Candy Bunny Reader

    This book is a prequel to my favorite of the Disney Fairies movies: Tinker Bell and the Secret of the Wings! Wings of Starlight by Allison Saft is the story of how Queen Clarion and Lord Milori that we're all familiar with from Secret of the Wings met, fell in love, and, unfortunately, how Milori got his wings broken. This story is set before Clarion becomes queen of Pixie Hollow. Lately, Nightmares, which are scary creatures filled with negative energy from the bad dreams of human children from the Mainland, have been attacking the warmer seasons of Pixie Hollow. Apparently, they came from Winter. Several fairies of the warmer seasons don't trust the Winter fairies (including the current queen. Elvina), but Clarion secretly meets and teams up with Milori (here, he's the Warden of the Winter Woods). They work together to come up with a plan to seal away the Nightmares once and for all, but it isn't easy!  This was such a beautifully well-written book! It is a must ...

  I finally read this and it was wonderful! The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen is a story about a boy named Tien and his parents, that learn to connect with each other through fairy tales. These stories help Tien come out to his mother as gay, and his mother also comes to terms with her past with leaving Vietnam.  Aside from the beautifully woven story, the pictures in this book were really beautiful! I especially loved the illustrations that accompanied the fairy tale portions of the book. They were so detailed. They reminded me a little of the manga Witch Hat Atelier.  I gave The Magic Fish 5 stars. A great book not just for Pride Month, but anytime of the year.  

Yay! Another great book by Kate DiCamillo ! The Beatryce Prophecy is quite similar to one of the author's previous books: The Magician's Elephant (I read a reviewed that book here ) .  They are both books about a prediction of the future, and the different characters we follow all come together that make the prediction true. This book is set in a medieval setting and mostly follows a girl named Beatryce, a girl who has no memory of her past. But she mostly has a memory of something traumatic that happened to her that she is trying to forget. Beatryce is found by a goat named Answelica and a monk named Brother Edik. Beatryce becomes friends fast with the goat Answelica, and Brother Edik lets her live in his monastery where she can write and read freely, but she has to pretend to be a boy and be mute so no one finds out she is actually a girl, as in this setting it is forbidden for women to learn and know how to read and write. Beatryce is eventually summoned to write something...

  A cozy little fantasy adventure with queer representation! The Baker and the Bard by Fern Haught follows two friends, Juniper and Hadley. They work at a bakery and sometimes perform at an inn. One day their boss at the bakery sends them on a mission to get some glowing oyster mushrooms in a big forest for a big order a rich customer places. The friends get notice that several crops nearby are failing. They find out the cause is because of giant caterpillars that belong to a fey (fairy) named Thistle. It turns out, the fey caterpillars have some problems of their own. Juniper and Hadley find a way to help Thistle and get the mushrooms they need for the bakery. I gave it 5 stars. It's such a simple, but magical story! I think this book is perfect if you're in the mood for some adventure but with not very high stakes. Kind of like Legends and Lattes! There is also queer rep in this book. Hadley and Thistle are nonbinary, and Juniper and Hadley become a Sapphic couple.

  Mamo by Sas Milledge follows Joanna, or Jo for short, whose mother has fallen ill. Other mishaps are happening in her small community, too. Jo wonders if it's all because of the fae (fairies) and humans making them angry. She enlists the help of the village witch named Orla. Though somewhat stubborn and reclusive, Orla helps out Jo when they find the root cause of the problem. It turns out Orla's deceased grandmother, the previous village witch named Mamo, is causing the problem with her bones and soul scattered about. Jo helps Orla by learning some magic to stop Mamo, and she finds out some things about Orla and Mamo that changes everything she knew about them.  This book was so cool because it talked about witchcraft and fairies in a way that closely mirrors real-world beliefs. Magic isn't the glittery stuff you see on TV, and the fairies here are actually really scary.  Unfortunately, I wasn't really of fan of Jo and Orla's relationship. They spend most of the...

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...

  This book was sooo sweet and sooo cute! The Sprite and the Gardener by Rii Abrego and Joe Whitt takes place in our world--with some magic! Sprites have lived for centuries helping all kinds of plants grow with their magic. Until humans came along and started doing gardening themselves. The sprites are still around but they help less and less. One little sprite named Wisteria secretly discovers a human girl named Elena who takes care of her mother's flower garden, as her mother is out working all day. Wisteria decides to secretly help Elena's garden grow, as long as she isn't discovered.  If you couldn't already tell, Wisteria does get discovered by Elena. And everything changes from there.  What a magical book! I love the whimsical illustrations, and I loved what a chill, slice-of-life cottagecore book this was.  It is a pure 5 star book . I want to read more from this author and illustrator. What was the last "chill" book you read?

Another great book by Kate DiCamillo ! The Puppets of Spelhorst is about 5 sentient puppets: a boy, a girl, a king, an owl, and a wolf. They get bought by an old sailor with the last name Spelhorst. After the sailor dies, the box gets donated, bought, and gifted to two young rich sisters--Emma and Martha. They decide to write a play for the puppets that they can perform, but before they can, the puppets get into some mishaps in and around the girls' house. Eventually the play is performed, and the puppets find out what their true purpose is. I love the whimsical style the story was written in. It felt like a modern day fairy tale. I'd say this book is like a mixture of DiCamillo's two other most popular books: The Magician's Elephant and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. They are both short books with a huge emotional impact, and they are both about sentient toys.  Apparently this is also the first in a series. I can't wait to read more! It is a pure 5 star ...

This is the second Kelly Barnhill book I've read so far. The first one I read was The Girl who Drank the Moon back in 2021, which I gave 4 stars to. The Ogress and The Orphans is set in a fantasy world in a small town called Stone-in-the-Glen, which has fallen on hard times ever since the town's library burned down and other buildings such as the school have mysteriously been destroyed, too. Now no one trusts each other and almost nobody ever leaves their homes. The town orphanage has also been struggling financially. The owners and the orphans are very supportive of one another, and they've been trying to get the town to come together again, especially on market days where they sell handmade soap and food from their mini-farm, but to no avail. At the same time on the outskirts of the town, an ancient Ogress has started to live there and she has noticed how the town has been struggling, so every night she secretly leaves food, baked goods, and handmade cards to the people...

So I first saw this tag over on the YouTube channel of Mara from bookslikewhoa (check out her video here !), but the tag is originally from another book blog It's a Books World (the original post here ).  As always, I never tag anyone, so feel free to do this tag if you see it! I'd love to see your answers. 1. An overhyped classic you did not like.  Yikes, I have too many answers for this one! I've already said Pride and Prejudice before in two other book tags I did (the first time I did the Unpopular Opinions book tag and Musicals Go Bookish tag ), so I will go with another one I didn't like that I haven't mentioned yet, and that's The Outsiders by SE Hinton . I had this book as a required reading way back in middle school and I thought the story was sooo sad! Even my 12 year old self couldn't understand why we had to read it for school. Even now as an adult I would not consider reading it for fun. Reading about gangs fighting each other is sooo not my th...