A Review of The Mostly True Story of Jack by Kelly Barnhill

When Jack comes to a small country town, everything changes. All he knows is that he's going to spend the summer with Uncle Clive and Aunt Mabel, but his coming impacts the people in the little town even before he reaches the unusual purple house where his aunt and uncle live. Little Frankie, the boy with the scarred face and the missing voice, hears a sound of bells, and his sister Mabel smells something sweet and strange. Anders feels a humming and prickling in the summer grass beneath his feet. Even Clayton Avery, the town bully, gets an odd ringing in his ears. Here's how Anders responds to the sensation:

"So," he said out loud. The bees hummed, the ground hummed, even his bones and skin hummed and hummed. "So it's coming back. Now. Right?" He waited, as though someone might bother to answer: the growing corn, the tangled wood, the clear wide sky. Nothing did. Anyway, he was pretty sure the answer was yes.

As for Jack himself, it hasn't really occurred to him just how strange his own life is: the kids at school, bus drivers, even his own parents tend to forget about him. But the experience intensifies when his mother drops him off. Afterwards, he tries to call her or his father, but he can never get through. He writes a letter, but the words disappear from the paper before he can get to the mailbox as his uncle's two big cats watch him far too knowingly.

On the other hand, Jack makes friends for the first time, with Anders, Mabel, and (sort of) Frankie. But town bully Clayton Avery tries to beat him up, and Clayton's wealthy father apparently wants to kill Jack. Why?

Kelly Barnhill's new book is a fantasy, but it is also a mystery, its suspense building as we try to understand who Jack is and why he matters to so many different people. The other mystery is what happened to Frankie, who disappeared for a time and then was rescued by Jack's uncle. During the period when he was missing, people tended to forget he had ever existed. Other people have also disappeared and were forgotten, mostly children who vanished from the old schoolhouse.

Meanwhile, Mr. Avery assigns his smirking assistant Mr. Perkins to spy on Jack, and the man manages to get his hands on Jack's backpack, which contains something Uncle Clive has been trying to keep away from Avery.

And Jack is feeling awfully weird. For one thing, these vines keep crawling in his window. And the house itself seems to be paying attention to him.

All of it comes to a head when Mabel disappears and Jack knows he must find her. The truth about how Mr. Avery got his wealth and what happened to those children is about to come out—and it will give Jack the answers he's been looking for, too.

I suppose my only quibble with this book is that there's a certain amount of explaining required to clarify the situation at the root of everyone's troubles, and I'm not sure I was completely sold on the underlying concept. But that's what suspension of disbelief is for, after all. I do think the tale succeeds handily just the same, especially in light of the strong characterization.

Branhill's clear style, her well-drawn characters, and a sense of emotional nuance add to the success of her storytelling. Here's one more excerpt:

His glasses itched terribly under his nose, but when he tried to adjust them, he realized that he couldn't move his right arm. Or his left. Tendrils of grass and ivy slithered along his side. They twined around his ankles and wrists and held him tight.

"What's going on?" Jack squeaked, but a wave of moss covered his chest and a tangle of roots pulled him into darkness. "Help me!" he yelled, "Somebody help me!" And in that last second—when the sky above him was reduced to a spot the size of the head of a pin—only one thought remained:

Home.

For kids who like mysteries as well as fantasy, The Mostly True Story of Jack will be a captivating summer read.

Note: I received a review copy of the book from the publisher. The Mostly True Story of Jack will be available in bookstores on August 2.

The Loss of Diana Wynne Jones

I woke to the news that Diana Wynne Jones passed away night before last. (Thanks, Charlotte's Library.) Due to some random difficulties I will not get into, I will not be posting reviews this weekend, but I really must acknowledge such a tremendous loss to the world of children's literature in general and fantasy in particular.

Did you know that Diana Wynne Jones was a major influence on Megan Whalen Turner as well as Neil Gaiman? (Um, and on me?) She actually hooked Megan up with her editor at Greenwillow.

