How to Save a Queendom
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From critically acclaimed author Jessica Lawson comes a “wonderfully enchanting adventure” (Booklist) about an orphaned twelve-year-old girl who is called upon to save her queendom when she finds a tiny wizard in her pocket.
Life’s never been kind to twelve-year-old Stub. Orphaned and left in the care of the cruel Matron Tratte, Stub’s learned that the best way to keep the peace is to do as she’s told. No matter that she’s bullied and that her only friend is her pet chicken, Peck, Stub’s accepted the fact that her life just isn’t made for adventure. Then she finds a tiny wizard in her pocket.
Orlen, the royal wizard to Maradon’s queen, is magically bound to Stub. And it’s up to her to ferry Orlen back to Maradon Cross, the country’s capital, or else the delicate peace of the queendom will crumble under the power of an evil wizard queen. Suddenly Stub’s unexciting life is chock-full of adventure. But how can one orphan girl possibly save the entire queendom?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Enchanted snakes, gator-infested swamps, and vicious birds await narrator Stub-the-Nuisance, a 12-year-old orphan, when she agrees to journey to Maradon Cross before Queen Sonora's festive Peace Day. Stub, a mistreated and illiterate tavern apprentice whose only friend is a chicken, finds herself magically bound to the Queen's wizard, Orlen. Rendered no taller than a thumb after a spell backfires, Orlen relies on Stub to help rescue Queen Sonora, believed to be in danger. Together with brown-skinned apprentice chef Beaman Cork, Stub and Orlen, both white, traverse perilous mountains en route to Maradon. Disguising themselves as workers in the Queen's castle, Stub and Beaman learn that the 100-year peace pact between Maradon's kingdom and another, Wintrel, comes with a hefty price tag. And with their help, the queen must decide how to use newly discovered gifts to save Maradon. This jam-packed fantasy from Lawson (Under the Bottle Bridge) brims with delicious language—"humming honey," "blue smoke smackers"—while enchanting characters, rich worldbuilding, and energetic pacing frame its rousing action. Ages 8–12.
