layawaydragon
Written on Nov 7, 2022
- ISBN10 1614505241
- ISBN13 9781614505242
- Publish Date 21 July 2020
- Publish Status Active
- Imprint Argyll Productions
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 320
- Language English
Reviews
annieb123
Written on Oct 30, 2022
A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking is an adorable YA fantasy adventure for all ages by T. Kingfisher. Released 21st July 2020, it's 320 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.
There are books which readers who have a lifetime reading habit can point to and say "this is one of the books that really hooked me". I am 100% sure this book will be "that book" for a lot of kids (and heck, maybe some adults). The protagonist is a kind, responsible, likeable teenager who works for her aunt in their family bakery and who can, on occasion, make gingerbread men dance with some minor magic. She doesn't think of herself as special... in fact nobody seems to think of her as particularly special, but she just might have to save her city from an invasion with her unremarkable magic.
The story is simple and direct and engaging throughout. The writing is superb. There isn't one clunky scene or bit of dialogue which yanked me out of the story. It came across my radar as a casual mention on one of my FB reader groups, and I picked it up on a whim. The author's name didn't ring a bell, but on closer inspection, she also wrote the Hamster Princess and Dragonbreath series, some of which I've reviewed on the blog. Delightful stuff and really one of the rare things - truly an all ages read.
This would be a great selection for public or school library acquisition (codicil: there's a description of a girl who's discovered in the beginning scenes of the book and a fairly creepy antagonist (the murderer) throughout - not graphic, but creepy). It would also make a superlative choice for bedtime read with young(ish) kids. The writing and plotting are consistently better than HP, to give a comparison.
Five stars. The mystery, resolution and denouement are self contained in this volume, but I sincerely hope there's more to come for Mona and her family.
Quirky Cat
Written on Jul 8, 2022
A couple of months ago, I read my first novel by T. Kingfisher (Nettle & Bone, for those that are curious). I was instantly hooked. From that moment, I promised myself to try and snag the rest of her books, and thankfully my local library is willing to work with me on that count! First up on the list, we have A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, which is a delightful name. I can tell you that I enjoyed the book just as much as the title.
This is a world where magic exists, but no two magics are alike. One person may be able to bend water to their will, while the other can communicate with birds. It's very individualized magic, with no instructors available to help those master their gifts.
Enter Mona. Her magic is bread. No, really – she can work with any dough, encouraging it to be fluffy or not burn. Her specialty is sourdough. Given Mona's gifts, she never thought the city's fate would rest in her hands. Yet her expectations are about to change.
“You expect heroes to survive terrible things. If you give them a medal, then you don't ever have to ask why the terrible thing happened in the first place. Or try to fix it.”
Oh wow! A Wizard's Guide to Defensive was such a delight to read! It's endearing, emotional, and has more than its fair share of humor. But that description doesn't do this book justice. It is profoundly moving, portraying the complexity of human nature, especially regarding war, trauma, and otherness.
It was easy for me to become enchanted with this book. Mona and her abilities are unique, and while there were familiar parts to her story (mainly the battle revolving around magic), it feels different in this context.
There are times when A Wizard's Guide to Defensive hits hard, and then there are times when I could do nothing but giggle. There are dozens of quotes worthy of remembrance from this book – it's that good.
I love the way T. Kingfisher (which is a pseudonym, I know) looks at the world and creates something new and exciting. Her take on magic is unlike anything I've seen before, and I have to admit it was a lot of fun to read.
This is the second novel I've read by T. Kingfisher, and I am blown away by how different the two are from each other. And yet, both are fantastic, just in their own unique ways. I can't wait to choose my next read!
Read more reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks
Terri M. LeBlanc
Written on Jan 16, 2022
There is so much to love about A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking! The story is so original and woven together in a way that makes you root for all the good guys right through to the very last page.
brdsk
Written on Jan 8, 2022
Who knew baking stories could be this fun? This was a great and enjoyable novel that takes a more spooky and less glamorous approach to a teenage wizard finding her place in the world trope, with a fun sprinkle of humour to keep it fresh.
Mona is an easy to relate to character thrust in a middle of a deadly political intrigue in a world that is not always friendly. Yet all she really wants is to bake bread and cookies and be a regular teen. As she deals with challenges she has to examine both her worldview and her own self worth and abilities. This book does a good job at exploring how being different can be both a burden and a blessing, and how heroes do not wake up dreaming of heroic acts and sometimes simply are forced into their roles by a combination of awful circumstances and their moral compasses telling them to help others.
A simultaneously spooky and cute mix of monsters made out of dough and walking dead horses creates a fresh and delightful backdrop to a rather classic scenario. After all, don't we all want to see a dancing cookie or ride a skeletal horse? Or is that just me? Well, even if you don't share these fantasies, I believe you'll find many of these elements really delightful and fun.
The secondary characters both good and evil are not always deeply developed, with some feeling a bit too simple and one dimensional. But majority of the people we meet are complex enough to be interesting and combine both flaws and strengths.
I especially enjoyed the general pacing of the book. It felt tight and purposeful with a good mix of action, dialog and contemplation. Certain scenes were touching enough to make me shed hot tears as I was gulping down the pages. That alone is a winning experience in my eyes.
