The Improbable Wonders of Moojie Littleman by Robin Gregory

Moojie Littleman is not just another orphan with extraterrestrial friends, he is not just a kid who falls into a series of magical, mystical misadventures involving love and family and watermelons. He is, above all, the most unlikely and powerful hero ever known. 

Moral allegory, mysticism, and lyrical prose, THE IMPROBABLE WONDERS OF MOOJIE LITTLEMAN tells the story of a disabled boy who is sent to St. Isidore's Fainting Goat Dairy, where determination to “belong” fuels his self-discovery. A surprising destiny awaits him if he can survive one last terrifying trial.

Goodreads description

Robin Gregory is a member of the Magic Realism Books Facebook Group I run and I always enjoy her contributions to discussions there, so I leaped at the chance to read and review her book. One of the issues we often discuss is where to place our books, this question is very relevant to The Improbable Wonders of Moojie Littleman. It could be fantasy, science fiction or magic realism. It could be for adults or for young adults or middle-graders.  

The story's hero is a disabled boy who has some magical powers - the ability to heal being one and occasionally the power of levitation - but those wonders really don't help him much with his troubles. Having lost his parents twice (he is an orphan and then his adoptive mother dies and his father deserts him), Moojie is desperately in need of a family. He grows up with his gruff and unsympathetic grandfather, with whom he has a complex relationship. He also has an interfering aunt, who at first seems a caricature but who develops into someone as complex as his grandfather. 

When Moojie meets the lighteaters (or hostiles as his grandfather calls them), he decides he wants them to be his family instead. They are exotic, so philosophic they talk in riddles a lot of the time, and then there is a beautiful lighteater that the adolescent Moojie falls in love with. In the end when the lighteaters are about to leave, Moojie is forced to decide which "family" he wishes to be with. I was struck that Moojie's feeling are often shared by children, who wonder what it would be like to have another family than their own.

I very much liked the complex characterization of the key characters in the novel and the way the complexity is revealed as Moojie's own character grows. The lighteaters however are less developed, partly because of the riddles and partly because of their otherness. 

The book is full of philosophy and lessons - the role of forgiveness being the most prominent - and I can see why some people have compared it with Paul Coelho's work. This is done without being heavy-handed, something I found offputting in The Alchemist. I am sure a lot of parents will encourage their children to read this novel for that reason.

But were my son in middle grade I would not buy it for him. When he was twelve John was a picky reader and unless immediately taken by the story would abandon it. Most of the book's pacing is slow and although it really picks up at the end and gets exciting, my son would have given up by then. The other reason is the language. Gregory writes beautiful poetic prose, full of lovely descriptions. But there are a lot of words I did not know in the book and which I wasn't always able to work out from their context.  I assume these words are American dialect words and John and I are British. Maybe the publisher might like to consider a glossary or similar for the British market.  

Those quibbles aside there is much to love in this book, as shown by the list of awards it has received (current finalist Indiefab Best Books of the Year, Library Journal Indie California Book Collection 2016, Gelett Burgess Children's Book of the Year Award 2015, Kirkus Reviews Best Indie Books Dec/2015, The Wishing Shelf Adult Fiction Award 2015).

I received a free copy of the book from the author in return for a fair review.

Nightbird by Alice Hoffmann

In her first novel for middle-grade readers , bestselling author Alice Hoffman tells a bewitching story of love and friendship that is truly magical.

Twig lives in Sidwell, where people whisper that fairy tales are real. After all, her town is rumored to hide a monster. And two hundred years ago, a witch placed a curse on Twig’s family that was meant to last forever. But this summer, everything will change when the red moon rises. It’s time to break the spell.

Goodreads description 

Alice Hoffman is a prolific writer. She writes not only excellent adult fiction, but also books for teenagers and now here is a book for middle-graders. Nightbird, like all of Hoffman's books that I have read (some of which I have reviewed here), is set in the real world with an important magical element - in other words it is magic realism. 

I don't usually review non-adult magic realism and when I do I am struck that the magic element does not seem so remarkable, because children accept magic in the world, that fairy tales are real (as the description says), and that is reflected in their books.  So many of the books I loved at this age were magic realist and I wonder whether they influenced my adult liking for the genre. One of my favourites, and one I have reviewed on this blog, is Skellig by David Almond, which shares certain magical elements with this book.

This is a lovely gentle book. The story is seen through the eyes of young Twig. It is a story of sibling loyalty, of friendship and the desire to be accepted. And then there is the magic, which is as ever beautifully handled. I can see a lot of girls curling up in bed enjoying this. I read it with pleasure, but I found something lacking.

I have commented in the past about Hoffman's ability to include hard reality in her books, but I don't find it here. Maybe Hoffman pulled back because of the age of the readership. There is a lack of an antagonist force in the storyline. To be sure there is a "monster", but all it is doing is stealing washing and fruit pies. There is the fear that townsfolk might turn vigilantes, but that isn't really built up. There is also an ecological threat to the woods, but not enough is made of this. But then not all young people want a book that scares or challenges them, I suppose.

I received this book free from the publisher in return for a fair review.

P.S. You will see that I have displayed two different covers for the book. The one above is I think the one for the UK market, while the one below is for the US. What do you make of the differences and what it says of the two markets?