A Review of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

It didn't surprise me to see that the jacket quote on this book is from Neil Gaiman, who says, "A glorious balancing act between modernism and the Victorian fairy tale, done with heart and wisdom." After all, Valente's book reads like a cross between Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Gaiman's own Coraline. (Which is ironic, since Coraline has been compared to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. But structurally, Valente's book is really much more Alice-like than Coraline is.)

In case you weren't aware, Valente is the writer of dark, beautifully strange and successful adult fiction, most notably The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden and Palimpsest. She wrote this, her first children's book, in a series of crowd-funded online posts, reminding me of the way her Victorian predecessor, Charles Dickens, first wrote his books—as magazine serials. Then The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making got its due by winning a 2009 Andre Norton award. In a publishing story for the 21st century, the book contract followed.

The book itself is mostly not 21st century in tone, except for an overall stylistic cleanness and a subtle tongue-in cheek feel. Valente's ornate approach and her love of props like smoking jackets and velocipedes hark to the steampunk subgenre (or "mythpunk," as she has half-jokingly called her work). In any case, when young September runs away from the dullness of washing her mother's teacups and playing with her family's "small, amiable dog," she does so with a fine heartlessness that the author informs us is typical of children:

One ought not to judge her: All children are heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb tall trees and say shocking things and leap so very high that grown-up hearts flutter in terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one. But, as in their reading and arithmetic and drawing, different children proceed at different speeds. (It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.) Some small ones are terrible and fey, Utterly Heartless. Some are dear and sweet and Hardly Heartless at all. September stood very generally in the middle on the day the Green Wind took her, Somewhat Heartless, and Somewhat Grown.

Yep, there's an intrusive narrator commenting along the way. This technique sometimes backfires or is overdone, but here it feels completely of a piece with the rest of the Victoriana.

But on with our plot: A girl named September agrees to be taken to Fairyland by the Green Wind, a Harsh Air who rides the Leopard of Little Breezes. He issues various warnings, e.g., "Obviously, the eating or drinking of Fairy foodstuffs constitutes a binding contract to return at least once a year in accordance with seasonal myth cycles." None of this deters September, who is, after all, wearing an orange dress.

She liked anything orange: leaves; some moons; marigolds; chrysanthemums; cheese; pumpkin, both in pie and out; orange juice; marmalade. Orange is bright and demanding. You can't ignore orange things. She once saw an orange parrot in the pet store and had never wanted anything so much in her life. She would have named it Halloween and fed it butterscotch. Her mother said butterscotch would make a bird sick and, besides, the dog would certainly eat it up. September never spoke to the dog again—on principle.

Hmm, I'm only on page 6, and I keep finding things I want to quote you. This is a very good sign, though not a very good way to write a book review (I remark, in rather Valente-ish tones). Suffice it to say that September goes on to meet three witches, one of whom is a wairwolf and the husband of the other two. She agrees to retrieve a magic spoon for one of the witches, mostly because she wants a storybook-type quest. She next meets a wyvern with its wings chained who becomes a quest companion. But even as this author seems to do something ordinary when it comes to fantasy, she doesn't: The wyvern turns out to be the son of a wyvern and a library. His name is A-Through-L, though he lets September call him Ell.

September and Ell come across a golem made of various kinds of soap and nearly get eaten by Glashtyns while crossing the river. September does lose her shadow, bargaining for the life of a Pooka child who looks like a jackal cub. Then she reaches the capital, and rather than obtaining the magic spoon, she finds herself sent on a dire quest by the terrible Marquess, the dictator of Fairyland who at first glance looks like a little girl crowned in ringlets. September does manage to rescue a marid boy named Saturday on her way out of town.

Of course, the Marquess has given September a deadline, and the best way to cover a lot of ground fast is by lassoing a mount from a herd of migrating velocipedes. "Remember, they are fast and tall and vicious! Many have perished or, at least, been roundly dumped off and bruised in the attempt to travel by wild bicycle." These dangerous, magnificent beasts are one of Valente's best creations, as is the woman who regularly rides with the herd, Calpurnia Farthing.

