A Debut MG Fantasy from a SFF Darling, or, Read This If You Love Middlegame [MG Review]

Avery is an exceptional child. Everything he does is precise, from the way he washes his face in the morning, to the way he completes his homework – without complaint, without fuss, without prompt. Zib is also an exceptional child, because all children are, in their own way. But where everything Avery does and is can be measured, nothing Zib does can possibly be predicted, except for the fact that she can always be relied upon to be unpredictable.

They live on the same street.
They live in different worlds.

On an unplanned detour from home to school one morning, Avery and Zib find themselves climbing over a stone wall into the Up and Under – an impossible land filled with mystery, adventure and the strangest creatures. And they must find themselves and each other if they are to also find their way out and back to their own lives.

Review ✍️

My favourite book of 2019, likely my favourite book of the decade, definitely a top five favourite of all time, is Seanan McGuire’s Middlegame. So going into Over the Woodward Wall, I had high expectations but also pretty chill expectations. I knew whatever McGuire wrote here would be good enough for me because it would be more of the Middlegame universe. Over the Woodward Wall can be read independently of Middlegame, as a middle grade fantasy story. But this story exists in Middlegame, where the greatest alchemist of all time wrote it to encode her knowledge – “to show the enlightened mind the way to expand its reach and grasp” (Middlegame, Book V, “Silence”).

Middlegame Connections

If you are a Middlegame fan, this book will prove satisfying while also stirring up some questions. For example, IIRC, Baker wrote the books in the early 20th century. But it’s hard to pin the time of Avery and Zib’s world before they cross the wall. When did Baker set her story? This is a small example. But it leads me to questions like, how much did Baker really know? Is she predicting? Foreshadowing? Could her characters have become anyone or did she know well enough that they would represent Dodger and Rodger? Fun speculation! I think a reread of Middlegame would clarify some of these questions for me. McGuire has three more books planned, so let’s hope they all see publication. Perhaps we will get more tidbits and insight into the Middlegame universe through them.

I don’t have much to say about this title independent of Middlegame. Over the Woodward Wall is truly a standalone. You don’t need to be familiar with Middlegame to read Over the Woodward Wall. But because I adore Middlegame, it’s difficult to separate my enjoyment of Over the Wodoward Wall from it. My main source of enjoyment from the book is picking apart the parallels between characters in the two titles. All the notes I made while reading were regarding connections to Middlegame. In the next section, I’ll evaluate the book a little more generally, but I guess what I’m saying is this has become a review of Over the Woodward Wall written for Middlegame readers 😛

On that note I want to add one last purely Middlegame comment. I felt I learnt a lot more about Erin than Rodger or Dodger while reading this book. I am a-okay with that.

Style

Although Over the Woodward Wall is a portal fantasy of the sort McGuire explores in the Wayward Children series, I found it not quite as stellar as any of those titles. It is, after all, a middle grade story. It has an appropriately different atmosphere and style of adventure. Though McGuire does hit plenty of the emotional, heart string tugging notes she’s known for, none of them struck me in the same way as some of the Wayward Children stories do. Yet the prose remains strong as ever. The tone is definitely more Wayward Children than Middlegame (or any of McGuire’s other titles, I presume). Similarly, I felt the book ended far before I was ready for it to. (At least there will be a direct sequel!) But generally speaking, Over the Woodward Wall fits more neatly alongside Valente’s Fairyland series, particularly the latter books.

The Bottom Line 💭

A must read for fans of Middlegame, Over the Woodward Wall is also a strong entry to the field of middle grade portal fantasy. Best for readers who can handle a good dose of darkness and uncertainty, or who are drawn to more emotion than action.

Further Reading 📰  

🍂 Read an excerpt
🍂 Author Twitter
🍂 Reviews: Acqua @ Acaqudimore Books, Liz @ Quirky Cat’s Fat Stacks, Tammy @ Bones, Books & Buffy
🍂 Related: Surely you’ve seen my review of Middlegame by now? 😉 I’ve also reviewed the Wayward Children titles Every Heart a Doorway, Down Among the Sticks and Bones, and In an Absent Dream.

Will you be picking up Over the Woodward Wall? (And have you read Middlegame?)