A Fantastical Trip To Wildwood

“There was a sudden rush of wind, and she looked up in the sky and was horrified to see that the group of crows had grown twentyfold,” (Meloy 7). The action in this book begins on page six, and the whole story is filled with suspense. An overview of the beginning of the story would go something like this: Prue, a twelve-year-old, travels to Wildwood to save her brother who has been abducted by crows working for an evil woman. Even the plot of this book sounds outlandish, which is a good taste of the story to come. The book is aimed at a slightly younger audience, with the main character being a twelve year old, but I still immensely enjoyed it. The journey of Prue and Curtis from their hometown to the mysterious wood around it was a fitting metaphor for the escape from reality that occurred while I was reading the book.

The story was told with an engaging third person narrative. I found the two main characters, Prue and Curtis to be relatable and honest. At one point, Prue is thinking about how Curtis isn’t accepted by his classmates because he still likes drawing superheroes. This made the characters seem real and personable because they thought about things typical seventh graders would think about. The book switched perspectives between them, and each change was the perfect combination of being disappointed to leave the story of one, while being excited to hear what was happening to the other. One chapter ends with Prue hearing a disturbing and shocking tale from one of the birds. There is no explanation given and it is something of a cliff hanger, so you naturally want to hear what is happening. But, the next chapter starts with Curtis in the middle of a battle and the line, “Curtis had never been so elated in his life ,” making you want to know what Curtis is doing (Meloy 183).

Another thing that I loved about this book is that it is one that could come to mind when thinking of an ideal fantasy novel. There are talking animals who are citizens in a magical forest, and the book felt wholesome and magical overal. The setting is a huge wood - “Wildwood”, which adds an extra aspect to the story in the mind’s eye. The fact that all of the book’s twists and turns take place in a deep green background makes the story feel even richer. The writing was very descriptive, so I felt like I was in the settings with the characters. For example, “the electric emerald of the ferns and the sallow olive of the drooping lichen and the stately gray-green of the fir branches. The sun was rising higher in the sky, and it streamed through the gaps of the dense wood,” (Meloy 45). Colin Meloy was able to make the atmospheres in the book really come to life.

The ending to this story was satisfying to me, which is something I really appreciate in books. *Spoiler alert* Prue gets to go home and live out her life, which is the peaceful kind of ending that I would like for someone who has been on as long and exhausting of a journey as she has. Curtis finally finds somewhere that feels like home and that he fits in in and and ends his story with, “I’m needed here… I belong here,” (Meloy 531).  Both of the main characters have happy endings which make sense and don’t feel thrown in, and I feel like that was really the cherry on top for this book.