Candy Bunny Reader

Another masterpiece by Grace Lin! The Gate, The Girl, and the Dragon is basically a modern-day fairy tale. After a failed game of zuqiu ball, the lion cub spirit Jin accidentally kicks the Sacred Sphere outside the gate of the spirit world and into the human world. He chases after it, but gets stuck in the human world! The Sacred Sphere ends up getting stolen by a mysterious Sculptor, and Jin teams up with girl named Lulu who can talk to him to get the Sphere back, or else his world will disappear. They are later joined by a worm who says he is actually a dragon.  The story was so magical, and very emotional! Just like her other middle grade books, Grace Lin loves to weave folktales into the story, and they all end up being true and being intertwined with each other. I gave it 5 stars ! Also, aren't the sprayed edges on the book super cool?   

My second book from this author! The first book I read from her was Where the Mountain Meets the Moon , which was the very first book I did I review on this blog. Read my review on it here ! Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin is about Rendi, who has run away from home. He ends up at an inn that's located in a semi-abandoned village, and starts working there. Lots of unusual things happen at this inn and at the village as a whole. The moon is also not in the sky, and the lack of the moon makes Rendi wonder if that is what is affecting the village negatively. As the story goes on and Rendi gets to know the people at the inn more, he hears many stories based in Chinese folklore, and he begins to tell some stories himself. The folktales end up being a key to solving the mystery of the village's downfall.  This book has a similar setup to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon where our young protagonist has a mission and magical folktales are intertwined in the story. It is super c...

  It feels like this book was written just for me! Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan is a fantasy novel inspired by Chinese folklore. Xingyin is the daughter of the moon goddess, Chang'e, and she grew up in isolation with her mother and her maid Ping'er in the Pure Light Palace (the moon). Her mother is being held prisoner by the Celestial Emperor and Empress for drinking an elixer that was actually for Xingyin's father, a mortal who slayed a bunch a sunbirds. One day when Xingyin's magical powers awaken and she uses them, the Celestial royals sense her magic and come to her house wondering what is going on. Luckily they don't see Xingyin, but her mother Chang'e tells her it's not safe for her to stay in her own house and has to go out into the world.  Xingyin then finds herself in the Celestial Kingdom for the first time, and develops the goal of freeing her mother from imprisonment. She then goes on a long journey where meets both many wonderfu...

Wait! You're probably thinking. Why are you talking about your favorite read in 2022 when we are halfway past 2023? Well, @bookdragon_24 over on Instagram tagged me in a post of her favorite book she read in 2022 a while ago, and I wanted to add onto the conversation. Thanks Ellie! This was a hard decision because I liked and loved a lot of books last year, but for the sake of this post I will have to go with Where the Mountain meet the Moon by Grace Lin . It was the very first book I reviewed on my blog! You can check out said review here . Here's a pic of it again:

  I just finished reading Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. I gave it 5/5 Stars. This has quickly become one of my new favorite books this year! This is a middle grade fantasy novel inspired largely by Chinese folklore,  The story is about a girl named Minli who's family is very poor, and she wishes to change her family's fortune. After hearing stories her father tells her about the Old Man of the Moon (and an encounter with a talking goldfish), she decides to go on a quest to meet the Old Man to ask him for help to make her family wealthy. Along the way up the mountains, Minli makes many new friends (including a talking dragon!) that help her along her journey to get to to the moon.  I love the way this book was written. It read just like a fairy tale or a myth from ancient times. Even though I read it for the first time as an adult, it felt like I was a kid again reading all sorts of fairy tales and myths. The author did a great job crafting a magical atmo...