The Little Crooked Bookshelf

A SNICKER OF MAGIC
by Natalie Lloyd

This week's pick is from Cottager Anika Denise

What it's all about…
Twelve-year-old Felicity Pickle arrives in Midnight Gulch, Tennessee, to discover all the magic "has gone up out of this place," driven away by a mysterious curse. Felicity's a girl with a little magic of her own. She's a "word collector," who can see words hover in the air around people and places. She wants more than anything to convince her nomadic mother to allow them to put down roots, and Midnight Gulch is the first place she sees the word "home." But first, she must unravel the mystery of the missing magic, breaking the spell that's been cast over the town . . . and her mother's broken heart.

Why it's on The Little Crooked Bookshelf...
First of all … a word collector! A little girl who sees words shimmering in the air is poetic and lovely, and particularly appealing to those of us who spin them for a living. We especially love the words Felicity spins from her own imagination: spindiddly, factofabulous, clutzerdoodle.

Our favorite lines...
"I didn't say another word to Mama that night, but I could feel something good even then: the YES in my heart, the swirling-around my belly, the prickly tingling all the way from the freckle on my finger to the tip of my pinky toe. That much wonderful could only mean one thing:

There was still magic in Midnight Gulch.

This is how I turned it loose. . ."

Why kids will love it...
Don't you? After reading those lines? There's a magical town, an ice cream factory, a word-collecting girl, a secret magical someone called "the Beedle," a mystery to be solved, the loneliness of being twelve, and Lloyd's delicious prose. Need we say more?

Why grown-ups will love it...
This is one to savor and read aloud tucked into bed at night with your kids. Natalie Lloyd is clearly a word collector. . . and all of her words are magical.