Author/illustrator Philip Stead (A Sick Day for Amos McGee; The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine) makes his first solo excursion into middle-grade with an enchanting work of nonsense so grand it requires 24 morals. And 24 goats.
At six years old, orphan Bernadette was "plucked... from the side of the road" by the Royal Hiring Committee "to feed and water" the 24 goats holding up the king's castle. Though Bernadette believes she is not "capable of anything unexpected" of her, she is kind, inventive, and works diligently "until the day, six years later, when Lancelot made a run for it." That same day, the king decides to eat Bernadette's best friend, the turtle Perseverance, for dinner. Bernadette ventures out to The Tree Who Grants Wishes in hopes of saving Perseverance; in Bernadette's absence, the other 23 goats free themselves of their "tiresome burden."
Stead's A Potion, a Powder, a Little Bit of Magic is brimming with clever wordplay, entertaining absurdity, and tremendous creativity. His narrator--both the author and a character in the book--tickles funny bones by bouncing back and forth through out-of-order chapters, misusing Latin phrases, and scrambling to finish the protagonist's story before readers can finish the book. (The 24 morals are inevitable truths that the author desperately tries to invent in real time). Stead's heavily cross-hatched black-and-white illustrations are both fabulously silly enhancements to the text and visual depictions of characters that can be dour, sweet, adorable, or scary. A Potion is unconventional and unrestrained as it tells an abiding, elegant fairytale (of sorts). --Jen Forbus, freelancer