By: Kelly Barnhill BUY BOOK HERE
Sorrow and fear and legends. A perfectly tiny dragon, an enmagicked little girl, and a wonderful witch. The Protectorate is a dismal place, the woods are haunted, and everyone has big sorrowful secrets. I want to write all the analytical and insightful paragraphs to "sell" you on this story--just take my word for it. IT IS WONDERFUL. I read it aloud to my third graders and they were on the edge of their seat. The Girl Who Drank The Moon won the 2017 Newbery Award for Children's Literature (and about a thousand others awards).
“Sorrow is dangerous.”
Synopsis
Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the Forest, Xan, is kind. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon. Xan rescues the children and delivers them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey.
One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. As Luna’s thirteenth birthday approaches, her magic begins to emerge--with dangerous consequences. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch. Deadly birds with uncertain intentions flock nearby. A volcano, quiet for centuries, rumbles just beneath the earth’s surface. And the woman with the Tiger’s heart is on the prowl . . .
“And the more they asked, the more they wondered. And the more they wondered, the more they hoped. And the more they hoped, the more the clouds of sorrow lifted, drifted, and burned away in the heat of a brightening sky.”
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