With a lot of Lewis Carroll, a little L. Frank Baum and
clear homages to C.S. Lewis and Tolkien, it is easy to see why so many
reviewers are enamored with the literary quality of this little book, but also
why it has taken dedicated readers to delve in and enjoy it. Told in the third person with a narrator who
steps out of the action to make arch comments (a la Kate DiCamillo and Lemony
Snicket) this is the tale of “September,” a precocious 11 year-old living in Omaha, Nebraska. Unhappy with the state of things (her father
has gone off to war, her mom works in a factory doing mechanical things) she
longs for adventure and something different.
By page two of our book, she has been whisked away by the Green Wind and
his Leopard to go to “Fairyland” – a place neither here nor there, but very
much everywhere. The adventures are
plentiful, with each chapter titled to indicate the struggles of the moment, as
in “Chapter II, The Closet Between Worlds … In Which September Passes Between
Worlds, Asks Four Questions and Receives Twelve Answers, and Is Inspected by a
Customs Officer.” The book is rich in
allusion and symbolism, drawing heavily on the works mentioned above and on
philosophy, religion and folklore. At
247 pages, it should have been a fast read, but it was not. The vocabulary is not only high-level, but
the sentence structures dense, forcing the reader to slow down their reading to
fully appreciate the weaving of the story.
There are known mythical creatures and others that seem to be the
fanciful creations of the author. For
those with mild OCD, such as myself, it is a challenging book, since almost
every inanimate object encountered has a personality, name and story (the
opening of the book has a listing of “Dramatis Personae”). There is even a creature made of bits of
leftover soap mashed up together -- that character nearly stole my heart. I enjoyed this very rich book, but didn’t
relish it initially – the unfortunately side-effect of talking “about”
September is that it can take a while to warm up to her. According to the
narrator, the girl is a “somewhat heartless” child.
Like all fantasies, however, September makes boon companions of odd folks who
cross her path and her loyalty to them ended up endearing her to me a bit. The ending also had a twist or two I didn’t
see coming, which was refreshing. The
artwork, by Ana Juan, is quite delightful, and clearly designed to evoke
memories of John Tenniel’s original artwork for “Alice in Wonderland” (more in
substance than style). In any case, the
images complement the story well, and heighten the emotional tone of each
section. While the book deserves the
chatter it has received, I’m not sure how to market it. The character is 11 but much like “Alice in Wonderland” this
isn’t really a child’s book. There are
bloody battles here and there and a kind of patience required to meander
through … a quality not typically present in our current teen population of
Millenial Multitaskers. Even the title
is arch. September doesn’t spend most of
the book in a sailboat circling Fairyland, as one would presume; rather, the
title uses a chapter or two in the tale as a metaphor for the child's internal
journey. In many ways, the story is a
throw-back to a time when delving into a book like this was a whole experience
in and of itself. Hopefully, a sensitive
reader or two will seek it out and talk it up to their friends.
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