Another Review at MyShelf.Com

The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut The Moon In Two
The Girl Who…- Book III
Catherynne M Valente

Much In Little (Constable and Robinson)
16 January 2014 / ISBN-13: 9781472110213
Fantasy / Teenage and up

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde

This is the third tale about September, the girl who visits Fairyland and has such adventures there. Her father is back home now after his rescue, but laid up with a bad leg, and September finds life on the farm dull and drab. If this was a film, you feel while reading the beginning that this part would be black and white, a la Wizard of Oz. But although September is now fourteen and learning to drive, adventures are just around the corner…

The first two books reminded me closely of the Victorian and Edwardian children's books I enjoyed as a child, a sort of updated Alice. This third outing made me think more of the Sixties and the psychedelic fantasy world of Yellow Submarine; it truly is very, very trippy. Descriptions pile on descriptions of yet more fantastic creatures and their bizarre roles in the faerie realm, although this time September and her car are heading for the moon. Once again she meets old friends and learns more about the process of growing up, change and responsibility. More than the other two, this book is for teenagers and adults, and younger children might find it confusing; certainly reading the other two books first is essential. But there is nobody who can conjure up a world quite the way Ms Valente does, and she clearly has an imagination that you could probably see even if you were on the moon yourself. Visual delights include a stationery” circus made of stationary, a blue wind, transformed car with a sunflower for a steering wheel and a yeti with a secret. One to savor and read every word of, as truly there is nothing else quite like it.

 
Reviewed 2014
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