And yes, there's a reason Diana received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Association in 2007.

Diana's fantasy is known for its humor, its intricacy, and its creativity. Perhaps you're familiar with her book, Howl's Moving Castle, which was made into an animated feature film. And who else has ever used a conga line as a magic weapon, as in her adult fantasy novel, A Sudden Wild Magic?

Here is my detailed post about Diana Wynne Jones and her work, "The Queen of Children's Fantasy," from a year or so ago. See also my review of her book, Enchanted Glass, which was published last year.

Good-bye, Diana. You will be missed very much.

Note: Look for one last book, Earwig and the Witch (for younger readers), this fall.

Update: Two more links from Charlotte, an obituary in The Guardian and thoughts from Neil Gaiman. See also Amy's thoughts at Amy's Library of Rock.

Really good update: Judith of Misrule has compiled an extensive list of links to obituaries and musings on the great Diana Wynne Jones. Thank you, Judith!

4/13/11 update: We have a Diana Wynne Jones tribute post up at the Enchanted Inkpot. (Thanks, Grace Lin!) You can stop by and leave your own thoughts about Ms. Jones in the comments.

The New Fantasy for Kids

I just posted a panel discussion I'm leading over at the Enchanted Inkpot, a blog created by a group of children's and YA fantasy writers. This week's topic? "'New-Fashioned' Fantasy: What Does It Look Like?" We talk about current trends in fantasy for young readers, indicating how the genre has changed since the days of Tolkien, Lewis, and Barrie. Take a look!

The Queen of Children's Fantasy

Aha! You thought I was going to say J.K. Rowling, didn't you? J.K. Rowling is, rather, the queen of Harry Potter's world and also of England, the latter thanks to a bloodless coup in June 2006 (bloodless except for an accident involving one of the corgies). Diana Wynne Jones, though she does deign to reside in England, reigns over the world of children's fantasy. Terry Pratchett is not her royal consort, though it may seem like it at times. That would be Neil Gaiman.

Suffice it to say that if you haven't read any of DWJ's books, your life and your education are sadly lacking. The author's 2007 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement should slap your hand sufficiently to drive this point home. And yes, one of her books has been made into a movie: Howl's Moving Castle (2004), from respected Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki.

Diana Wynne Jones is famous for her fresh, convoluted plots and for the invention of a character called Chrestomanci. She is also known for skewering sword-and-sorcery conventions, e.g., in books like The Dark Lord of Derkholm, which postulates that all of the characters on a particular fantasy world are actors, performing their roles at the behest of a greedy corporate entity for the benefit of a group of tourists. Even better, perhaps, is the companion book, a wry encyclopedia of tropes called The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, which purports to be a tour guide (cover shown is from first edition). Here's a sample entry, one of my favorites:

STEW (the OMTs [official management terms] are thick and savoury, which translate as "viscous" and "dark brown") is the staple FOOD in Fantasyland, so be warned. You may shortly be longing passionately for omelette, steak, or baked beans, but none of these will be forthcoming, indoors or out. Stew will be what you are served to eat every single time. Given the disturbed nature of life in this land, where in CAMP you are likely to be attacked without warning...and in an INN prone to be the centre of a TAVERN BRAWL, Stew seems to be an odd choice as staple food, since, on a rough calculation, it takes forty times as long to prepare as steak. But it is clear the inhabitants have not yet discovered fast food. The exact recipe for Stew is of course a Management secret, but it is thought to contain meat of some kind and perhaps even vegetables. Do not expect a salad on the side.

Yet much as I love The Tough Guide, it is ultimately a book for grown-ups, and although Diana Wynne Jones's books are often funny, satire is too small a window through which to consider her work. Let's turn instead to her many marvelous books for children, beginning with the Chrestomanci titles.

