• Who's Reading What on Wednesdays?

The Girl Who Drank the Moon | June 22, 2016

by Kelly Barnhill (Algonquin Young Readers, August 2016)

Three starred reviews (so far) can’t be wrong: Kelly Barnhill’s latest middle grade is as transcendent as The Witch’s Boy, and it absolutely drips with magic. The Girl Who Drank the Moon follows Luna, a young girl “enmagicked” by moonlight, as she searches for answers to the questions of her mysterious life—answers that span the history of not only her family, or her village, but of all of time itself.

Luna’s world, from the City of Sorrows she was born in to the volcanic forest she now lives in, is populated by creatures of all sorts: tiny, noble dragons; clever, evil priestesses; and poetic, gentle swamp monsters, to name a few. She has no idea that she was sacrificed by a corrupt Council Elder as a baby, or that hidden inside her is a dangerous amount of moonlight magic; she only cares for her Grandmama, the witch who saved her life years ago, and her forest friends. But when her latent magic erupts, it leads her across the paths of people she’s only seen in her dreams—people like her long-lost mother.

The interlocking storylines of Luna, her crazed-with-grief mother, and the junior Council member who’d seen her wrongfully taken from her family as a baby, combine to form a truly remarkable mechanism, one that seems to run on its own, powered by magic. The read is breathless and quick, but in signature Barnhill style, you’ll have to stop every few pages to admire a lush turn of phrase. Though lofty, The Girl Who Drank the Moon is in many ways a classic coming of age story—and a perfect example of not underestimating middle grade readers.

Learn more about this title