A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, by T. Kingfisher

This is a short, engaging YA fantasy novel that’s been recommended to me by several people. The premise is that fourteen-year-old Mona lives in a city where some people, including herself, have magical powers — but they’re very limited and specific. Mona, who works in her aunt’s bakery, can only work baking-related magic. She can charm dough to rise properly and bring gingerbread men to life, but that’s about the limit of her magical abilities.

So, what happens when suddenly wizards, even unimportant ones like Mona, are under attack? What happens if the entire city is under attack by foreign enemies from without and treachery from within, and suddenly a teenage baker is one of the few people left with the power to help defend the city? What ensues are some vivid and often funny scenes of how a baker might use baking charms to defend a city, along with some more serious reflections about what it means to meet a crisis situation and use the talents you have. Threaded through here is a really interesting idea I can recall ever seeing addressed in a fantasy novel before — a critique of the whole idea of “heroism,” based in the fact that if anyone has to be hero, it really speaks to systemic failures and failures of leadership.

This was quick read and I fully enjoyed it.