2017 Newbery winner, The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill is a high fantasy novel about the last baby, Luna, that good witch Xan saves from being abandoned in the forest. But Xan accidently “enmagics” the baby, letting Luna drink not a tiny bit of starlight, but a whole lot of moonlight. This magic baby finds a welcome family with old Xan and the good hearted ancient swamp monster Glerk and the tiny never-grown-up sweet dragon Fyrian, but she also changes things, forcing Xan and the evil that pushed her to be abandoned in the first place to meet and settle things once and for all.
What I liked. I liked this book a lot. A lot! I thought it was a delightful fantasy, filled with warmth and beauty and fun. The characters and the magic of this book were amazing. There were lots of times that things came together, mysteries and hints paid off. I thought the various meditations on motherhood and loss, found families, and new beginnings were great. It’s definitely in my top 20 Newberies.
What was interesting. I listened to this book, and thus I only heard the names of people and places and didn’t see how they were spelled until I had finished the whole thing. This is probably a common experience of reading fantasies, that you either are unsure how to pronounce made up proper names, or you are not sure how the author chose to spell them if you only listened to them. This is probably more of an issue for me with my dyslexia, but I was just so surprised at the spelling choices for many of the names when I saw them: Fyrian (I would have guessed Ferian) Xan (Zan?), Gherland (Garland?) Ethyne (Athene?). Especially for the last one, I was thinking that her name was a reference to Athena, but I don’t know if I’d have made that connection if I just read the name. Other names like Luna, or Sister Ignatia were what I’d imagined they’d be. Mostly just seeing the names in print caused me to stop and think about the high fantasy practice of creating names of places and characters.
I’m sure that there are some real scholarly and linguistic studies about what is evoked by created names and who created name schemes. Obviously there are people like JRR Tolkien who was a philologist who made up whole languages for his epic high fantasies. Most people don’t have that capacity when they make up names for their fantasies, but I’d guess intuitively want their created names (and the spellings they assign them) to produce a certain mood or feeling in the reader. Here the names seemed to me to be working towards separating the sisters with their classical medieval names that could have been nuns’ names from the old, stodgy elder names and also from the good, wild, magical names. I liked the names, and a few chapters in, I couldn’t imagine the characters as anything else, but then seeing them in print as I put together this review made me stop and think about them again.
What were some limitations. No surprise, I didn’t like all the dream sequences, because I just don’t like dream sequences. (Personal pet peeve that most people don’t share.) I also found the attack of the paper birds, which wasn’t technically a dream, but functioned in a similar way where you weren’t sure what exactly was and wasn’t real, to be super scary and disorienting. (Again, I think I just don’t like to not know what is and isn’t real in a story, but that doesn’t bother other people.) I think what people find overly disorienting or part of a great mystery where you can’t wait to figure out what it means and makes you want to read more is an interesting line to try to walk. (And readers might be different.) There were plenty of mysteries in this book that I did love slowly unfolding and coming together. But I could have had fewer dream sequences.
Similarity to other Newbery winners. I think it’s most similar to The Hero and the Crown with a female protagonist coming into her magical powers. Several other high fantasy novels that have won the Newbery which were part of a series include The High King, and The Grey King, and stand-alone fantasies like The Graveyard Book and The Tale of Despereaux. Since it had a bit of a medieval fairytale feel as well it reminded me a bit of The Whipping Boy, Door in the Wall, Adam of the Road, Trumpeter of Krakow, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Good Masters, Sweet Ladies, and The Midwife’s Apprentice. It had a wonderful grandmother characters like A Year Down Yonder. It had beloved talking animals and a mystery like Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.
What it teaches me as a writer. Obviously, this book, a middle grade high fantasy about a wise old woman in the woods and a young tween female protagonist has a ton to teach me in how to create a quality fantasy! The structure and point of view is pretty different from the book I’m working on, but I really loved how Kelly Barnhill had so much beauty in her book. She had beautiful descriptions of the moon, and of magic, and of love. I hope that I can squeeze that much beautiful nature and polished prose into my story.
Have you read The Girl Who Drank the Moon? What are your favorite middle grade fantasies ?
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