I honestly love middle-grade books and I don't ever seem to have the opportunity to read them. Or to be completely honest reading more "adult" books always seems to take precedent. Children's books, especially middle-grade books are so full of magic and imagination. In a children's book, there is nothing stopping the author from being silly or creating scenarios where physics is absolutely thrown out the window with no explanation because kids don't care about physics. The Crowns of Croswald has all of what makes a middle-grade book fantastic without a care as to whether or not it makes sense, just that it's magical.
Ivy Lovely is a scaldrony maid, her job is to keep the Scaldrons the domestic dragons that do all of Castle Plum's cooking in line. Ivy has spent her whole life in Castle Plum berated by Helga the maid and forced to sleep in a tiny room, but she wants more. She dreams of going to the Halls of Ivy to learn how to become a scrivenist. Little does Ivy know that on the morning of Moonsday when everything seems to go wrong a sick little Scaldron will end up the being the catalyst to an adventure of a lifetime; one where Ivy discovers who she really is and that there are people in Croswald who will stop at nothing to keep Ivy from her destiny.
I only have one complaint about this book and that's that Ivy seems to be really adventurous and brave *most* of the time but at some of the most important times she loses her courage. Obviously, this is to create tension but it is in so much contradiction to who Ivy is in the rest of the book that it got old after a while. It's another case of the wishy-washy protagonist, she second-guesses herself just a little bit too much for my liking. That being said it wasn't enough to keep this from being a five-star book.
As I said in my opening I love children's books. There is absolutely nothing holding an author back when they write a child's book but their own imagination and Night seems to have no problems there. Fantasy books that are written for adults always seem to need an explanation of how things work or *why* it works within our own knowledge of our world. Children's book authors don't seem to have that problem because for the most part kids don't care. And if they do they can just make up their own reasons why it works that way, if no explanation is forthcoming. Night takes advantage of that and crafts a unique world with recognizable fantasy elements that are just this side of not like anything else you've read before. Dragons serve as ovens, fairy-like creatures create light, and ghosts serve up dinner.
And while yes I did have some complaints about Ivy overall I loved her character, she's so inquisitive and very set on her path, even though she knows it could get her in trouble. And since this is a story set in a school there has to be a character that is kind of the school bully, however, Night spends very little time on that character and I found that refreshing. The Bully character is there to help Ivy discover things about herself she didn't know, not to be a constant thorn and a distraction from the real story. Rebecca, Ivy's best friend, is absolutely wonderful as well. She's that perfect side character who is completely down to help Ivy no matter what crazy plot she has.
Finally, I loved that this is a story about a girl discovering herself but also staying true to herself. Ivy's character really doesn't change much in this story because there's not much that needs to change. Ivy knows she's going to get herself in trouble time and again and yet she bullheadedly keeps down her path and ends up discovering just how powerful she is and that in itself is a bit of magic.
Overall, this was a fantastic fairy tale. And yeah I feel comfortable calling it that, it hits all the right elements. I really can't wait to read the next book and find out what happens to Ivy next!
And thanks to NetGalley and Stories Untold for the eArc of this book in exchange for my review!
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