Book Nook: Review of "The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There" by Catherynne Valente

I started this blog to write about books that were focused towards adults, but I find that I cannot limit myself to just adult novels.  I enjoy a wide range of fiction and nonfiction.  

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There is one of these books that I just couldn't put down, and didn't think it would be fair to set it aside without reviewing it. Catherynne Valente is the Queen of the long game. I saw her create a myriad of different worlds In the Cities of Coin and Spice and In the Night Garden, but she's turned that skill to one endless world in the "Fairyland" series. The first in this series is The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. I absolutely adore this series, if there were 6 stars I wouldn't hesitate to mark this and its prequel as the highest stars in my library. 

I do believe that Valente set about writing a fantasy for children but ended up creating a story that touches the soul of anyone who reads it, especially adults who long for the freedom and adventures that our child-selves had. Especially after reading the last sentence..."But she could almost be certain that her daughter's shadow had gone a deep profound sense of green -- just the color of the smoking jacket of a man she'd known long ago, when she was just a small girl." Peter Pan, anyone? I grew up with a dad who tucked me into bed at night exclaiming he was Peter Pan and would be 18 forever. These stories remind me of the child I was that could make a house out of dried day lily stalks or keep the sun up forever if I stayed outside and wished for sunlight hard enough. How often do children reflect on the choices that face September in this story? They are just the hurdles of that imagination can overcome without a second thought.

So much of these stories are about the choices that have to be faced in everyday life and making an adventure out of them, as another great writer said "to live is such an awfully big adventure." Mundane choices become exotic. The things that adults have become numb to, like a stolen kiss, are an epic tragedy. It is a reminder not to let go of the magic that is inside us all, to look slantways and backwards at the world sometimes to prevent it from going to sleep and becoming a cold place to live in.  After reading the first book I decided I needed this book in my collection, and now the sequel, for my future children. I want them to touch the souls of the ones I love and I want her words to be cherished and protected, so that this one spark of magic does not go out.