TITLE: Over the Woodward Wall
AUTHOR: A. Deborah Baker
204 pages, TorDotCom, ISBN 9780765399274 (hardcover)
DESCRIPTION: (from the back cover): Avery is an exceptional child. Everything he does is precise, from the way he washes his face in the morning, to the way he completes his homework – without complaint, without fuss, without prompt. Zib is also an exceptional child, because all children are, in their own ways. But where everything Avery does and is can be measured, nothing Zib does can possibly be predicted, except for the fact that she can always be relied upon to be unpredictable. They live on the same street. They live in different worlds. On an unplanned detour from home to school one morning, Avery and Zib find themselves climbing over a stone wall into the Up-and-Under – an impossible land filled with mystery, adventure, and the strangest creatures. And they must find themselves and each other if they are to also find their way out and back to their own lives.
MY RATING: Five stars out of five
MY THOUGHTS: Thinking back, I’m amazed at how few portal fantasies I read as a kid. I have vague memories of reading the first Oz book and parts of Alice in Wonderland and the first two Narnia books, but really I was more familiar with Oz and Wonderland from the movies than the books themselves. So I may not be the best judge of how Seanan McGuire (writing as A. Deborah Baker)’s new middle-grade novel compares to those seminal works. What I do know is that I loved every page of this, and plan to give copies at the holidays to the fantasy-loving middle-grade readers I know. And maybe several of the fantasy-loving young adults and adults and elders I know, as well.
As befits a book aimed at younger readers, Over the Woodward Wall doesn’t spend overlong on set-up, and doesn’t linger overlong at any point in the story. The first chapter introduces us to prim, fussy Avery (please, don’t try and call him anything shorter than that) and messy, free-spirited Zib (short for “Hepzibah,” but please don’t call her that), explains why they live on the same street but have never met, and gets them to and over the mysterious Wall of the title – and from there, there’s no looking back. Avery and Zib keep moving from adventure to adventure. They have a goal: follow the Improbable Road to the Impossible City, and ask the Queen of Wands to help them get home. But the Improbable Road isn’t a straight line by any means, and the circuitous route enables the author to introduce us to a large swath of the realm of the Up-and-Under. (“How can a place be both Up and Under,” Avery asks at one point. “Up a tree’s still under the sky,” the Crow Girl answers. A perfectly logical and perfectly magical way of thinking, in my opinion.) It’s a wondrous place full of talking animals, boulders who become men, girls made of crows and of water, and a set of kings and queens who are by turns malevolent and kind, and by the end of this book we haven’t seen near all of it. (Never fear, the sequel has already been contracted for by the publisher – and McGuire hopes to write at least four books in all.)
Portal fantasies, I believe, are about self-discovery. The children who come home from a portal adventure are not the same as when they started. They may not have “grown up,” but they have grown. Avery and Zib’s adventures definitely change them: Avery slowly becomes less certain that everything he knows is true, while Zib starts to realize that adventures and total freedom aren’t always as wonderful as they sound. Avery becomes less stolid while Zib becomes more thoughtful. They learn about each other, with hints of how each one’s home life might not have been as happy as they make it out to be. Each does something to hurt the other in the process of making themselves feel better, and those actions have repercussions. But they also move from traveling together because they need each other (as their only reminders of home) to actual friendship.
And they make other friends as well, with the addition of the Crow Girl and Niamh (the watery girl). These girls have their own mysteries hinted at and their presence has an effect on Avery and Zib that only becomes noticeable near the end of the book: the loners aren’t so alone anymore. McGuire has always excelled at building found families out of very disparate personality types, and the way she builds this group is perfectly paced within such a fast-moving narrative.
Fast moving … and fun, as such books should be. There are, as I mentioned, boulders who turn into men and owls who talk and impart wisdom. There are also thrilling mudslides and fruit that tastes like anything the eater loves (sort of like Wonka’s berry-flavored wallpaper or Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans without the limitations or the bad tastes) and magic swords. There are thrilling fight scenes and literal flights from danger.
Every portal fantasy needs a villain. We’re told early on that the realms of the Queen of Swords and the King of Cups are dangerous places, and of course the kids end up there (not quite of their own doing but through their own lack of understanding of the world around them and their easily-trusting natures). Both realms hold their own challenges for Avery and Zib to overcome – but both monarchs also seem distant and almost secondary to the narrative, just another pair of challenges to overcome. Although the possibility is set up for either one to be the Big Bad of the book/series, I don’t think either is. Because neither one scared me as much as the Page of Frozen Waters. If we’re looking for a Wicked Witch/White Witch/Red Queen analog, I think it’s the Page; she’s not royalty but her actions put the kids at more risk and she doesn’t seem to care if anyone dies as long as she gets her way. I will not be surprised to see her play a larger role in the sequel(s).
In addition to local friends to guide and enemies to overcome, another trope of portal fantasy seems to be the absent or absent-minded benevolent force. The King of Coins and Queen of Wands are mentioned, and meeting the Queen is as much Avery and Zib’s goal as meeting the Wizard was Dorothy’s or meeting Aslan the Pevensie kids’. But benevolent adults are always at a premium in portal lands because the kids ultimately have to learn how to deal with change and challenge on their own. Learning is part of the experience, and if learning comes with danger and injury, well, to quote my favorite band Paradise Fears, “to not have some battle scars is to never have lived.” I’m sure we’ll eventually meet these other two monarchs (however helpful or ineffectual they may be) but that’s not the focus of this book. I also think it’s an important point that the Kings are of Cups and Coins – passive symbols – while the Queens are of Swords and Wands – aggressive symbols. That has to come to play more as the series continues.
It also is not lost on me that our main characters’ names are Avery and Zib: A and Z, alpha and zeta, the start and end of the alphabet – and perhaps the start and end of knowledge? Each thinks they know the way the world is supposed to work while the truth is somewhere between them. They’ll have to work together to get through the adventure.
Lessons must be learned before a portal fantasy can end. Avery and Zib do learn quite a bit in these pages, but they haven’t learned everything they need to. I for one am glad their time in the Up-and-Under is not over yet.
(Note: for those wondering why the pen name for such an established author, “Over the Woodward Wall” is a book every character in McGuire’s novel Middlegame has read as a child, and the book has much significance to the world-building. In Middlegame, “Over the Woodward Wall” was written by Asphodel Deborah Baker.)
I received an e-ARC of this book to review through NetGalley.