A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking
by T. Kingfisher
Rating: ★★★
isbn: 9781614505242
Publication Date: July 21, 2020
Pages: 309
Genre: Fiction, Middle Grade
Publisher: Argyll

Fourteen-year-old Mona isn't like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can't control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt's bakery making gingerbread men dance.

But Mona's life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona's city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona's worries...

This title flowed across my radar a while back, and I’ve seen a lot of other T. Kingfisher titles too, but this one is the title that kept standing out, so I thought I’d give it a go.

As the YA book it’s labelled as: meh. Maybe it’s me, but it isn’t all that dark and the voice is a bit juvenile for YA. I suspect my 13 year old niece wouldn’t have patience for it. But her younger sister, who’s 11, might love it. So as a middle grade level book, it’s probably not bad.

Mona was a bit whiney (again for the YA it’s labelled as), but I loved Bob the sourdough starter, and the gingerbread man. Neither of whom had any dialog, which might be a bit telling. But Kingfisher packs a lot of personality into these two without giving them a voice. The rest of the characters – the adults – all spoke to Mona as if she was 10 rather than the 14 she is, and yet she’s asked to save the kingdom single-handedly.

There is a very poignant scene at the end between a character named Molly Knacker and her skeleton horse; that scene stood out in what was on whole rather bland writing.

<img class=”alignleft wp-image-16083″ src=”https://www.secretreadingroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/monsters-300×300.jpg” alt=”” width=”110″ height=”110″ />I read this for Halloween Bingo 2022, although without any thought about what square it might fit. After some consideration, I’m going to use it for the Monsters square, and re-assign my original book, The Dark Place to Genre: Mystery. It would also fit Dem Bones, Gallows Humor, Genre: Supernatural, Spellbound, and Sword and Sorcery.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Haunted Houseful

Alfred Hitchcock's Haunted Houseful
by Alfred Hitchcock (editor)
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 0394812247
Publication Date: January 1, 1961
Pages: 208
Genre: Children's Fiction
Publisher: Random House

Nine short stories featuring haunted houses, by such notable authors as Elizabeth Coatsworth, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Mark Twain.

Yesterday was a bad day for my convalescence; It was a 38 degree day outside, and inside my discomfort was such that I couldn’t settle, leaving me hot, cranky, frustrated and staring at my ceiling and my TBR shelves (they’re next to my bed). My eyes landed on this book late afternoon; we had it on our shelves growing up, and I’d bought a copy sometime back after finding out my mom had given away our original copy. It felt like just the ticket for what ailed me.

It pretty much was. Short stories for middle schoolers that were well written but untaxing. The book’s description and foreward claim that each of the stories are about haunted houses and ghosts – they’re not. One is Conan-Doyle’s The Adventure of the Red-headed League and that has nothing spooky in it except a sentence or two near the end. There were only two stories that had actual ghosts; the rest were mysteries that involved spooky houses. Still it was an effective method of distraction and entertained me as well as anything written for pre-teens possibly could.

The Grandest Bookshop in the World

The Grandest Bookshop in the World
by Amelia Mellor
Rating: ★★★★★
isbn: 9781925972955
Publication Date: September 29, 2020
Pages: 302
Genre: Young Adult
Publisher: Affirm Press

Pearl and Vally Cole live in a bookshop. And not just any bookshop. In 1893, Cole’s Book Arcade in Melbourne is the grandest bookshop in the world, brimming with every curiosity imaginable. Each day brings fresh delights for the siblings: voice-changing sweets, talking parrots, a new story written just for them by their eccentric father.

When Pearl and Vally learn that Pa has risked the Arcade – and himself – in a shocking deal with the mysterious Obscurosmith, the siblings hatch a plan. Soon they are swept into a dangerous game with impossibly high stakes: defeat seven challenges by the stroke of midnight and both the Arcade and their father will be restored. But if they fail Pearl and Vally won’t just lose Pa – they’ll forget that he and the Arcade ever existed.

A friend told me about this book 6+ months ago, as a gift idea for my 10 year old niece, mentioning it was a story I’d enjoy too. I forgot about it until she reminded me back in October, so when, just a few weeks later, I saw it at one of my schools’ book fairs, I bought it for a Christmas present, thinking niece and I could read it together, since I’d be spending Christmas with her and her family.

Then, Christmas got cancelled and the book was packed up to ship up to her along with the rest of the presents. I figured I’d get to it one of these days.

Turns out I would; a package arrived at our house 5 days after Christmas, from an online bookseller, containing this book – I never ordered it and there’s NO information in the package about who sent it. Mysteries. The Good Kind.

Anyway, I got to read the book and oh, what an enchanting story it is. Firmly written for middle grade kids, but magical enough to capture this adult’s imagination. Two children, who live above the Grandest Bookstore in the World** have 28 hours to solve 7 challenges or else their beloved dad and their bookstore will cease to exist.

There are shades of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Jumanji, and on a deeper level Faust, but nothing ever too heavy for a 10 year old to handle. Everything is couched in adventure and the heavier theme behind the Faustian roots of the story are confronted honestly without dwelling on them. It really is a most wonderfully done story.

** Coles Book Arcade was a real place in Melbourne in the late 1800’s and it really was the Grandest Bookshop in the World. While all the parts the author uses in the book (the tea room, the lolly shop, the fernery, etc.) didn’t all exist at the same time, they did all exist. For those interested, I highly recommend this article from The Guardian, written by the author of this book, which you can find here.