A Wizard's Guide To Defensive Baking
Why Books for Children and Young Adults?
Siege. Sorcery. Sourdough. promises of the book’s subtitle. Mona, a 14-year old “magicker” whose talent is limited to bread considers herself one of the city’s minor magical talents, unlike the palace wizards whose exploits are famous. She’s content working in her aunt’s bakery, making gingerbread men dance every now and then for show, and hanging out with her familiars, a stale gingerbread man and a carnivorous sourdough starter named Bob. A chain of events leads to her running the city’s defenses during a siege (the book’s marketing materials mention this, I don’t consider it a spoiler).
If this premise sounds like fun to you, stop reading my recommendation and go read the book instead: it’s funny and delivers on the premise. If you want a bit of convincing, read on for a few things I loved about this book.
T. Kingfisher (pen-name of author and artist Ursula Vernon) has written many quirky books of fantasy, horror, and fantasy romance for adults and children, and you might recognize some of her artwork. I first encountered this book a few years ago when reading it to my kid (who didn’t enjoy it as much as I did, see the quibbles about pacing, below) and recently reread it while waiting for other library holds to become available. It’s a lot of fun and worth a read.
One thing I love about this book is how it challenges the child savior trope:
“She thinks I’m a hero,” I said, when the silence had stretched out. “But I shouldn’t have had to do any of it. There should have been so many grown-ups who should have fixed things before it got down to me and Spindle. It doesn’t make you a hero just because everybody else didn’t do their job.”
This trope has always bothered me somewhat, especially in video games, though I get why it’s popular. But – and I speak from experience here – children having to compensate for the failures of grownups leaves a heavy mark on the child. I’m happy to see a piece of YA fiction tackling the idea.
and how it similarly tackles the notion of “heroics”:
“You expect heroes to survive terrible things. If you give them a medal, then you don’t ever have to ask why the terrible thing happened in the first place. Or try to fix it.”
Another thing I love about this book is an emphasis on creativity and using what’s available:
“Do not be bound by what seems foolish or impossible. In magic, creativity is as important as knowledge.”
Throughout most of the book, Mona laments how her power is limited to bread, how she can’t work “big important magic” — but as she experiments and learns more about how the magic works and starts making connections between disparate facts, in addition to her main big idea, she comes up with several clever ideas thanks to the perspectives of those around her. When Mona nearly breaks down because she hadn’t thought the big idea through, the people assisting her with it rally their collective knowledge and experience to help with problem solving.
Audiobook Note
My second read of the book was the audiobook rendition performed by Patricia Santomasso. It’s a good performance with just about the right amount of emotional inflection and modest attempt at character voices. If you prefer audiobooks, I’d recommend it.