marquess why she killed certain people. The Marquess threatens to have a creature rendered into glue and perfume. The Marquess threatens to have someone’s head on a thorn in her garden if she is not obeyed. A creature can only grant wishes when it is defeated in battle and hurt nearly to death. Some bicycles (velos) feel the dying drive. It is suggested that the velos will go faster if they are whipped. There’s a story about a boy who is betrayed by his bothers who cut him all up but he drank the water of Death and was fine. September talks with Death. Death takes off its skin and bones. Saturday is snatched up in a lion’s jaws and bleeds. Another lion slashes Ell across the face leaving a long gash and poisoning him. In a dream, September holds something that is smeared in her friend’s blood. In order to have bait for a fish, September cuts her own thumb and uses her blood to bait a hook. She does succeed in catching a fish and talks to it a bit explaining how much she doesn’t want to kill it and then she has to bludgeon it to death and gut it and pull its “organ parts out” and then eat it raw pulling the flesh from the bones. September is attacked, scalded and cut and dropped into a hole by those who have been ordered to kill her. She bleeds and has broken a leg. September slaps someone across the face. Another character is shot with an arrow. A girl is thrashed by her father until she tastes blood in her mouth. A character threatens to throttle some other characters and then let someone eat them. A pair of character have a terrible fight, they hit each other and end up bloody. There is biting involved.
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – Parents are angry if they find their child has been to the local pub. In Fairyland fennel beer is consumed. A woman chews on a cigarette that smells at least partly of rum. Wyverns drink wine. Lime liquor is brewing. Djinni drink lightening beer. A woman offers a child a puff of her pipe. A child drinks hazelnut beer. Death drinks red wine. A man drinks brandy and then gives some to a child. A girl’s father used almost all their money on alcohol.
Frightening or Intense Things – Young boys and girls are taken from home, both real human children and some of the children of Fairyland creatures. A girl is a changeling, which is what happens when a fairy steals a human child (she was the human) and leaves a fairy in its place. She remembers her old family, but assumes she must have been sad. The scene with Death is reasonably creepy and death does a lot of talking about how she’s small when she’s far from you but large up close. September starts to turn into a tree or somethings similar, losing her hair, her fingers turning to twigs, etc. There’s a mention of fairies stealing souls.