Diana Wynne Jones envisions a series of parallel worlds related by differing causalities, or alternative outcomes of key events, and one of the worlds is our own. (Read about Hugh Everett and string theory for quantum mechanics-based thoughts on the concept.) In these worlds, magic is a commodity that is often misused by the criminal element. The most powerful enchanter in the related worlds, recognizable because he has nine lives, is appointed director and policeman over magic in all of the worlds. His title is Chrestomanci, and he can be summoned by repeating it three times in magical emergencies. (Click here for an A-Z Glossary of the Related Worlds as compiled by Helen Scott on the official DWJ website.)

The most important Chrestomanci books are The Lives of Christopher Chant and Charmed Life, which tell about the current Chrestomanci and his young successor, respectively. Christopher Chant is raised by a lovely, negligent society wife—or rather, by governesses. No one realizes for years that his powerful magic is constrained by the touch of silver. Meanwhile, he is walking the parallel worlds in what he thinks are dreams. As he is used by his avaricious uncle to smuggle illegal magical supplies, Christopher begins to lose his nine lives at an alarming rate. The tangle eventually gets untangled, but in the meantime, Christopher aids and abets a young runaway who happens to be the goddess of Asheth, along with her menace of a temple cat. To give you an idea of the kind of humor in Jones's books, the goddess wants nothing more than to be a British school girl, like the ones she reads about in a series of dippy books Christopher has brought her because she is bored.

In Charmed Life, Christopher is a grown-up now married to the Living Asheth, who has renamed herself Millie. He rambles about Chrestomanci Castle and indeed, the known worlds, in embroidered silk dressing gowns—of course, he does tend to be summoned unexpectedly to put out magical fires. The castle is partly a training ground for Chrestomanci's children and for his successor. When Cat (Eric) and Gwendolyn Chant are brought to live there, it takes the grown-ups a while to figure out that Gwendolyn is using her little brother's magic to fuel her own ambitions.

Another key book about Christopher Chant/Chrestomanci is Conrad's Fate, in which you can see the enchanter and Millie as teens. The rest of the books set in this series of worlds give us a Chrestomanci who simply makes cameo appearances, usually in the role of a rather tongue-in-cheek deus ex machina. But never fear, the young characters in these books do work out their own magic-related dilemmas. The Magicians of Caprona, The Pinhoe Egg, and Witch Week are also Chrestomanci books, and Jones has written four short stories involving her nine-lived enchanter, as well. Of these titles, I particularly like Witch Week, a tale that plays out in a world where witchcraft is forbidden. The setting is a school called Larwood House, and the book begins,

The note said: SOMEONE IN THIS CLASS IS A WITCH. It was written in capital letters in ordinary blue ballpoint, and it had appeared between two of the geography books Mr. Crossley was marking. Anyone could have written it. Mr. Crossley rubbed his ginger mustache unhappily. He looked out over the bowed heads of Class 6B and wondered what to do about it.

The world of Witch Week considers such a note to be more than a prank; it's an accusation. But Mr. Crossley hesitates to inform his boss, who will probably call in an Inquisitor, a man authorized to use torture to root out and destroy witchcraft. As the school is rocked by magical happenings, including flocks of birds flying through classrooms and the sudden disappearance of every shoe in the entire school, the students in Class 6B try to uncover the identity of the resident witch and save each other from the forthcoming attentions of the Inquisitor.

Of course, Diana Wynne Jones has written many books besides her Chrestomanci titles. The most well known is probably Howl's Moving Castle, a book I dearly loved even before Miyazaki made it into an animated film. In this world, fairy tale rules tend to apply, so as the eldest of three sisters, Sophie knows she is destined to fail if she sets out to seek her fortune. But even working quietly in a hat shop, Sophie manages to offend the Witch of the Waste, getting herself turned into an elderly woman for her troubles. Deciding she has nothing to lose, Sophie hobbles out into the world, where she encounters a floating, traveling castle belonging to the wizard Howl and moves in, looking for adventure as well as answers. Howl is vain and moody, but he has met his match in practical, cantankerous Sophie. Pretty soon the two of them overcome their differences to deal with the growing threat of the Witch of the Waste, not to mention the problem of the fire demon who powers Howl's castle. Jones has written a couple of sequels to Howl's Moving Castle—Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways, the latter being her most recent book (2008).

