Review Detail

Fairy tale heroes and fantasy villains chase one another across the multiverse in this clever middle-grade debut that sparkles with bookish magic and quick-witted humor. Ivy and Forest are two unlikely friends who could never meet as one is a character in the other's pretend story; what unfolds is a story about trust, ambition, and the power of creativity in uncertain times. Ivy holds the power in her notebook, but the consequences of changing the forest story could be over if Ivy ever ends his story because the Forest story is unfinished. I loved the creativity each part of the story splinters into next with brilliant creativity and spins on classic storytelling tropes that celebrate the power of imagination and creativity when you change things from one draft to the next and see the consequences in the later parts of each draft when you make one minor change. I loved the relationship between Ivy and Forest as they navigated and tried to stop the evil wizard from dominating the world.