The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1) in Beyond Reality

Jun 15, 2011 carol. rated it it was amazing

Shelves: awards-of-all-sorts, my-library, favorites, my-library-hardcover, to-re-read, young-adult, fantasy

The first two pages and I'm in love.

It's going on the "must buy" list, as well as the "must give" list.

The Girl sets all fairy tale conventions on their heads while managing to retain the spirit and charm of the best. In the tradition of the door-in-the-hedge fantasy, the trip through the closet into Fairyland is inventive and whimsical. Valente perhaps pokes fun at times, but always gently: "you will either perish most painfully or be forced to sit through a very tedious tea service with sever The first two pages and I'm in love.

It's going on the "must buy" list, as well as the "must give" list.

The Girl sets all fairy tale conventions on their heads while managing to retain the spirit and charm of the best. In the tradition of the door-in-the-hedge fantasy, the trip through the closet into Fairyland is inventive and whimsical. Valente perhaps pokes fun at times, but always gently: "you will either perish most painfully or be forced to sit through a very tedious tea service with several spinster hamadryads." The heroine is a bit unconventional but not exactly drowning in misery: "she washed the same pink-and-yellow teacups and matching gravy boats every day, slept on the same embroidered pillow" and had a mother "bending over a stubborn airplane engine in her work overalls, her arm muscles bulging." Right there, you know it won't be traditional, but nor will it be grim modern, with boys locked under staircases, mothers with drug problems, or orphaned children scavenging food. Yet it still explores the core emotional issues of independence, identity, fear, and love, while acknowledging the place children come from is not all kindness and cookies. "One ought not to judge her: All children are heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb tall trees and say shocking things and leap so very high that grown-up hearts flutter in terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one."

Swooning continued as I read. Valente tells beautiful word-smithy tales. A Wyvern named "A-Through-L" (his father is the Library) deserves the award for Best Fantasy Sidekick of the Year. There's even a list of reasons why: "Thirdly, being French in origin, they have highly refined tastes and are unlikely to seek out unsavory things to eat, such as knights' gallbladders or maidens' bones. They much prefer a vat or two of truffles, a flock of geese, and a lake of wine, and they will certainly share." Of course, since they are French.

After finishing, I was mentally working out my review as I swam, and discovered I had trouble analyzing why I enjoyed this book so much. I went home, picked up the book again, opened to a page and found myself saying, "oh, I loved this part," only to follow it with, "and this phrasing!" and exclamations of "and look how she characterizes ___!"

That's the kind of book it is: something you remember loving and enjoying, even when you can't quite identify why, and then when you are immersed in it again, it all becomes crystal clear.

Like a fantasy world.

"When you are born... your courage is new and clean. You are brave enough for anything: crawling off of staircases, saying your first words without fearing that someone will think you are foolish, putting strange things in your mouth. But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk and crusty things and dirt and fear and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you're half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it's so grunged up with living."

Cross posted at http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2012/1... ...more

156 likes · Like · see review

May 25, 2011 Phoenixfalls rated it it was amazing

Shelves: american, fantasy-challenge-2011, quest, metafiction, fantasy, traveling, female-author, young-adult, fairies, portals

Back in 2009, Catherynne M. Valente published Palimpsest. One of that novel's main characters, a woman named November, defines herself by a 1923 novel called The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, one in a series by Hortense Francis Weckweet about a little girl named September who says "Yes!" (enthusiastic consent, so to speak) to adventuring in fairyland, portal-fantasy style. That book is a through-line in November's story of helping to open up a very adult Fairyla Back in 2009, Catherynne M. Valente published Palimpsest. One of that novel's main characters, a woman named November, defines herself by a 1923 novel called The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, one in a series by Hortense Francis Weckweet about a little girl named September who says "Yes!" (enthusiastic consent, so to speak) to adventuring in fairyland, portal-fantasy style. That book is a through-line in November's story of helping to open up a very adult Fairyland to immigration from our world, and judging from the excerpts Valente provided it sounded delightful, full of whimsy and led by a marvelously spunky narrator.

And it didn't exist.

But one experiment in crowd-funding later, it did. Valente wrote it and posted it online; then it won the Andre Norton Award, leading to a contract with a brick-and-mortar publisher. And that resulted in the book I have in my hands right now. A book which completely satisfies all the promise implied in Palimpsest and which I can easily picture becoming a classic of children's literature.

Keeping true to what was implied about it in Palimpsest, Fairyland is set during WWI and is written in the tone of that era's children's literature. Valente is very much present as the Author, frequently breaking the fourth wall to confide in the reader and foreshadow what is coming next. Like the best in children's literature, she presents a fairyland that is full of wonders (a herd of wild bicycles, a wyvern who is the son of a library, and a little boy who met his mother before she gave birth to him, etc.) but also fraught with dangers -- dangers which our child protagonist can meet, but which push her to her limits and beyond.

It's a fairyland that jives with all our stories of fairylands, and when September stands at a crossroads and has to choose between paths "To lose your way," "To lose your life," "To lose your mind" or "To lose your heart" we know exactly which one she will choose -- and the many, many ways her choice is the worst. We know the rules about not eating fairy food and always moving widdershins, and so does September because she's a bookish child; but keeping with the theme of enthusiastic consent she doesn't let those rules or the very real danger stop her when she has to save her friends. And keeping with a theme that Valente often develops, nothing comes without a price, lacing the happiest moments with poignancy.

This is not my favorite of Valente's novels -- I prefer the gloriously ornate nested structure of The Orphan's Tales -- but it is an excellent place to start with her work, presenting glimpses of her absolutely exquisite prose and her deft hand with myth and folklore in a very accessible, downright conventional narrative. It is also the sort of book that the child I once was would have taken to heart and read to pieces; I hope, therefore, that many children get a chance to discover it and read it to pieces in turn. ...more

11 likes · Like · see review

Jul 15, 2011 Katy rated it really liked it

Great story!
Good and evil are a bit more grey, but all's well that ends well still!
...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Mar 30, 2012 KG rated it it was ok

Well, I managed to finish it...and, the last 100 pages certainly didn't change my opinion from "Eh!" I still think it was a very "Hey, I'm going to publish the stuff I've just made up off the top of my head to get my kid(s) to sleep - regardless of how disjointed it is" book. Other than, perhaps, two or three moderately clever moments - it was pretty tough dragging through it. And, near the end, I began getting a "Wizard of Oz" feeling...just waiting for September to say, "And you, Wyverary...I ...more

Like · see review