See article for full list and more than the three pictured winners.

Never have I read a book that so succinctly turns every trope on it's head. I absolutely loved it!

The story is put together fantastically. Each character is amazing in their own right. No one does quite what I expect, even when I thought I had a handle on the way the story was breaking the rules. The family that Luna, Xan, Glerk, and Fyrian make is just adorable. All the people in the Protectorate are dealing with their own issues and making their way through life in ways that are not entirely opposite the norm that I would expectn or entirely the norm either. There's a part of me that feels like it's the way all the old stories should have been written, so that everyone has a little agenda and not all converge nor diverge. History isn't that neat and stories shouldn't be either. At the same time, it was loads of fun to watch the way these characters were like characters we were already a bit familiar with.

Basically, Barnhill did a fantastic job of "making familiar things new and new things familiar" as are the two great powers of a writer according to William Makepeace Thackery or Samuel Johnson. It's been attributed to both on different sites, not sure which is accurate. I listened to it on Audible, read by Christina Moore, who was great. I loved her voices for everyone, especially Fyrian.

 A Cybils book. I had tried one of Barnhill’s other books and didn’t get through it for reasons that I don’t quite remember. This one I found to be really beautiful. It’s a sad book in many ways, but ultimately I felt a hopeful one (I know there are others that disagree with me here). What I remember most about this one is the particular sense of place and character that Barnhill conveys in not that many words.

We are a Kelly Barnhill-loving family and this review makes me even more eager to read her latest, The Witch's Boy.

Probably my husband and I will argue about who gets to read this to our kid. Or maybe all three of us will just settle in for bedtime story-time together. That sounds pretty good, actually.