As a digital subscriber, you’ll receive unlimited access to Horn Book web exclusives and extensive archives, as well as access to our highly searchable Guide/Reviews Database.
To access other site content, visit The Horn Book homepage.
To continue you need an active subscription to hbook.com.
Subscribe now to gain immediate access to everything hbook.com has to offer, as well as our highly searchable Guide/Reviews Database, which contains tens of thousands of short, critical reviews of books published in the United States for young people.
Thank you for registering. To have the latest stories delivered to your inbox, select as many free newsletters as you like below.
No thanks. Return to article
208 pp.
| Candlewick |
October, 2020 |
TradeISBN 978-1-5362-1227-3$16.99
(2)
4-6
Mayhap Ballastian and her sisters have lived locked inside Straygarden Place for years, ever since their parents left them. Staying inside keeps them safe from the rapacious silver grass that surrounds the house, and in any case, the house itself looks after them--feeds and clothes them, supplies them with books and information. But when eldest sister Winnow ventures out and returns wounded by the grass, Mayhap sets out to find how to cure her. Instead, she finds the house's secret inhabitant, the Mysteriessa, whose identity and purpose threaten Mayhap's very being. Chewins's story revolves around guilt and belonging, with a rather cumbersome plot maneuvering readers toward a scene of restoration and acceptance--and a surprising twist ending. But Straygarden Place is pure confection and provides the sparkle to the imagining, with its fancy furniture, food, and clothing; transporting carpets; and self-tucking coverlets. There's confection, too, in Chewins's abundant similes: a door as "black and shiny as Italian vinegar"; roots "as white as marzipan"; bones that felt "as brittle as burned sugar."
Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
November, 2020