2023 REREAD: A delightful, charming, wholesome and addictive children's book, to be devoured in one whole day. It's a book that helped to clear and calm my mind. Though the ending is anticlimactic and underwhelming, that leaves quite a lot unresolved, it is an all-around fun read. 'Tilly and the Bookwanderers' is for book lovers and celebrates the magic of books and reading. And bookshops and libraries. It's dewy, sweet and whimsical!
Final Score: 3.5/5
Original Review:
'"Though the stories will always snap back to the original text once readers return to the real world, it gets a little bit more complicated while they are inside the story [...] there is always the danger of getting lost in a book [...] Stories enhance our lives; they shouldn't replace them.
And that is just the good books; it's even easier to get lost in a bad book. Plot holes can be lethal."' - pages 192-193
That quote in particular made me laugh very hard.
'Tilly and the Bookwanderers' is a light, whimsical and charming fantasy book for children. It's another 'Reader is sucked into book worlds and characters from book worlds enter our real world' premise. Only here there is a secret society, the global Underlibraries, that employ a community called "bookwanderers", and there are interesting rules and regulations regarding reading into fiction books with the power of imagination and book love.
Bookwanderers are readers who possess the remarkable entering-and-pulling-from-books ability, and the collective power of libraries and bookshops enhance it. In young Tilly's adventure there are references to 'Alice in Wonderland', 'Anne of Green Gables', 'A Little Princess', 'Treasure Island', 'The Faraway Tree', 'Pride and Prejudice', 'Sherlock Holmes', 'Harry Potter', and a few other classics.
This is a book that really does love books; there is a delightful and adorable - and magical - sparkle sprinkled throughout the pages. Anyone who experiences libraries and bookshops as sanctuaries, and who loves that new book smell, will immediately understand it.
In 'Tilly and the Bookwanderers', to amp the fantastical, fonts change for certain words and phrases, and sentences literally wobble, fade or trail off down a page. For added effect. Kiddie fare!
Eleven-year-old Matilda "Tilly" Pages lives in a bookshop in London, Pages & Co., with her grandparents, and of course she and nearly everyone else around her love books. They love to talk about books and their favourite characters. They always cosy up with a good book, and take comfort in reading to each other. Tilly wishes that any of her favourite book characters would be her best friend, instead of real people (don't we all relate!).
This bookworm may have the power to make her wishes come true. She soon discovers that there are more magic and miracles to be had with reading - she and most of the other characters are bookwanderers. The key mystery in this book is finding out the cause of Tilly's mother's disappearance when she was a baby. Reuniting lost families and making new friends - back in reality, while acknowledging that stories are also important but have their place - are likewise key themes.
Tilly is a fairly typical kid protagonist in children's books - right down to her being a stronger and more special kind of bookwanderer, and she's an orphan, though her missing mother is likely still alive, and her parentage is certainly...unique - but she is still a delightful and courageous heroine to root for.
'Tilly and the Bookwanderers' is a light and quick read, as I've said.
Almost too quick.
Some details concerning worldbuilding, plot progression and character development are not as fleshed out, or as well explained, as others; or they are even skipped over entirely. A few characters are forgotten about, such as Tilly's cat Alice, an Underlibrary employee or two, and the grandmother of Tilly's friend Oskar in Paris who by the end of the story is sick - what becomes of her? And I'm sure what the Archivists are will be explained only in the sequel (are they bookwandering mercenaries?). Mistakes such as Tilly being introduced to a new character as "Matilda" and then that character calls her "Tilly" happen once or twice, and I'm surprised they got past the editing stage of writing. There is a little too much dialogue and exposition dumping in the whole book, which is something I never normally mind in children's lit. The ending is a teeny bit anticlimactic as well, obviously setting up for the sequel. Further fleshing out and emotional investment wouldn't have gone amiss.
But the book oozes charm and sweet stuff. Kids will devour it in a day. There are creative ideas to its premise: the bookwanderer's Endpapers buffer/negative matter being the least of them.
Seriously, those who have not read this will never guess the identity of Tilly's father - it is so ludicrous that it circles all around itself and becomes brilliant.
Fiction and reality blend in with cups of tea and cake in 'Tilly and the Bookwanderers (Pages & Co. #1)'. It's a sweet, whimsical tome; a book lover's nostalgia gateway drug.
Here's what I could write about this first book of a series without spoiling much. Read and experience it yourself if you haven't already. It's a fun, wholesome, whole-day read.
Final Score: 3.5/5
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