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There is a new Wayward Children novella and, since I liked the other 7 and also because I was falling behind in my count for the year (already!), I checked it out from the library and read it in a day. I like novellas because they’re easy to square away fast and still give me that satisfying “I read a whole book in one day” feeling.
Lost in the Moment and Found deals with some pretty heavy stuff–it opens with five-year-old Antoinette (aka Antsy)’s father dropping dead in Target, and follows her as her mother marries a child abuser and Antsy, fortunately, runs away before anything too physically bad happens. Antsy winds up–via a Door, of course–in a shop for lost things, which allows her to reliably go through bunches of other Doors and always make her way back to the shop. Antsy spends a very fun and cool two years working in the shop for lost things and going on very cool shopping trips to various worlds via the Doors, until it inevitably turns out that the shop has a price, as well–or at least traveling the Doors does. The theme here is rather unmistakably about how once childhood is lost you can’t get it back, and the way this theme is literalized is no less effectively tragic for all that it’s not real subtle.
Antsy is a new character and at least over the course of this book doesn’t meet or interact with any of the characters from the other books, except Miss Eleanor at the very end, which I hope means she will be pulled into our network of existing friends in further sequels.
Overall a solid new entry into the Wayward Children universe.
Lost in the Moment and Found deals with some pretty heavy stuff–it opens with five-year-old Antoinette (aka Antsy)’s father dropping dead in Target, and follows her as her mother marries a child abuser and Antsy, fortunately, runs away before anything too physically bad happens. Antsy winds up–via a Door, of course–in a shop for lost things, which allows her to reliably go through bunches of other Doors and always make her way back to the shop. Antsy spends a very fun and cool two years working in the shop for lost things and going on very cool shopping trips to various worlds via the Doors, until it inevitably turns out that the shop has a price, as well–or at least traveling the Doors does. The theme here is rather unmistakably about how once childhood is lost you can’t get it back, and the way this theme is literalized is no less effectively tragic for all that it’s not real subtle.
Antsy is a new character and at least over the course of this book doesn’t meet or interact with any of the characters from the other books, except Miss Eleanor at the very end, which I hope means she will be pulled into our network of existing friends in further sequels.
Overall a solid new entry into the Wayward Children universe.