Most of the author's stories are rambunctious and sometimes mysterious adventures, but one of her very best books is quieter and often poignant. Dogsbody tells about a girl who is being raised by her aunt and uncle after she is orphaned. The story is told from the point of view of a puppy named Sirius, who gradually becomes aware of how badly Kathleen is treated in the household, especially by her aunt. Yet Sirius has his own enemies and his own past. He is no mere puppy, but the dog star himself in exile, falsely convicted of a crime he did not commit. As allies and enemies converge, both Sirius and Kathleen fight to claim their selves and their futures. Dogsbody is astoundingly unique, well crafted, and in fact, just plain lovely.

Diana Wynne Jones has a knack for mixing ordinary life and magic that reminds me of Joan Aiken's work (e.g., the recently published collection of Armitage stories, The Serial Garden). Other than Aiken, I don't think anyone besides Jones has ever achieved the blend quite so beautifully—or with plots that escalate quite so madly. For example, consider Archer's Goon, another DWJ book I like very much. It begins:

The trouble started the day Howard came home from school to find the Goon sitting in the kitchen. It was Fifi who called him the Goon. Fifi was a student who lived in their house and got them tea when their parents were out. When Howard pushed Awful into the kitchen and slammed the door after them both, the first person he saw was Fifi, sitting on the edge of a chair, fidgeting nervously with her striped scarf and her striped leg warmers.
"Thank goodness you've come at last!" Fifi said. "We seem to have somebody's Goon. Look."
Howard looked the way Fifi's chin jerked and saw the Goon sitting in a chair by the dresser. He was filling most of the rest of the kitchen with long legs and huge boots. It was a knack the Goon had. The Goon's head was very small, and his feet were enormous. Howard's eyes traveled up a yard or so of tight faded jeans, jerked to a stop for a second at the knife with which the Goon was cleaning the dirty nails of his vast hands, and then traveled on over an old leather jacket to the little, round fair head in the distance. The little face looked half-daft.

Howard discovers that his father has been writing two thousand words of nonsense and sending them to Town Hall every month for some inexplicable reason. This month, the pages are missing. Howard gradually learns that there is more than one person trying to get their hands on the pages, and that each of these individuals is a kind of sorcerer who "farms" part of the city arrogantly and sometimes criminally. The mystery takes still more twists and turns before Howard learns the complete truth, and all along the way, the Goon looms just over his shoulder.

Aside from many wonderful standalone titles and several story collections, one other group of books is worth mentioning: the Dalemark Quartet. Here Jones delves into more serious and traditional fantasy. Dalemark is split between the freedom-loving earls of the North and the tyrannical earls of the South, so war often breaks out between the two sections of the land. I am especially fond of the first book, Cart and Cwidder, which begins with the murder of a musician who has been driving around the countryside with his children, putting on performances. But there was more to Clennen than meets the eye, and his children discover they must carry out his last mission while evading the reach of the ruthless earls of the South. Like many of Jones' books, this is a good example of the way the author draws a realistic picture of the bickering and support between siblings even as her plot takes us on an adventure colored by magic.

I will mention that Eight Days of Luke draws on Norse mythology, and that The Ogre Downstairs unites a quarrelsome group of newly minted stepsiblings when the kids are given magical chemistry sets and start getting themselves into trouble—there's a whiff of Edward Eager in that one. The Magicians of Caprona features two warring magical houses reminiscent of the Montagues and the Capulets. The Homeward Bounders works with the idea of parallel worlds in a more ominous way than the Chrestomanci titles do, creating a solitary and iconic young hero by book's end. Note that both Hexwood and Fire and Hemlock are Young Adult books, with a more mature sensibility. (I also recommend DWJ's adult fantasy, A Sudden Wild Magic, which has one of the funniest resolutions I've ever read in my life.)