September's adventures grow still more dangerous after she reaches the Autumn Provinces. I will give you one more passage as Valente's narrator introduces these lands:

I suppose you think you know what autumn looks like. Even if you live in the Los Angeles dreamed of by September's schoolmates, you have surely seen postcards and photographs of the kind of autumn I mean. The trees go all red and blazing orange and gold, and wood fires burn at night so that everything smells of crisp branches. The world rolls about delightedly in a heap of cider and candy and apples and pumpkins, and cold stars rush by through wispy, ragged clouds, past a moon like a bony knee. You have, no doubt, experienced a Halloween or two.

But, we learn, our autumns are nothing more than pale imitations of the richness of autumn in Fairyland. (Ahem: "a moon like a bony knee"? I am in awe of that metaphor!)

Only autumn is the harbinger of winter, and therefore of chilly death. Following a feast with some slightly unnerving spriggan scholars, September ventures into the woods to find what the Marquess has sent her for, a treasure in a glass casket. There September meets her own death, a small creature at first. Until it grows bigger.

That's a taste of what's in this book, but you'll find so much more. Valente's Fairyland is both beautiful and dangerous, a place where life and death rub shoulders more often than you might wish. September has blithely chosen the road to heartbreak, and she certainly has her heart wrenched a time or two in this story. There is a dark streak in the book, the reason I mentioned the Coraline comparison above. Valente seems very interested in the idea that "the dark and the light go together," as my mother likes to put it.

Make no mistake, blood is required in this book. But then there is a magic key that flies around trying to catch up with September throughout her journeys, and it is nothing less than a shining scrap of winged hope. Which makes September something of a Pandora, I think.

Some of the edgy touches that crop up in Valente's tale are presented tongue-in-cheek. For example, there's a running joke about how September misunderstands the clause about not eating fairy food. ("Witch food must be okay! And dragon food! And...") We learn, too, that human visitor September gets classified as Ravished, kind of like Persephone, rather than as a changeling or a child who has merely stumbled through a hidden gate (or wardrobe!). I suppose it's technically because the Green Wind is bit of a rogue and lures her away, though that's certainly the extent of it.

Speaking of ravished, what ravishes me literarily is freshness, or what I call the F Factor. A book that's pleasingly new in its style, voice, description, language, metaphors, plot, and/or characters makes me swoon every time—and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making qualifies on all counts.

Note: The book is illustrated by one of my favorite illustrators of all time, Ana Juan. And check out the very cool book trailer.

Note for Worried Parents: The book is a little dark, but it's no stronger than Coraline and is much more of a fantasy story than a horror one. Some mournfully deep/painful notes are sounded in spots; however, younger MG readers might miss that stuff altogether, to tell you the truth!

A Review of Petronella Saves Nearly Everyone by Dene Low

I have to thank Amy (RockinLibrarian) for recommending this one! The title completely grabbed me, and I felt compelled to get my hands on this Victorian-era farce, apparently the first in a series titled The Entomological Tales of Augustus T. Percival.

Petronella's come-out party is nearly ruined when her guardian, Uncle Augustus, swallows a strange beetle that gives him a compulsion to eat bugs. The party is further marred when two important guests go missing.

Now Petronella must solve both mysteries with the help of her dear friend Jane and Jane's handsome brother James, while trying to keep her uncle's new proclivities satisfied and a secret from Petronella's rude, greedy relatives, who would love to take over the guardianship and her late parents' fortune.

Dene Low's story is thoroughly giddy, or as Caroline Stevermer, author of Sorcery and Cecilia, puts it in a back cover quote, "Definitely frothy and categorically a romp."

I suppose I could have done without Petronella noticing James's muscles quite so often, but I decided that it was a running joke, a mockery of regency romance conventions. And really, Low doesn't let Petronella's interest in James slow her down one bit as our girl takes on any number of villains and difficult situations, including another kidnapping, this time of Jane. The word "intrepid" comes to mind, not to mention "plucky," when speaking of Petronella.

