The Girl Who Drank The Moon
Author: Kelly Barnhill
Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers
Publication date: August 2016
What if moonlight was magic? What if paper birds could fly? What if sorrow could become hope? Enthralling and well-crafted, The Girl Who Drank The Moon is about the impossible becoming possible, a girl’s struggle to find out who she is, and the wonder of magic. Magic. It fills Xan’s body. Xan, the “witch in the woods,” is extremely kind. She lives with a wise Swamp Monster and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon who thinks he is Simply Enormous. None of them know what to think about the Protectorate, where each year, a baby is sacrificed to the “evil witch” that supposedly poisons the woods around their town. The citizens of the Protectorate live simple lives, nourished by The Bog and covered by a cloud of sorrow, which is made heavier each year by the Day of Sacrifice. Each year, Xan makes the journey from her home in the woods to the Protectorate, rescuing the abandoned babies and bringing them to loving families on the other side of the woods. She feeds these children with starlight on the journey, but one year, she mistakenly feeds one child moonlight. The child becomes suffused with magic, and so Xan decides to raise her, naming her Luna.
Of course, there are consequences. Magic becomes both a blessing and a curse. A man from the Protectorate is determined to kill the witch to save his child at the same time that Luna’s magic is beginning to emerge. Kelly Barnhill’s story of witches, children, and ordinary people becoming extraordinary quickly becomes a puzzle, with pieces clicking into place faster and faster as the story progresses. The Girl Who Drank The Moon is written for a slightly younger audience, but is also engaging for middle grade readers and has a depth of imagination and suggests questions that might make it intriguing to young adult audiences. Stories within the story could also make it a fun read for younger readers and parents to share.
D. K. Nuray, age 13
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