![]() ![]() The cozy bookshop, the descriptions of decadent baked goods from its café, and the fun of the bookwandering world, complete with Librarians tasked with maintaining order and fictional integrity, may therefore appeal to readers looking for an indulgent, low-key treat. ![]() However, a mystery involving Tilly’s parents and a copy of A Little Princess add some emotional stakes, and her conviction that beloved book characters are better than troublesome real-life friends will resonate with shy readers. A slow start and long passages of exposition demand readerly persistence, and nostalgia celebrating the magic of books often devolves into sentimentality about a fairly narrow slice of canonical fiction (Percy Jackson and Harry Potter are the only notable concessions to the twenty-first century). After she finds a box of her missing mother’s books and she and an acquaintance are pulled into Anne of Green Gables, her grandparents explain that Tilly comes from a long line of bookwanderers: avid readers whose emotional connection to books enables them to conjure their favorite characters and physically enter the stories (making this British import an Eyre Affair for preteens). Soon enough, Tilly’s having conversations with Anne (of Green Gables) and Alice (of Wonderland) in the stacks of her grandparents’ cozy bookshop. When Tilly Pages catches her grandmother chatting with Lizzy Bennet and her grandfather letting Sherlock Holmes smoke indoors, she’s pretty sure something weird is going on. ![]()
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