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From School Library Journal

May 1, 2023

Gr 7 Up-Maude's house, school, village, and country are completely steeped in magic-the harmless and mild witchcraft of her grandmother Nan, the thrilling and terrifying powers that led to her mother's imprisonment and death, the tricks and spells that keep her in the good graces of her daredevil friend Odette. Then, one day in her early adolescence, Maude's magical gifts disappear, prompting her only friend to reject and abandon her. A few years later, Odette runs away from home and vanishes herself, and Maude feels that she's the only one who can save her. Her search will lead her to a cursed and abandoned power plant and to the recesses of her own memories. Along the way, she will encounter imaginary playmates come to life, a prince imprisoned in an enchanted tower, the character of real friendship, and the truth about her mother, herself, and everyone that she loves. The search for Odette and for the truth at the heart of her world will lead Maude to question everything about her life-her school, her family, her past, and her future. In this girl-power quest narrative that draws heavily on Celtic folklore, Wilkinson juxtaposes themes of love and betrayal, trauma and healing, and corporate greed and collective resistance. VERDICT Full of vivid and poetic prose, this girl-power fantasy will win fans among lovers of magic in the natural world. Recommended for junior high and high school collections.-Kelly Kingrey-Edwards

Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

From Booklist

April 1, 2023
Grades 9-12 As children, Maude and Odette reveled in Maude's magic: raised by witches, she could easily weave tales of princesses and faraway places of whimsy. When Maude's magic dried up, Odette inexplicably cut ties with her, leaving Maude confused and heartbroken. Odette's fascination with magic leads to her disappearance, and the town believes her dead, but Maude sets off on a dangerous quest to uncover the truth. Through three-dimensional characters, Wilkinson explores what happens to brave heroes, lost princesses, and the lie of the "happily ever after." Maude is a timid character, resigned to never having a triumphant love story, and her journey to become the hero of her own story is satisfying. Maude's relationship with her magic and Odette, relayed through a series of flashbacks, sometimes makes the world and its rules surrounding magic difficult to understand, so the backdrop is not always as vividly rendered as it could be. However, readers who prefer stories with rich characters will effortlessly lose themselves in this ambitious, lyrical fairy tale.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

From Kirkus

February 15, 2023
When her childhood friend goes missing, Maude journeys to an enchanted place to search for her. As young girls, Maude and Odette were wild and inseparable. Maude spun fairy tales of captured princesses and the handsome princes who would save them, and she promised to always rescue Odette. In the years since, Odette continued to yearn for forbidden, illegal magic, the kind that led to Maude's mother's death. Since losing Mam, Maude has lived with Nan and Halmoni, her grandmothers. She tries to be good and nice but has never gotten over the fact that Odette abandoned her four years ago when Maude lost her magic. Now Odette is presumed dead, and Maude is determined to find her. She sets out for Sicklehurst, an abandoned power plant encased in a forgetting spell and full of dangerous magic and eerily familiar creatures. Maude has the gift of storytelling; so too does noted Australian author Wilkinson, who intricately weaves an original world full of magic and wonder that's both cozy and treacherous. The lush, atmospheric tale slowly builds, and readers are rewarded with surprising reveals and compelling insight into complicated friendships. The story takes the notion of a fairy tale's clear-cut good versus evil and turns it on its head, diving into the vast gray area in between. Most characters are assumed White; several characters, including Maude, are queer. A spellbinding, leisurely paced tale with a captivating, imperfect heroine. (Fantasy. 14-18)

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

From Publisher's Weekly

February 6, 2023
In the fictional country of Anglyon, magic has been tamed into cheap, government-approved products: glamours hide acne, and enchanted tea bags never oversteep. Though her ancestors were all powerful witches, and most people retain some innate abilities, 16-year-old Maude Jenkins's magic mysteriously dried up four years ago, leaving her with what she believes is an inconsequential gift for storytelling. But when her former best friend Odette goes missing while searching for forbidden magic near an abandoned power plant that only Maude seems to remember exists, Maude realizes that her stories might be prophecies. To pursue Odette, Maude pieces together the connections between the adventure tales she spun for Odette as children, the stories that Maude tells herself about her own banal life, and the ancient magical lore her mother used to share. Flashbacks to the teens' childhood, peppered throughout, reveal the convoluted history of their friendship, while a slow unraveling imparts sustained mystery and intrigue. Wilkinson offers plenty of tantalizing surprises in this tangled volume featuring complicated familial connections, dangerous secrets, and even more perilous obsessions. One of Maude's grandmothers cues as Korean; Odette reads as white. Ages 14â€"up. Agent: Katelyn Detweiler, Jill Grinberg Literary.

From Booklist

January 1, 2023
Grades 8-12 *Starred Review* "Why can't we have nice things?" asks McGhee in this adaption of her New York Times best-seller, also longlisted for the National Book Award. By "nice things," she means affordable health care, great public schools in every neighborhood, livable wages, and debt-free college education, and by "we," she means all Americans, regardless of class or race. To answer this question, the author traveled across the country to explore the racially divisive "us versus them," or "zero sum," logic driving the question. Poignant research and interviews reveal devastating examples, such as segregated swimming pools closed to entire communities rather than allowing Black swimmers, predatory mortgage lending, voter suppression, hospital closures, and denied Medicaid. While the initiative behind these calamities is often racially motivated, McGhee found that white people lost more benefits in the process. Short histories on the slavery system, the original Constitution, and other forms of racism give teen readers relevant background knowledge to understand the zero-sum hierarchies throughout. In her travels, the author also found hopeful accounts of "solidarity dividends," or gains made when people worked collectively across race. After challenging readers to rethink their understanding of race, she concludes with strategies on how communities can prosper together and aim for a solidarity dividend. A thought-provoking next read after Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped (2020).

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

From Kirkus

November 1, 2022
An emphatically all-American guide to the high cost of racism--with a hopeful path forward. In this condensed version of her 2021 adult original, South Side of Chicago native McGhee explores the toll racial injustice past and present takes on the life of every American. She compiles her work--half investigative journalism, half master class in sociopolitical research--in this accessible, abridged (but no less intellectual) volume. McGhee delves deeply into the zero-sum ideologies that are rooted in this nation's origin story and underpin how freedoms were first conceived in direct relation to the enslavement of Africans, convincing many White Americans that Black and brown suffering was requisite to White success. A wide array of first-person accounts framed by quantitative data and McGhee's own experiences as president of a noted research and advocacy think tank make for compelling storytelling about a tradition of White supremacy compromising all corners of public, private, and political life, from education to health care. The central argument of the book, however, is that our understanding of key social justice concepts is limited: We tend not to recognize that while racism is demonstrably and violently harmful to non-White people, it also results in White Americans' suffering in marked and measurable ways. McGhee challenges many strongly held narratives; ultimately, with its tangible takeaways, this offering is optimistically forward looking and grounded in solidarity. Of great value to anyone who values straight-to-the-point, thorough writing on race in America. (link to references) (Nonfiction. 13-18)

COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.