Other notable books include The Merlin Conspiracy, A Tale of Time City, Wild Robert, Power of Three, Aunt Maria (U.S. title), The Time of the Ghost, and The Game, along with short stories in the author's own collections and other anthologies. I especially like "Chair Person" from Stopping for a Spell and "What the Cat Told Me" from Unexpected Magic.

Diana Wynne Jones had a strange childhood, which might explain in part how she turned out to be such an interesting person. You can read a brief but fascinating autobiography on her website, but I'll just quote from an interview on BookBrowse here:

I started writing children's books when we moved to a village in Essex where there were almost no books. The main activities there were hand-weaving, hand-making pottery, and singing madrigals, for none of which I had either taste or talent. So, in intervals between trying to haunt the church and sitting on roofs hoping to learn to fly, I wrote enormous epic adventure stories which I read to my sisters instead of the real books we did not have. This writing was stopped, though, when it was decided I must be coached to go to University. A local philosopher was engaged to teach me Greek and philosophy in exchange for a dollhouse (my family never did things normally), and I eventually got a place at Oxford.
At this stage, despite attending lectures by J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, I did not expect to be writing fantasy. But that was what I started to write when I was married and had children of my own.

As a children's fantasy writer, I am sometimes asked who my influences are. Since I suspect interviewers don't want to hear a list of a hundred-plus books, I reluctantly narrow it down. And yes, Diana Wynne Jones is on my shortlist, more than anything because her work reminds me to use my own imagination boldly.

You may rejoice to hear that the latest DWJ drought is almost over: the author has a book called Enchanted Glass coming out in April 2010. Her website says of the book, "A stand-alone book, not part of any series, there are the expected magicians, but it also includes giant vegetables, revenge by cauliflower cheese (?!) and fortune-telling using racing tips." So yes, rest assured—Diana Wynne Jones is as unusual and funny a thinker and writer as ever.

I will end with one more quote from the author, also from the BookBrowse interview. The interviewer asked Ms. Jones if she prefers writing for children or adults, and what the differences are. The author replied, "Writing for adults, you have to keep reminding them of what is going on. The poor things have given up using their brains when they read. Children you only have to tell things to once."

To learn more about Diana Wynne Jones, visit her website, or click here to read an excellent Publishers Weekly interview from June 2006. See either her website or this nice Wikipedia article for a list of the author's books and short stories.

Note: I was inspired to write this post because I am hosting a book club discussion of The Lives of Christopher Chant on the Enchanted Inkpot fantasy blog tomorrow. You are welcome to join us.

Update: Read this lovely article about Diana Wynne Jones and her books at Under the Green Willow (July 2010).

A Review of Any Which Wall by Laurel Snyder

Laurel Snyder prefaces her new book with a quotation from one of Edward Eager’s books, Seven Day Magic: “‘The best kind of magic book,’ Barnaby was saying, ‘is the kind where the magic has rules. And you have to deal with it and thwart it before it thwarts you. Only sometimes you forget and get thwarted.’” Any Which Wall is more than just an homage to Edward Eager, it’s a welcome update of Eager’s approach to fantasy.

Snyder does retain the wholesomeness and old-fashioned good cheer of Eager’s books, reminding me a little of writers like Jeanne Birdsall (The Penderwicks) and Eva Ibbotsen (Dial-a-Ghost). We live in an era when young characters on TV and in books don’t always sound like children. Here’s how I explained it in a review of Derek Landy’s book Skulduggery Pleasant on Amazon: “After an early interlude in which main kid Stephanie seems like a relatively normal child, we discover that the rest of the book is written in that dialect known as Banter, herein practiced by a preternaturally adult child character having snippy-snappy conversations with a childish adult character (Skulduggery).” I am happy to report that Any Which Wall is really the best of the old and the new—not one bit of banter, just nice kids having adventures. Furthermore, the adventures don’t involve becoming instant martial arts experts heralded by prophecy on distant worlds in order to defeat the vast forces of evil. They’re ordinary enough that readers can relate to them, yet still extraordinary enough to surprise.

