The Girl Who Drank the Moon (Winner of the 2017 Newbery Medal) Paperback – April 30, 2019

I got this book for my 11 year old grand daughter. I always read the books I get her so we can discuss them. I LOVED this book. I will read it again. It is soso good. It’s a wonderful book for everyone no matter their age. For your own sake read it.

So many layers in this beautiful tale! Magic, sorrow, lies, truth, deceit, and above all, love. This story will live in my heart always.

Delightful story. Highly recommended

What do an old witch, a magical baby and a fearful society all have in common? A thread of magic that connects them all through different perspectives. Kelly Barnhill’s The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a great young adult fantasy novel that demonstrates how magic comes in many different forms and is viewed in many different ways.One of the main characters, Xan, the old witch in the wood, who is mystical as most witches are, is filled with ancient power. She’s always been magic, infused with it centuries ago. Xan is basically a kind old individual trying to use her magic as beneficially as she can. However, the Protectorate doesn’t see her that way. Being the city on the outside of the wood, they have reason to be cautious of the dangers in the forest. Their solution is to sacrifice a baby to the witch every year so she doesn't destroy them. The day of sacrifice is a yearly ceremony to keep the witch in the wood pleased. The Protectorate has fear of magical destruction. However mothers go mad when their children are to be taken away and left in the woods. In fact, sorrow and madness follow any mention of magic In the Protectorate.Something marvelous can come from all of this sorrow and fear, though. Luna, a sacrificed child, is a fount of young beautiful magic. Xan took Luna as she does all babies but was so in awe of Luna’s beauty that Xan accidentally feeds her moonlight instead of starlight. As a result, Luna has a crack of blue and silver magic in her mind, waiting for the floods and waves to come crashing upon her shores to unleash her own magic. When this happens, this child becomes so whimsical that flowers sprout from each of her footsteps. Luna shows readers that you can have magic in you and can use it every day without even knowing about it.You can think magic is one thing but the perspectives of a witch trying her best, a supernatural baby, and a dreadful community show how much variety magic can contain. And they are only part of the creative world in this book. We also meet a madwoman, a scar-faced boy, a swamp monster, and a small dragon. I’d give this novel four out of five stars. I am not a huge fantasy fan but this book drew me into its fantastical world. Perhaps you’ll find yourself like me, getting lost in the world of magic, unable to put it down!Written by Jenna M. 8th grader

This may sound crazy, but “Sorrow is a dangerous thing” indeed.Upon reading the chapters which makes this novel begins to be interesting (where Luna starts searching for her Grandmama / Xan), at Sunday afternoon I was trying to accompany my youngest daughter to take a nap, she usually will get cranky if she is lack of sleep, so I tried to persuade her to sleep all the while I was sleepy too. But like any child at her age, two and a half years old, she was still full of energy and never even close her eyes, instead she jumped on the bed all the time and asked me to play with her.Of course I was angry, I was sleepy and had a small headache, I was furious at her. But she kept smiling at me, she kept asking me simple little questions like: what is this thing father? In the end, she was awake and kept playing, while I left her with my wife and I went to the store. I was still mad at her.Mad is close to sorrow.At night around 10:30PM, while she was sleeping, she suddenly awaken and started crying without the usual reasons (hungry for a milk, wet her bed, etc.), she just cried and cried asking for her mother to lay in bed next to her. My wife tried sleeping besides her, but my daughter kept crying until my wife mad at her and raised her voice at our crying daughter.I was reading the thrilling part of the book where Luna met the Head Sisters (Ignatia the Sorrow Eater) for the first time, I didn’t notice it first while my daugher was crying, but it hit me shortly after: she must be really sad, she must have had a very bad nightmare, she didn’t know how to explain it to us, and we didn’t realised that too.I realised it because I was reading the part where Xan just realised why the sorrowful fog is hanging on the Protectorate all this time, after Antaine told her the story of the Witch in the woods while Xan is transformed as a swallow.It just hit me, at that moment at that time when I was watching our daughter cried and sobbing next to her angry mother. Why didn’t I see it, is what I said to myself just like what Xan said to herself in the book.Sad is sorrow.She was just extremely sad, most probably because of a very bad nightmare, and she needed our touch of love. So I lifted her up into my arms, held her and kissed her, she was still sobbing and kept asking for her mother instead. After a little while she was calming down a bit, and I told my wife all of those that hit me, she felt so sorry and held our daughter while sleeping together.Our daughter stops crying instantly after my wife kissed her and carressed her, and she slept instantly in the arms of my wife. After that she slept so soundly until morning.“Sorrow is a dangerous thing”, how that is so true.My little daughter was trying to cheer me up at noon, I wasn’t aware of that, instead I was mad at her.She was sad and cried because of it when she was sleeping, me and my wife didn’t realised it, but thank goodness I read this book and somehow an angel whispered to me so that we may understand and hold our youngest daughter with our arms, blanketed her with our warm love and care.Just like how Xan loves Luna, Glerk and Fyrian. And how they loved her back, unreserved and whole heartedly too.Thank you for the book, the story, and especially the love you put to write it down. It reached me, ever so subtly, and now I’m going to pass it along to my family too. Hopefully other readers will be touched too.My only critic for this book is it could be so much better, the author has created stories and characters (with their background story) that intrigued me to see how they’ll reveal more of themselves. Like Ethyne, how she can become so fierce and influential to the other Sisters, I thought she’s a witch too, but the story ends without any further explanation…And my credit for this book is even for a short time the author is able to make a genuine affection between the characters, and the readers will feel it too, especially the ending.“Sorrow is a dangerous thing,” this isn’t just a made-up phrase for a novel, it’s true in real life.

What a thoughtful and insightful book; filled with whimsy, humor, humility and wisdom.Thank You for sharing such a wonderful story with vigor and grace.