{"id":43857,"date":"2024-10-19T23:33:02","date_gmt":"2024-10-20T03:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=43857"},"modified":"2024-10-19T23:33:02","modified_gmt":"2024-10-20T03:33:02","slug":"review-of-the-grace-of-wild-things-by-heather-fawcett-read-by-aven-shore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=43857","title":{"rendered":"Review of The Grace of Wild Things, by Heather Fawcett, read by Aven Shore"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/grace_of_wild_things_large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/grace_of_wild_things_large.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-44426\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/grace_of_wild_things_large.jpg 250w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/grace_of_wild_things_large-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a><em>The Grace of Wild Things<\/em><\/p>\n<p>by Heather Fawcett<br \/>\nread by Aven Shore<\/p>\n<p>Balzer + Bray, 2023.  8 hours, 29 minutes.<br \/>\nReview written June 1, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.<br \/>\nStarred Review<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s another one I loved oh, so much!  This is <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/ChildrensFiction\/anneofgreengables.html\">Anne of Green Gables<\/a><\/em>, if Anne were a witch child!  It&#8217;s even set on Prince Edward Island.<\/p>\n<p>The world is somewhat different from ours, though.  Our orphaned heroine, Grace, has a natural gift for magic and the strange heartbeat that marks out witches &#8212; so she leaves the orphanage and finds a witch to apprentice herself to.<\/p>\n<p>The witch lives in a beautiful cozy house by a brook, but she doesn&#8217;t want an apprentice and tries to bake Grace in her oven.  Once Grace gets out of that she convinces the witch to make a pact with her.  If Grace can perform all one hundred and a half spells in the witch&#8217;s grimoire before the cherry trees bloom, she can stay and become the witch&#8217;s apprentice.  Otherwise, Grace must give up her magic.<\/p>\n<p>So the stakes are high.  But Grace is gifted and Grace is imaginative &#8212; and she chatters on about her imaginings just like Anne of Green Gables.  Fortunately, Grace has a knack of making friends, and once she finds a best friend at the neighboring farm, she gets some help at figuring out the grimoire.<\/p>\n<p>This is not a retelling but a reimagining, so the parallels are quite loose &#8212; though I did enjoy the way magic got Grace&#8217;s best friend tipsy and the witch told her mother she&#8217;d mistaken currant wine for raspberry cordial.  The magic in that world is playful and fun, and I enjoyed the boy who offends Grace early &#8211; rather like Gilbert &#8211; but is actually a fairy who makes all the humans forget about him.<\/p>\n<p>Anne loves poetry, and she loves to read poetry to Wind Weaver, her familiar (who is a crow).  So each chapter begins with poetry from that time period, and I was surprised how many appropriately flowery poems the author found.<\/p>\n<p>Completely delightful!  I highly recommend this book to any fan of <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/ChildrensFiction\/anneofgreengables.html\">Anne of Green Gables<\/a><\/em>.  Revisit Prince Edward Island &#8212; with a little magic.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/heatherfawcettbooks.com\/\">heatherfawcettbooks.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B0B1N4CR7D\/sonderbooksco-20\" target=\"outside\" rel=\"noopener\">Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Find this review on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\">Sonderbooks<\/a> at: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Childrens_Fiction\/grace_of_wild_things.html\">www.sonderbooks.com\/Childrens_Fiction\/grace_of_wild_things.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n<p>Disclaimer:  I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n<p>What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Grace of Wild Things by Heather Fawcett read by Aven Shore Balzer + Bray, 2023. 8 hours, 29 minutes. Review written June 1, 2024, from a library eaudiobook. Starred Review Here&#8217;s another one I loved oh, so much! This is Anne of Green Gables, if Anne were a witch child! It&#8217;s even set on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-fiction-review","category-fantasy","category-starred-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43857"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44428,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43857\/revisions\/44428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}