A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking – Book Review
A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher, is a bit of upper middle grade magical realism for 11-14-year-olds.
The story starts with a dead body in the bakery.
Not just dead, but murdered.
The bakery is in a village where magic is commonplace and the only magic that the main character, 14-year-old Mona, can lay claim to is being able to make gingerbread cookies dance in her aunt’s bakery.
Oh, and she has a sourdough starter named Bob that is taking on a life of its own, consuming just about anything in its path—including rats.
It’s a fantastical story, full of magic and mayhem and a village that needs saving from one of the queen’s men who wants even more power.
In order to do that he needs to get rid of a whole sector of the population: all the magic people.
At some points, the plot reads uncomfortably like Hitler and the Holocaust, as well as Putin and the Ukraine (it was published in 2020).
But forging ahead, the author is able to rein it back in, so it is more like a novel for middle grade readers.
In the end, it’s up to Mona and her sourdough starter and gingerbread cookies to save the magic people and the kingdom.
Mona was quite likeable, as were the queen, and Mona’s sidekick.
I found the book to be compelling, even in the off-putting parts.
And there were baked goods involved!
The book even inspired me to do a little baking myself (see my magical beginnings scone recipe).
Title: A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking
Author: T. Kingfisher
Publisher: Argyll Productions (July 21, 2020)
ISBN-10: 1614505241
ISBN-13: 978-1614505242
Enjoy!
~gail
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