Review by Kelly Jarvis: The Grace of Wild Things by Heather Fawcett

The Grace of Wild Things by Heather Fawcett is a magical middle grade novel written in the tradition of Anne of Green Gables. The book takes place on Prince Edward Island where a young orphan named Grace has left the orphanage in search of a true home. While the rest of the children on the island avoid a witch who lures victims to her oven with the tempting smell of sweets, Grace seeks out the witch and asks to become her apprentice.

Grace and the witch, known to the island children as Miss Puddlestone, have a contentious relationship. The witch is uninterested in keeping Grace and threatens her on numerous occasions, but Grace, a bold and curious girl strikes a deal with her. If Grace can perform all the magic spells in the witch’s grimoire by the time the trees flower, the witch will agree to take her on as an apprentice, but if Grace fails, she will lose her magic to the witch.

This book is written for middle grade children so it is more comic than dark, though it does deal with real-world themes of loss and identity. Grace attends school, making friends and encountering bullies as she lives in the witch’s cottage and works on learning spells, and she even meets a fairy boy who she calls Rum. With the help of her friends and her familiar, a crow named Windweaver who collects poetry like most birds collect shiny things, Grace learns to master the magic of the natural world.

My favorite part of the book is the intertextuality which combines magic, fairy tales, ghost stories, and poetry. Each chapter begins with the lines of a famous poet (Dickinson, Wordsworth, Coleridge, etc.) and poetry is treated as “a different kind of magic”. This is a lovely book to share with a child, and the format will allow adults readers to revisit childhood while contemplating the magic of poetry and the enchantments of folklore. Fans of the Anne of Green Gables series will enjoy this tale of a magical orphan girl. You can find it here.

Thank you to NetGalley for a free copy of the book in exchange for a fair review.

Kelly Jarvis is the Contributing Writer for The Fairy Tale Magazine. Her work has also been featured in A Moon of One’s Own, Baseball Bard, Blue Heron Review, Corvid Queen, Eternal Haunted Summer, Forget Me Not Press, Mermaids Monthly, The Chamber Magazine, The Magic of Us, and the World Weaver Press Anthology Mothers of Enchantment: New Tales of Fairy Godmothers. Her first novella, Selkie Moon, comes out in 2025. You can connect with her on Facebook (Kelly Jarvis, Author) or Instagram (@kellyjarviswriter) or find her at https://kellyjarviswriter.com/