Along the way, Uncle Augustus cavorts delightfully, consuming numerous insects in a clever counterpoint to the rest of the plot. His new diet agrees with him so well that Petronella begins to wonder if she really should give her uncle the antidote, after all.

The kidnappings turn out to be related to political machinations in Panama relative to the building of the canal, and a lot of the strangeness can be attributed to insects from a remote island in that part of the world. In particular, we are repeatedly given an odd butterfly named the Tou-eh-mah-mah that becomes the villains' calling card.

There's such a farcically melodramatic tone here that at times I half-expected to hear an old-fashioned movie theater piano playing chase music and otherwise illuminating the plot. I was even reminded of Shakespeare's comedies as various characters ran here and there in multiple types of confusion.

Low takes liberal advantage of clichés in the pursuit of satire, giving us bumbling police inspectors and mustache-twirling villains along with some well-placed lines of dialogue. When she has James say solemnly, "There, I fear, is your motive. We are dealing with a tangled web of international intrigue," you can practically see the author grinning. Petronella's despicable aunts and cousins are another colorful addition to this tongue-in-cheek offering. And, considering the gentlemanly pursuit of scientific knowledge among well-to-do Victorians, Low's twist on Uncle August and his entomological studies is both bizarre and satisfying. I had a very good time following Petronella on her madcap journey, and I look forward to her further adventures in the next installment of The Entomological Tales of Augustus T. Percival.

A Review of The Agency: A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee

Earlier this week, I read the new book in Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls series, Only the Good Spy Young, about a girls' boarding school that trains young spies. (Carter's series is a lot of fun!) Turn back the clock to Victorian-era London and you'll find Miss Scrimshaw's Academy for Girls, which has a similar mission. There bright lower-class girls are taught to be proper maids and ladies' companions, little knowing that the best of them will be recruited to act as spies while they're at it.

Orphan Mary Quinn is headed to the gallows for stealing bread at the age of 12 when she is abruptly rescued by a woman posing as a prison matron. Four years of study later, she finds out the secret of Scrimshaw Academy when she is invited to become a spy. An adventurous soul at heart, Mary accepts the invitation—and her first mission.

Mary is sent to be a lady's companion to an unpleasant merchant's daughter named Angelica, but her true purpose is to spy on the household, since Mr. Therold is suspected of buying and selling stolen artifacts in the Far East, crimes that technically occur outside of Scotland Yard's jurisdiction.

Mary soon chaffs at the feeling that she isn't getting much spying done, although she has been assigned merely to assist the primary agent on the case, whose identity she does not know. She wonders why the invalid Mrs. Therold goes to the doctor every afternoon, deals with the difficult Angelica as best she can, and tries to decide why a family acquaintance, James Easton, appears to be spying on the family, as well. (Um, could he be the agent? Or is he up to something else?) Although Mrs. Therold is encouraging Angelica to win the heart of James's besotted older brother, George, Angelica seems to be more interested in James herself. For his part, James seems attracted to Mary. Of course, at first he merely acts suspicious and cranky towards Mary, as well he might, considering she dresses up as a boy and sneaks out in the middle of the night to search Mr. Therold's warehouse.

While the touch of romance is fun, A Spy in the House is really focused on the mystery of the stolen artifacts and Mary's efforts to solve it, efforts that quickly outpace the scope of her original assignment. Along the way, Mary also manages to help the prickly Angelica, who has troubles of her own. Lee does an interesting job of making readers hate Angelica early in the book, then come to feel sorry for her later on.

A visit to a Lascars' refuge (an old folks home for Asian sailors) not only has a bearing on the case, but turns up surprising information about Mary's own past. Then the bodies start to pile up, and James begins to worry about Mary's safety, which irritates her no end. The boy really should worry about his own safety, and hope that Mary will be around to rescue him!

Fun (and impressive!) fact: The author has a Ph.D. in Victorian literature and culture.

