Booklog 56/2019: T Kingfisher: Minor Mage

[jacey]

Oliver is a very minor mage, in more ways than one. He barely has any magic, and he's a twelve year old child, but he's all the village has got, so when there's a drought he and his familiar, an armadillo, are sent off by a mob (formerly his friends and neighbours) to the Rainblade Mountains to bring back rain. Oliver muses on the transformation of a crowd into a mob, but his mother isn't at home to say no, so off he trudges. He would have gone anyway, but he rather resents being sent. A twelve year old and an armadillo encounter bandits and monster and even though he can only manage three spells (and one of them is to cure his allergy to armadillo dander) he manages to think his way out of some dangerous corners. T Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon) is one of my writer discoveries this year. She's well worth reading. I'm puzzled as to why this has been published under Ms Vernon's T. Kingfisher pseudonym which I understood was the name she kept for her adult books. She writes as Ursula Vernon for children. Granted not all books with a child protagonist are intended to be read by children, but this one is perfectly suitable for the older end of Middle Grade.

Comments

[hrj]

I believe the books under "Ursula Vernon" are much more solidly middle-grade. A lot of the Kingfisher is what I'd call "YA-friendly" but definitely not middle-grade. I believe she's noted that if she had it to do over again, she'd have picked a pen name for the middle-grade books instead of the other way around.