I definitely recommend this read as a terrific blend of serious and hilarious and to anyone looking for a more unique and interesting magical world to explore. Despite some darker themes I would not deem this inappropriate for even younger readers, as the writer does a great job keeping the book ultimately uplifting and not scary as well as teaching about individual responsibility in the face of corruption and evil. Plus you might just have your kid finally interested in helping in the kitchen.
Runs of to play with some sourdough bread.
HekArtemis
Written on Oct 23, 2020
This was unexpectedly a kids novel, or middle grade as some call it. The MC, Mona, is a 14 year old girl and the secondary character, Spindle, is a 10 year old boy. Mona is a baker girl and has baking magic, and she is relatively sheltered and trusting, while Spindle is a street urchin, pickpocket, thief, and street wise brat with the usual smartarse attitude that comes with such characters. They meet via sad circumstances but their new friendship, adoptive siblinghood even, seems to make up for this. Mona soon discovers that people with small magic like hers are being murdered all over the city, and she has accidentally put herself at the top of the murder list. She also discovers a political conspiracy and decides to try to save the ruling lady who was nice to her once.
As with most Kingfisher novels this was full of humour and it had me cackling loudly several times. It also managed to make me cry once, in a bittersweet sort of way. The magic was a standout in this story. It seems like the people who get magic all end up with different types of magic, and it's not hereditary or anything, so people just randomly are born magical to non-magical parents. The big types of magic are those that can affect big things - fire, water, weather, earth, etc. But most wizards have small magic like Mona, where it controls a very specific thing like, in her case, bakery foods. She doesn't seem to have an control over the individual baking ingredients, but once they are formed into some kind of dough, she's good to go. Another secondary character is a gingerbread man she accidentally leaves alive (because her magic can do that), it doesn't talk, but it has a personality all its own. Her familiar, other than this gingerbread man, is a sourdough starter that she almost killed one day and in her panic tried to make it not die, which made it come to actual life. It too does not talk, it also does not ride around on her should like the gingerbread man does, but it also has a personality. Goodness.
But I think my favourite thing in this book was the underlying (or overarching perhaps) theme of this book. Adults and children. Mona is 14 and she ends up in a horrible position because the adults of the world have messed up, cowered in corners, and let her be used and abused. And then they expect her to save them. It's an interesting view of the typical hero teen story, where in this one our MC is not just a reluctant hero as so many are, she is actively learning that the failures of adults are to blame for her position. Her anger, lightly sprinkled through the story, and her confusion, give this book a unique perspective. An important one that is always overlook by other teen hero stories. That we end up with several adults confronted with Mona's accusations and instead of acting like she expects them to - getting angry at her for being rude - they instead apologise to her, because no one should have to be a hero, but especially not a child. They should have protected her.
There are also some interesting side characters in the story too. A madwoman who rides a skeleton horse is perhaps the most interesting on a surface level. But there were also many surprise depths to some of the side characters that start out seeming like your typical background characters with no depth at all. We don't go too deep into these characters, but it is nice to get more than just wallpaperness from them, and those depths they share do matter.
There are some darker tones to this story, but I wouldn't consider them too dark for even my 5 year old to be honest (she wouldn't understand a lot of the story, sure, but it wouldn't be too dark for her, the existence of the gingerbread man would make her love it probably). So I think this is definitely a great kids book and I think I might just buy it in deadtree format for my kids to have a go.
Heather
Written on Jul 30, 2020
It is a well-known fact that if you want to make me rave about your book forever and forever the number one thing you can do is be clever. Be imaginative. Think of something that is a smart variation on something I've seen a million times and I will love you forever.
That is the magic of this book. We've all seen the story of the young person who has to save everyone despite only have a little bit of talent. The genius of this story is to make that little bit of talent the ability to use magic to make baked goods and use that to power a hero's tale.
Mona is fourteen and works in her Aunt Tabitha's bakery. She uses her magic to make the dough behave and sometimes to make gingerbread men dance for customers. Once she accidentally put too much magic into saving a sourdough starter and now there is a carnivorous sourdough starter named Bob who lives in the basement. But really her life is pretty quiet until small magic users like her start to get targeted by the government and a murderer at the same time. Suddenly she is in hiding with only a street kid named Spindle who is able to help her.
This book was both amazing funny and introspective. Should magic users have to register with the government?
"It seemed like once you agreed that the government could put you on a list because of something you were born with, you were asking for trouble."
How many layers of authority have failed if it is up to a fourteen year old to save the city from an invading army?
What are you capable of with even just a little bit of talent if you start thinking big?
There are even discussions about post-military service PTSD and the concept of heroism in here. I have to admit Knackering Molly whose magic is based around horses had me in tears but I cry over anything horse related.
But overall the book is fun.
"The enemy warrior clearly had no idea what to make of the berserk woman charging at him, with her housedress flapping madly over her jingling armor. He gaped at her. Aunt Tabitha whacked him with the hammer so hard that his helmet got knocked halfway around his head, and he fell down. She kicked him a few times. Aunt Tabitha had very definite opinions about people who tried to invade her city."
"The gingerbread man began to dance a very respectable hornpipe. Don’t ask me where the cookies get the dances they do—this batch had been doing hornpipes. The last batch did waltzes, and the one before that had performed a decidedly lewd little number that had even made Aunt Tabitha blush. A little too much spice in those, I think. We had to add a lot of vanilla to settle them down."This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story