over the woodward wall by a deborah baker

Middlegame places Baker as a contemporary of L. Selections from the text included in Middlegame also appear, but the author’s history in that novel doesn’t quite match up with what’s presented here. Middlegame readers searching for hidden alchemical meaning may not find it beyond the obvious naming of the Kings and Queens of the Up-and-Under after court cards in the tarot (often linked to alchemy). These themes link the book to the author’s Wayward Children portal fantasy series, which touches on similar issues. It also puts forth a deeply felt and carefully considered exploration of the foolish myths adults teach the next generation and the unpleasant consequences of parents trying to force their offspring to fit into a mold, with an emphasis on the negative effect on those children’s relationships with their peers. The plot draws heavily on the tropes of a stock 20th-century children’s fantasy, but the sharp and thoughtful perspective of the narrator transforms the book into a 21st-century commentary on such works.

Their way home lies along the gleaming, elusive, improbable road to the Impossible City, where the Queen of Wands will surely be able to send them home…if the other kings and queens weren’t so determined to strew obstacles in their way.

Tangle-haired, adventurous Zib and obsessively tidy, rule-following Avery both climb over a mysterious wall and find themselves in the Up-and-Under, a dangerous and magical land populated by monsters, Crow Girls, giant talking owls, and other fabulous creatures. Now McGuire has taken on the Baker pen name and actually written the first book. Deborah Baker to write a series of children’s books concealing coded messages to other radical alchemists. In Seanan McGuire’s Hugo-nominated Middlegame, the early-20th-century alchemist Asphodel Baker uses the pen name A. What appears to be a typical children’s quest fantasy is more than it seems.

Over the woodward wall by a deborah baker