Review: The Girl Who Drank the Moon

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

The Girl Who Drank the Moon
by Kelly Barnhill

SUMMARY: On a particular day each year, the leaders of a village place a baby in the forest to keep the forest witch at bay. However, the witch does not understand why on earth the people would leave a child out each year and takes the child and places him or her into a loving home in another town. But one year, she keeps the child. And that’s The Girl Who Drank the Moon.

MY REVIEW: This enjoyable, fairytale-like book had many humorous scenes and had good messages of love and forgiveness. Good discussions can be had on abuse of power, control, prejudices, and following without questioning.

The witch—with the help of a poetic bog monster and a Perfectly Tiny dragon—is kept on her toes raising Luna, a child full of magic. Parents reading the story will laugh at some of “joys” of child-rearing. This story covers Luna’s first 13 years of life.

While there is much fun, adventure, magic, and love in the story, there is also much sorrow, depression, grief, and madness. There are also a few creepy parts. Like paper birds that attack “without mercy” and disfigure and sit in trees, watching you. This story might be labeled for grades 5-8, but perhaps it might be better suited for a bit older of an audience.

I did find the middle of the book slower than the beginning or the end, but overall I enjoyed the story immensely. I’m going to give it to my fairy tale-loving 17yo daughter to read next.

In many places, the writing is lyrical and beautiful. In others, it’s repetitive. Here are a couple of quotes I enjoyed.

“My love is not divided. It’s multiplied.”
and
“She dreamed of oceans of ink and forests of quills and an endless bog of words. She dreamed of all of it in abundance.”

3.5 stars. I deliberated over how many stars to give this book. In the end, I came up with four stars because it is very enjoyable even though it has some slowness and repetitiveness, but I felt I needed to deduct half of a star for being marketed to as low as 5th graders when it will be best understood by older students.

This review reflects my honest thoughts and opinions on the book, and I received no compensation for this review.


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