The Book of Boy by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Mez is a shadowwalker - an animal that stalks under both sun and moon. And she does so even while harboring a secret: She goes both ways. She professes her pride in being a denizen of the darkness - “the time for the proper creatures of the world to thrive” - and shudders at the thought of the “monsters” that walk by day. And Mez, the young panther protagonist of “Mez’s Magic,” is not immune to it. It’s a prejudice that, like many in the real world, is born of ignorance, since the two groups never cross paths. So it’s no surprise that, beneath the magic, monsters and miracles, today’s kid lit authors seem to have something to say about discrimination, tribalism and fear of the “other.”Įliot Schrefer’s new Lost Rainforest series casts sunset as nature’s own Mason-Dixon line, dividing animal kind into daywalkers and nightwalkers - two factions with a xenophobic fear of one another.

Back in the day, the Brothers Grimm used their stories to warn us against going into the woods alone, talking to strangers and eating at random people’s houses - at least two of which were legitimate dangers at the time. Sneaking lessons and morals into children’s stories might seem like trying to con a picky eater by discreetly tucking spinach into a meatball, but it’s a tradition as old as fairy tales themselves. THE BOOK OF BOY By Catherine Gilbert Murdock 320 pp. THE UNICORN QUEST By Kamilla Benko 336 pp. THE LOST RAINFOREST: MEZ’S MAGIC By Eliot Schrefer 368 pp.

The Book of Boy by Catherine Gilbert Murdock