This fresh take on the spy genre promises us more adventures with its supertitle, "A Mary Quinn Mystery." The narrative moves along briskly, and the power of Mary's longing to make more of herself—her longing for a challenge, really—makes her a heroine worth caring about. I'll be watching for Book 2.

A Review of Mothstorm by Philip Reeve

I wonder if I can typeset the title of Philip Reeve's third book in this steampunk series correctly. Yes, it's Mothstorm: The Horror from Beyond Uranus Georgium Sidus. When your older sister is a proper Victorian lady—or likes to think she is—she will surely be unwilling to use the term “Uranus,” even if she is running the engineering room of your spaceship.

Reeve is probably best known as the author of The Hungry City Chronicles, a dystopian sci-fi series for teens in which Earth’s cities roll around on ginormous tractor feet devouring smaller cities. His more recent book, Here Lies Arthur, casts a cynical eye on Arthurian legend and is a Carnegie Medal winner.

Larklight: A Rousing Tale of Dauntless Pluck in the Farthest Reaches of Space, Starcross: A Stirring Adventure of Spies, Time Travel, and Curious Hats, and now Mothstorm, are positively rollicking in comparison to Reeve’s work for older readers. Reeve, surely one of today’s most innovative children's book writers, has imagined a world in which stoic British children ride spaceships and encounter B-movie aliens in the skies over Victorian England. (Mere matters like how to breathe are blithely set aside, just so you know.) Within this context, Reeve has a great deal of fun, throwing in icthyomorphs of the high aether (space fish) as well as pigheaded bureaucrats, old salts and helpful aliens of various kinds. There are a lot of muttonchop sideburns and elegant moustaches in these books—the latter so elegant, in fact, that the twirling ends of one such moustache are supported by small helium balloons. Which should give you an idea about the writer's sense of humor.

Reeve casually makes the children’s mother a Shaper, essentially a goddess. And while the setup is wonderful, the best thing about Mothstorm and its predecessors is those children, Art (Arthur) and his older sister, Myrtle. Art recounts most of their adventures, but occasionally throws in a chapter by his sister. So you get, for example, “Chapter Eighteen: In Which I, Miss Myrtle Evangeline Mumby, Shall Take Up the Reins of This Narrative, Since Art Was Too Affected by the Sad News I Brought from Mothstorm to Observe Anything Which Happened During Our Voyage to Mercury,” and then you come to “The Real Chapter Eighteen: Our Voyage to the Tin Moon, as Told by Art Mumby, with None of the Slushy Bits.” I should note that Myrtle is much inspired by Miss Whipham's A Young Lady's Primer, while Art draws courage from The Boys Own Journal. He explains at one point, "Remember, Charity, we are British, and there is nothing that good old British Pluck cannot accomplish!"

As in the first two books, the intrepid Jack Havock plays a part—think Indiana Jones, only a teenage boy with a somewhat begrudging crush on Myrtle. Most of Art’s dreaded “slushy bits” have to do with Jack and Myrtle’s romance, which is usually interrupted by a battle or the need to rescue people.

Mothstorm recounts the story of a mysterious cloud appearing out by Uranus (AKA Georgium Sidus). The two known colonizers of that planet, a missionary named Cruet and his daughter Charity, have sent a warning message and then lost contact with the rest of the British space empire. Art and his family soon set out to discover what has happened to the Cruets, and they find themselves at war with a new alien invasion, one specifically targeting their mother and her work.

Philip Reeve wraps up so many ongoing plot threads here that I can’t help wondering if the series is finished. We even get to meet Queen Victoria herself, although that stately woman nearly foils Art’s attempt to save the world while she is suspended upside down from her own Christmas tree. Which reminds me—I forgot to mention the holiday setting of this third book. A few pages into Mothstorm, you’ll know you’re in for a good time when Mr. Mumby whispers, “Thank Heaven you’ve arrived! A most vexing thing has happened. The Pudding has gone Rogue!”