I got this amazing text message the other day from @katsoph. It...

I got this amazing text message the other day from @katsoph. It was a picture of the above book cover, followed by, ‘Do you have a copy of this yet? I can grab it for you and bring it to the picnic.’

It’s a copy of book 3 of Cat Valente’s Fairyland books, The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, sent to me due to our shared love of this author.

After I finished squeeing, this got me to pull out my second book in this series, which then had be trawling through my photos during the last time I read the first book, and from these pictures it turns out I seem to have a favourite character in the books: The Wyverary, part wyvern and part library :D:D 

And yet…

“Oh, September, you mustn’t look at me like that,” he sighed. “I know I am not your Ell–I haven’t big blue eyes or a fiery orange stripe on my chest. I haven’t a smile that just makes you want to hug me. But I have been your Ell’s shadow all his life. I lay there on the grass below him when you met, and on the Briary grounds when we found Saturday in his cage, and on the muffin-streets in the Autumn Provinces when you got so sick. I worried with him for you. I lay on the cold stones in the Lonely Gaol, and I was there at the end when you rescued us. I have always been there, and I love you just the same as he did. My father was a Library’s shadow, and I also know all the things that begin with A-Through-L. I could be just as good to you as he was, if you can overlook the fact that I am not really him at all, which I admit is a hurdle.”

Okay, so maybe two favourite characters! These books have just the right amount of whimsy matched with lyrical prose. I am so, so glad for an excuse to pick them up again.