Though I haven’t finished up this trilogy the first two books and the synopsis of the third still make it my favorite. The Witch Boy series of book was wonderful, it was one of the first books I talked about on my blog.

1) The Witch Boy

The Witch Boy by Molly Knox Ostertag and I can’t help but give it glowing reviews. Before I even get to the plot, it’s simply a beautiful book. Every character’s art is distinct, even the names seem to have a deeper meaning.

The book tells Aster’s story,  Aster who comes from a family of witches and shapeshifters. These roles are gender-based are girls are witches and boys are shapeshifters. Yet deep down Aster knows he’s a witch. Despite his family’s disapproval of his interest in witchery. Aster tries to pick up what he can of witchery by overhearing lessons and trying out techniques in secret.

From there he makes friends and has to deal with relics of his family’s past and their prejudices and how they affect him and the family in the current day.

2) The Hidden Witch

The Hidden Witch was a great follow up to The Witch Boy, after his adventures with an old family enemy, Aster is finally getting the chance to learn witchery with the girls in his family. However, some of his family still hold their old prejudices making things more difficult for Aster than they need to be. Aster feels like he is being scolded for no reason but with the help of his cousin Juniper, Aster connects with his grandmother who offers him special lessons, these lessons come at a price though. This book expanded the world of the Witch Boy and dealt with some of the problems left unfinished by the last book in a constructive way.

3 The Midwinter Witch

The conclusion to Ostertag’s The Witch Boy trilogy, Ariel and Aster must face dark magical forces as Vanissen Midwinter Festival near. Aster looks forward to the Midwinter Festival where there will be competitions in witchery and shapeshifting. This year will be the first year he gets to compete as a witch so he’s extra excited to everyone he’s grown into his power. But he knows that showing the whole family, the Midwinter Festival is also the Vanissen Family reunion, that is he’s defying tradition won’t be easy.

I can’t wait to read this as it seems like a great conclusion, tying up all the story lines from the previous two books. Definitely on my TBR if I don’t get to it this month, then in the new year.

On the first day of Christmas, my bookish friends gave to me a partridge in a pear tree! We are talking about standalone books for our first day of the challenge.

By and far mine was the graphic novel Pilu of the Woods.

In my review of the book I talked about

“Pilu of the Woods is about a young girl, Willow who is trying to understand her emotions after the loss of her mother. Willow and her sister Linnea are both dealing with the loss differently, Linnea is older and trying to step up into a maternal role, while Willow is becoming more introverted.

Willow is being bullied at school and lasing out. This leads to a fight between her and her sister where Willow runs off into the woods with her dog Chico. Both Willow’s parents really love plant life and her father is an ecology professor of some type so Willow feels at home in the woods. She used to go on walks there with her mother as well, and pick her mother’s favorite flower, the magnolia.

While she is walking in the woods after her fight with her sister Willow happens upon another girl who has run away, named Pilu. Pilu is a forest spirit, coincidentally a magnolia tree spirit. Pilu has run away because she feels like she’s never listened to among her twelve sisters. She also feels like her mother, responsible for forest duties, doesn’t really care about her. She is now lost and doesn’t want to go home.

From her walks, with her mother, Willow thinks she knows where Pilu is from and Willow gets Pilu to agree to at least try to go home.

Along their walk back to the magnolia grove Willow talks about nature and tells Pilu about her sister, mother, and father. Their talks about nature are as much talks about emotions as anything, and one central theme that comes up is monsters. Monsters are what Willow calls her ‘negative’ emotions but I think they could very well represent trying to control mental illness.

From her experience when she lets them out, bad things happen, such as the last time she talked to her mother she said something she thought was mean, the things she says when she gets into a fight with her sister, or the negative effects of defending herself from a bully at school.

The monsters are represented in the artwork by these green shapes in jars that appear behind Willow in each scene.

As Pilu and Willow make their way back to the grove it starts to rain more and Pilu’s emotions start to come out. She’s nervous about going back home and nervous that her mother doesn’t want her, Pilu claims that Willow knows nothing about being lonely.

Willow gets angry and her ‘monsters’ start to come out. She tells Pilu that she thinks her mother will always be there and that the ‘monsters’ can’t hurt her.

Then the ‘monsters’ start to show up. Pilu and Willow appear surprised and start to run from them.

As she and Pilu run from the monsters Pilu asks if they are dangerous, and the two get to talking about Willow’s monsters. Pilu wonders how they could be dangerous if they are Willow’s since Willow herself isn’t dangerous. Pilu also notes that the monsters might be lonely since Willow has been trying to ignore them.

As the monsters catch up to Pilu and Willow, the monsters capture Pilu and Willow realizes she has had it all wrong about the monsters. That ignoring them has just made them grow bigger and stronger. Willow thinks back to what she discussed with Pilu about how no one likes to be lonely and makes a choice about how she will deal with her monsters that is the most important one in the whole book.

After that it’s a blur, Willow wakes up at home and the rest of the story is told in flashbacks. Willow eventually ends back at home and apologizes to her sister who apologizes to her. Willow leads Pilu back to the grove where her mother and sisters have missed her. This is the same grove the Willow used to visit with her mother. Pilu gives Willow a magnolia flower for her trouble and tells her to visit again.”

The book, however, leaves you with the distinct question of whether any of Willow’s adventures with Pilu were real or not. Or simple her out in nature dealing with her emotions over the loss of her mother. Is Pilu simply the embodied spirit of something her mother loved (magnolias) there to help her along, in processing her feelings of loss and guilt? The author doesn’t make it clear, though they do hint to perhaps it being a real adventure when Willow’s father comments on a magnolia that Willow brought back, a gift from Pilu, being out of season. But I think it’s really up to the reader to decide.

This is my favorite standalone of the year due to the way it talks about processing emotions, and how those emotions can feel very much like real things. And how the line between grief/mental illness and the real world is very narrow.

The book handled these issues with a deft hand and was one of my favorites from the art to the topic at hand.

Come back tomorrow for the second day of Christmas, where we talk about our favorite pairs of things!