Book #27 of 2024: The Shelterlings | DNF: The Skeleton Tree

[thistlechaser]

The Shelterlings by Sarah Beth Durst.

Quick synopsis: In a world of magic, all witches and wizards have a familiar. But what happens to the familiars who aren't good enough?

Brief opinion: A story young readers would probably love, but adult readers might not enjoy nearly as much.

Plot: Set in a world of magic, if a normal animal wants more in life, they can travel to a magic spring and drink the water. That grants them a magical power, then a wizard or witch could pick them as a partner.

The problem is, what if the magic power granted isn't "good enough"? Then the familiar is sent to a "shelter" (a house and barn on a large piece of land) to live out the rest of their life with the other "mistakes".

Holly the squirrel was granted the magic power of creating pastries out of thin air. Any pastry, any kind or size or flavor, she can create it with a thought. But the wizards consider that a useless power, so she was sent to the shelter.

(That was my biggest issue with the book. Holly could summon pastries. There was a fox who could summon candy. The wizards considered them failures/mistakes. Is there no hunger in this world? Was no wizard/witch smart enough to partner with Holly and open the most successful bakery on the planet?)

So anyway, at the shelter Holly works to try to settle all the other "failures" in, to make them all friends/family. Then an old friend returned...but he was no longer a friend.

Charlie the beaver has a plot to steal all magic of the other failure familiars, so most of the book was about stopping him.

In the end, all the animals learn that they're not failures, they're valuable, they just need to learn how to use their quirky magic in creative ways.

Writing/editing: Both were fine. There was one amusing mis-word though. Charlie the beaver was angry about something. "His teeth exposed and gums curled." Imagine being angry to the point your gums curled!

What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: My biggest issues with this book were ones younger readers wouldn't notice, so take them with a grain of salt. Though, speaking of salt, I loved this line. Holly the squirrel goes to the ocean for the first time:

The seawater, she thought, tasted like soup made by someone who didn't know how to make soup.

Anyway, my biggest issue with the book was that the "useless" magic was anything but. Like Clover the cow could predict the future, but she always got it wrong, her predictions were always the exact opposite of what would happen. That's useful!

"Hey, Clover, is it going to snow today?"
"Yes, it will snow."
So you know it won't.

Also, it was never covered what the carnivores of shelter ate, though all animals ate a lot of soup. (They all ate the same soup though.)

I did like the hints we got about how flawed wizards could be.

Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️, 3 stars. I was bored at a number of points and skimmed now and then. I think young kids (the book's target audience) would like it a lot though.

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The Skeleton Tree by Iain Lawrence. Two teenage boys are shipwrecked in the wilds of Alaska. This would be my kind of book, except one of the boys was simply awful. I couldn't stand reading about him. He was so mean and cruel to the other boy. I just didn't enjoy spending time with him/reading this book. DNFed at about 15%.

Comments

[jeane nevarez (from livejournal.com)]

Shelterlings sounds cute, but I would probably have the same kind of issues with it. Although, it's really like people to not be creative and think only certain kinds of abilities that have obvious immediate benefits (overpowering people, turning invisible, etc) are valued or useful. People can be so shortsighted and ignorant!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah! I could see ways for all the "mistake" powers to be used. Like a turtle with super speed, but his reaction times were turtle-speed, so he crashed into things; need a distraction? He'd be perfect for it!