A Wizard's Guide To Defensive Baking

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He stopped there, because if he kept talking, he had to ask a fourteen-year-old girl to come to the front lines of a battle, and he hated it and he knew he had to do it, and I knew I had to come because somebody had to tell the golems what to do. This is a lot to not actually say.”

Magic, gingerbread, warm laughter and feels…this actually turned out to be a perfect holiday read! The protagonist of A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking is Mona, a fourteen-year-old baker’s assistant with a minor gift that only works on bread dough. It’s a humble but comfortable existence working at her Aunt Tabitha’s bakery, and Mona is happy enough just to be able to help out.Someone is killing magic folk, and suddenly it's up to Mona to figure out who's doing it, AND why . . .before she turns out to be the next victim. She just needs to keep in mind that in magic, creativity is as important as knowledge. One of the biggest charms of Kingfisher’s writing is the combination of the fantastical with the everyday, often in ways you completely don’t expect. Having a magical talent that only works with baked goods has got to be one of the best ways to highlight this skill, because you don’t get much more everyday than the act of mixing flour and waiting for bread to rise. See what I mean? Such utter disrespect for my brave little ferocious warriors is quite unacceptable, if you ask me. Where the fish is PETA when you need them, anyway? but hey, once a baker, always a baker. If I was going to get thrown in the dungeon, at least I was going to leave a trail of quality pastries behind me.”

YA Buddy Readers'...: A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher -- Starting July 12th 2023Thirdly, as a female protagonist, Mona avoids several other clichés besides that of the badass action hero. There is no romance, for one thing, since her closest male ally is a boy from the streets who becomes a surrogate younger brother. She has a healthy attitude toward her own body, meaning she can appreciate her strong arms and enjoy her pastries without worrying about how she looks. There are no instances of putting other women down to make the heroine look better. Mona has a loving and respectful relationship with the aunt who taught her to bake, and later in the novel, a female ruler is portrayed as flawed but still competent. The great wizards, the magi that serve the Duchess, they can throw fireballs around or rip mountains out of the earth, heal the dying, turn lead into gold. Me, I can turn flour and yeast into tasty bread, on a good day. And occasionally make carnivorous sourdough starters.” A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking reminds me of three really different things; Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, Harry Potter, and Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by K.J. Parker. And those three things really shouldn’t go together. But they do here. I loved the MC Mona and and her bread making abilities, Spindle and his thieving abilities. Aunt Tabitha and her bakery. Let’s just say there are great characters, awesome creatures and stuff, so read it 😉

Her talent is in convincing dough that it wants to do what SHE wants it to do, so it rises properly and it doesn’t burn. And she can make gingerbread men dance – even if she can’t control what kind of dance they do. Mona’s power has definite limits that she has to work within to make it work at all.But I did love that at fourteen, Mona is still basically a kid, with young (and snarky) voice and zero contamination with romance that seems to plague so many books aimed at the youngsters. We have our kids grow up too fast in stories, and although Mona does a fair bit of this given the responsibilities thrust upon her, I love that in the end she’s still a kid at heart. Oh, and, for the record, I don't actually hate YA as a whole that much. (Okay, it may say so on my profile but it just a cunning scheme to deceive my enemies and stuff.) What I do hate quite very much indeed—and with a murderous vengeance—is crap stuff like this, crap stuff like this and crap stuff like this. You’re welcome. Such a delightful book! There’s not a whole lot to say about the book itself. It seemed to end with about a quarter of the book yet to come and then something happened. I would say though, that 2nd ending was definitely worth it. For me, this was 4.5 stars, almost 5, and I can very much recommend it, especially as a winter holiday read: there's lots of yummy baking going on and despite of its dark themes, it always manages to maintain a warm and lighthearted tone. A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking is, like Minor Mage and Summer in Orcus, somewhat darker than may be the norm for middle grade fantasies. While people (even good ones!) die and those adults who should be in charge are fallible, this is still ultimately an uplifting and empowering tale. It’s about people who don’t really want to be heroes — who shouldn’t even have to be heroes — but still rise to the occasion when others have failed, because they’re needed.

But one day, her world is turned upside down when she comes in to find a dead body on the floor. Worse, she becomes the main suspect in the murder case. Of course, it doesn’t help that the city’s authorities aren’t exactly friendly towards wizards, even those who aren’t considered very powerful. This has emboldened a certain assassin, who is stalking the streets preying on magic users. Soon every wizard is fleeing the city, including poor Mona who has been caught up in the chaos.But it never sugarcoats the fact that the situation is beyond dire – and that war is very definitely hell. And that sometimes all it takes is just one horse rider of the apocalypse to bring that fact home. Apparently a girl walking through the Elbow was unusual, but a girl with a madwoman riding a dead horse was perfectly acceptable. There was probably a moral lesson in there somewhere, but I had given up on moral lessons for today.” PDF / EPUB File Name: A_Wizards_Guide_to_Defensive_Baking_-_T_Kingfisher.pdf, A_Wizards_Guide_to_Defensive_Baking_-_T_Kingfisher.epub