Minor Mage

First off, there\’s no such thing as something being \”only\” a YA book or a novella or whatever–if it\’s Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher writing it. Second, whether or not the book is appropriate for a young reader depends entirely on the reader. I tried one of my dad\’s SF books when I was 9, and didn\’t like it. When I was 12, I read \’R is for Rocket\’ and took off like the same. (Also got in trouble in 7th grade reading a fairly explicit spy thriller at school, so perhaps I am not any pickier about what I think it\’s okay for kids to read than my folks were.) Third, is it a good story that sucks you in and temporarily erases you from your humdrum and/or stressful regular life? Totally! So trust this grandma and buy it!

As always, T. Kingfisher, aka Ursula Vernon, has made a lovely book. She\’s got the magic and the herb-lore and the funny talking animals and the simple yet engaging plot. She writes like she writes, so if you already know you like her writing, you\’ll like this book. And there\’s no sex in this one. Because it\’s a KIDS BOOK. Although her editor apparently disagrees. The only reason it didn\’t get FIVE stars is because it is very clearly a book for little kids. I would have happily read this to my own kid when she was six or seven, and she would have loved it. There are those that may argue that it\’s too gruesome for little kids, but those people haven\’t recently read the Aslan \”crucifixion\” scene in the Lion, the With, and the Wardrobe, or the pulsating brain controls the world scene from A Wrinkle in Time. Hello, folks, remember? Kid books are OFTEN creepy and gruesome! It\’s a long and honorable tradition going back to the Girl Who Trod on a Loaf, for pity\’s sake. You want gruesome? Heck, THAT one has been giving kids nightmares for a few hundred years! So, because it was a KIDS\’ BOOK, and because I didn\’t think it was QUITE as good as the other notable kids\’ book this author did, which was EXTREMELY different and unusual and was called Summer in Orcas (please go immediately and buy it, because it\’s awesome), I gave only four stars, which still means I liked it VERY much. Just not QUITE as much as many of her others. Keep writing them, Ms. Vernon, and I will keep buying them. If there was a way to set my Kindle up to AUTOMATICALLY buy anything you write, I would do it. As it is, it\’s set to offer me a one-click purchase each time one is released. You are just THAT awesome. (And for anyone trying to decide, my all time favorites so far are the Clocktaur Wars duology and the Black Dogs duology, along with Nine Goblins, but really, they\’re all good.)

Really, do you need more than that? Oliver the mage has great power potential but not much actual skill because he\’s…well he\’s 12. And his late master was a bit old and addled. But he has a few minor tricks, an extremely useful armadillo and a willingness to ask for help. We could all learn from him. I always enjoy T. Kingfisher\’s determined youngsters, and this one is a winner. It is a novella, and I would let a not-easily scared kid read it. But as an *age redacted* adult I enjoyed it immensely. Prophetic potatoes play a very passing role. If you know the author at all you will not be surprised by this.

The author has stated a few times that some people argue with her over whether this is a kids book. I would have read this at 9, and after reading it, I intend to read it to my children for night time reading. Yes, there are scary moments, but none more so than the wolf scene in Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. At the same time, this novella is absolutely a treat for adults, with action, a couple of laughs, and the kind of profoundly simple statements on life that sink in and make you go… yeah. Unlikely friendships, murderous plots, and a young kid in way over his head who makes do with what he has. Minor Mage. Buy it. Read it. Rant and Rave and Review it. And see if we can convince Kingfisher to give us a sequel.

I devoured this at a single sitting, as I generally do to books. It wasn\’t disappointingly short, or abbreviated, as I sometimes feel novellas are– I think it\’s a good length. Just perfect amount of depth of worldbuilding, enough just taken for granted vs. the stuff that\’s sketched out and shown to be unusual– real gourmet fantasy worldbuilding there, *chef kiss* Is it a kid\’s book? I bought it thinking I might read it to my young niece, she likes long books sometimes, and I have in the past read her a lot of stuff that\’s nominally too adult for her. I didn\’t think she\’d have an issue with the violence or scary stuff in this book. And then I went to bed right after reading this, and I woke up at 4am and while lying there I had like a full-on flashback to a scary scene in this book (if you\’ve read it, it\’s the one where the not-farmer runs across the bridge while Oliver\’s in the catmint, and the detail of his hands grasping and ungrasping just stuck with me), and I was like, yo that was *terrifying*. So… I think I\’ll be a bit judicious reading this to a kid. It\’s really gonna depend on the kid. (I already knew I was going to censor the detail of a particular crunching noise during a particular bit of violence elsewhere, for sure, but that one didn\’t wake me up before dawn to dwell on it more. Honestly though, a kid might not get what was quite so terrifying about the not-farmer close call. It\’s hard to tell what\’ll strike people, and as I was reading it, I didn\’t think it scared me that much, but everyone knows your predawn awake-for-no-reason self can\’t be reasoned with. The author mentions that the not-farmer character was based off a book that she loved but scared her when she was a child, so maybe it\’s just relatable.) As for the book itself– it\’s so good! I really loved the main character, he was believably a child but also touchingly no-nonsense and self-effacing, brave but still cries for his mother in a ditch. I absolutely loved the detail that his mother was an entirely offscreen badass with a sword, and we never do get to really meet her, but she\’s there in the background. There are a lot of fantastic details just barely glimpsed or mostly offscreen, and it works so well, the book is exactly the length and depth it needs to be.

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