In a post a few months ago, I pointed out that most fantasy requires that parents turn a blind eye on their kids’ adventures or are absent in some way, since the kind of everyday protection that the majority of parents practice would keep children from having the adventures at all. A recent Horn Book article made a similar statement, explaining wryly why mothers are often missing or dead in children’s books. (The issue is lost beneath stacks of books in my office, but as I recall, the marvelous title was something like “Why Mom Is a Buzzkill.”) Laurel Snyder—like Eager before her—creates adventures that can happen without requiring an added layer of suspension of disbelief or the wholesale removal of parents. The author does this knowingly and with good humor. She explains in her introductory note:

Some magic...is loud and full of dragons. But that magic is rare, generally reserved for scrappy orphans and misplaced princes. Some magic is mysterious, beginning with the somber tolling of a clock at midnight in the darkest corners of a graveyard. However, that magic is unlikely to include you if you don’t visit cemeteries late at night (which I don’t think you’re supposed to do). There is also magic especially for very tiny children, full of kindly rabbits and friendly old ladies with comfortable laps. It smells like sugar cookies and takes place mostly in gardens or bedrooms the pale colors of spring. But you outgrow it about the time you learn to read.

So perhaps the very best magic is the kind of magic that happens to kids just like you...when they’re paying careful attention. It’s the most common magic there is, which is why (sensibly) it’s called Common Magic.... Common Magic happens to kids who have curious friends, busy parents, and vivid imaginations, and it frequently takes place during summer vacations or on rainy weekends when you aren’t allowed to leave the house. Most important, it always starts with something that seems ordinary.

Two sets of siblings, Henry and Emma and their neighbors Roy and Susan, are pedaling their bikes through a cornfield one summer afternoon when they come across a strange wall. Pretty soon they figure out that the wall is magic, and then they have to work out the rules of that magic. After a few experiments and mishaps, the foursome journeys farther afield, encountering wizards, pirates, outlaws, and even New Yorkers in a series of adventures. As the quote from Seven Day Magic suggests, they don’t always get it quite right, but they do end up having a wonderful time.

I really love that Laurel Snyder chose a wall as a means of making magic—it’s unique and fresh, ordinary and amusing, the perfect example of Common Magic as she defines it. What’s more, the children come up with satisfyingly clever ways of using this particular magic to suit their purposes, even in the most difficult situations.

By the way, the queen Emma meets in a long-ago castle? She’s truly scary in a single brief scene, reminding me that Laurel Snyder is also the author of a deliberately creepy picture book, Inside the Slidy Diner. I also like how six-year-old Emma is allowed to shine in the castle episode.

Leuyen Pham’s illustrations for Any Which Wall are just right. Like the text, they successfully walk the line between old-fashioned and contemporary.

The only distracting thing in the whole book is that one of the characters Learns a Lesson, but the lesson is pretty painless. How many readers are going to argue with a message when it’s basically, “Lighten up and you’ll have more fun”? In addition, the author is a rather chatty presence, no more so than in “A Brief Note on the True Nature of (Fun and) Disaster,” a short chapter late in the book. In some books this technique works, in some books it doesn’t. My own feeling is that Any Which Wall is a breezy, summery book, and the author’s voice is correspondingly cheery and informal, so the occasional remark from her flows fairly well with the rest of the storytelling.

