The Wonderling is a middle grade novel written and illustrated by Mira Bartok. I was very excited about the opportunity to read this book because I have three girls in the middle grade range, and I knew this book would appeal to them.
Arthur is a young fox groundling (a sort of anthropomorphic animal). He lives in an orphanage with other groundlings, ruled by the cruel Miss Carbunkle, who metes out punishments to maintain order and has placed a permanent ban on music or anything happy. Arthur meanders through his miserable existence, but that changes when he meets Trinket. It is Trinket who gives him his name- before that, doesn’t even have a name and is referred to as Thirteen. Trinket becomes Arthur’s first friend, and she tells him wonderful stories about the world outside the Home. Arthur is terrified by change, but with Trinket’s coaxing, he agrees to escape with her. This proves to be the beginning of an amazing adventure, as Arthur tries to discover his origins. Read more
Last week, one of my first grade twins came home with two books. Her sweet classmate had noticed that she liked foxes, so he brought two books about foxes from his house for her to borrow.
One of my twins loves foxes. She is a rather lucky girl- foxes seem to be a popular animal, and so there are many different children’s clothing stores that have released fox items. We also have fox books, fox stuffed animals, and much more.