Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow

Townsend's DONE IT AGAIN, FOLKS. These books are so good and they make me so happy.

It's just great middle grade fantasy. It's suspenseful, but provides a lot of resolution. It's genuinely funny. The characters and their relationships with each other are interesting and dimensional. Townsend prompts young readers to ask themselves big questions about morality and free will, without ever getting preachy.

Townsend does such a good job showing how “adult issues” (like imposter syndrome) manifest in kids. She also does a great job showing how authority figures children are taught to trust (like parental figures, the police, school teachers and administrators) let kids down.

She lets kids be kids, but she also takes Morrigan's anxieties as seriously as we would those of an adult character. She honors how observant young people are and how deeply they feel. That said, while everything feels justified, nothing gets too dark for it to feel age inappropriate.

I can't wait for the third book to come out.