Snyder’s humor is one of the strengths of this book. Perhaps my favorite moment is when the kids have had two days’ worth of magic-related adventures involving ice cream and movies, and then Roy and Susan’s father offers to take the four of them to the movies and out for ice cream. On top of “been there, done that,” the children are on the verge of sneaking off for another magical experiment, so they are a little put out, to Mr. Levy’s astonishment. Begrudgingly, the group manages to enjoy themselves just the same:

Although nobody was exactly over the moon at the thought of another afternoon without magic, when they saw that there was a good movie starting at just the right time (a swashbuckling adventure about a pirate princess), it wasn’t so terrible, and they did manage to eat a large banana split with extra marshmallow sauce, for Mr. Levy’s sake. It was very gracious of them.

I hope that Henry, Emma, Roy, and Susan will be back with further adventures, as a certain wizard implies near the end of the book. I can honestly say that Any Which Wall is better than a large banana split with extra marshmallow sauce, even if, unlike these kids, you have not had a banana split just yesterday.

A Review of Fortune’s Folly by Deva Fagan

My favorite character in this book is Fate—or perhaps Dame Fortune, as the title would imply. In a near-Shakespearian convolution, author Deva Fagan has her main character, Nata (short for Fortunata) make a prophecy, then scramble to bring the prophecy to pass, thinking guiltily all the while that she is a cheat and a fake. But Nata’s father—and the reader—will be inclined to believe that the fortune Nata tells is true, and that her desperate efforts are part and parcel of Fate’s plans for the girl.

Nata’s adventures begin while she is trying to sell some of her father the shoemaker’s hideous shoes. Ever since her mother died, he has been incapable of making the once-glorious shoes he was known for. (There’s a nod to the story of “The Elves and the Shoemaker” in this part of the narrative, the first of several fairy tale allusions.) Nata tangles with the diabolical Captain Niccolo, winning in the short term but losing in the long term. She concludes that she had better leave the city before the man exacts some kind of revenge against her. And indeed, we haven’t seen the last of Captain Niccolo.

While on the road, Nata and her father fall into the clutches of another villain, a traveling con artist and player named Ubaldo who brazenly steals Nata’s donkey and forces her to work for him. Unfortunately, Nata’s father is ill, so she goes along with Ubaldo’s injustice in order to protect him. She also befriends Ubaldo’s fortune-teller, Allessandra, who offers to teach the girl her trade.

A third villain is yet to be encountered—or rather, villainess. After Allessandra escapes, Ubaldo forces Nata to tell fortunes for him. When they reach Domo, he brings Nata to the queen, who is searching for a true fortune-teller to create a royal prophecy and quest for her son, Prince Leonato. But the queen’s sister Donata is manipulating events so that the prince will fail and she can take control of the kingdom. Soon Nata and handsome stutterer Leonato are launched on a quest involving a sword in a stone, a missing jeweled slipper, the defeat of a witch, and the rescue of a princess of Sirenza. Of course, most of these tasks are nearly impossible, and the prince’s aunt is working to assure that he fails no matter what. If he does fail, Nata’s father will be executed.

I liked watching Nata’s behind-the-scenes attempts to ensure the prince’s success. Since he seemed to be falling in love with her, I was especially curious to find out how she could turn into a princess of Sirenza—especially after a fair-haired princess who appeared to be the real deal was discovered languishing in a tower.

At first glance, it might seem that the author of Fortune’s Folly is telling us we are at the mercy of our fates. In light of Nata’s hard work, however, it seems more likely Fagan is suggesting that our best efforts will make our fates. This is a very fun story, not to mention an auspicious beginning for Deva Fagan’s career as a children’s fantasy writer. I do recommend you join Nata on her journey. Then the next time you order Chinese food and read the little fortune inside, you can decide if you want to invest yourself in the hard work of making it come true.

Note for Worried Parents: Ubaldo and his virtual enslavement of Allessandra and Nata are a little scary. For most kids, it’ll be like a lot of what they see on TV, but if your child is on the young end of the book’s 9- to 12-year-old range or is easily spooked, you might want to wait a year or two for this one.