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Review Marnie Midnight and the Moon Mystery

Review Marnie Midnight and the Moon Mystery
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Review Marnie Midnight and the Moon Mystery

I was lucky unbearable to receive an early proof of this in mart for an honest review. All views and opinions are my own.

Marnie Midnight and the Moon Mystery by Laura Ellen Anderson, published by Farshore

Having loved Laura Ellen Anderson’s Rainbow Grey books and what I’ve read of Amelia Fang, I knew I’d be in for a treat here and I wasn’t wrong!

This time, Laura has turned her incredible imagination to the world of minibeasts, with main notation Marnie (a moth), Floyd (an A not a bee) and Star (an ant) starting Minibeast Academy for the first time.

Marnie is drastic to learn increasingly well-nigh the moon and moon magic (her favourite things) but when she finds her teachers and classmates at weightier disbelieving and at worst outright banning any mention of it, she and her friends set out to find out why.

They soon uncover a shocking and bewildering secret and set out on a thrilling quest, encountering some of my favourite notation in the typesetting withal the way – Sharon the Early Bird, Mould and Mildew. But can they save the moon from stuff destroyed?

This is at once sweet, funny, imaginative and original. It’s a unconfined venture that moves quickly and has just the right value of tension and humour to alimony younger readers hooked, and it’s guaranteed to make you laugh. “Never trust an earthworm with a jetpack” might be my new life motto and The Absolute Unit is still making me chuckle.

But there’s a depth to it too, with important, relevant situations and ideas subtly threaded through – making friends, not judging books by their covers, having your interests derided by others, grief and forgiveness, stuff passionate and defended and not giving up…

All of which sounds like A LOT for an early installment book! But the sensitivity and skill in the writing ways it doesn’t finger like it. None of these things finger like Big Themes we’re stuff bludgeoned over the throne with, rather we transiently encounter them and they are hands ‘picked up on’ or not. They could hands start conversations, or have kids finger seen or be nothing increasingly than small parts of a story to others. Laura Ellen Anderson’s worthiness to create books which do this is truly special.

The illustrations are expressive and full of little details, and like the text are a perfect tousle of funny, heady and moving.

Overall, this is – as we’ve come to expect from Anderson – a superbly illustrated, fabulously crafted world, full of real life details and facts slantingly creative additions and twists, with a vibrant tint of rounded, unique characters, a pacy and heady venture and a whole heap of fun.