Book Review of Beyond Mulberry Glen
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The Children’s Book Review
Beyond Mulberry Glen
Written by Millie Florence
Illustrated by Astrid Sheckels
Ages: 8+ | 288 Pages
Publisher: Waxwing Books (2025) | ISBN: 9781956393095
What to Expect: Family, adventure, change, mental health, magic, and fairies.
Set in a fantasy world of magic, fairies, philosophers, and quests, Beyond Mulberry Grove is a sweeping tale about growing up, finding oneself, and fighting back against mental illness.
Lydia lives an odd life, with a fairy, a philosopher, a cook, and a couple of impish twins for her family. She wants her life to go on as it always has in Mulberry Glen, without anything ever changing. However, her family has insisted that it is time she left home to start an apprenticeship. With their decision comes another, more insidious change—a creeping internal despair and emptiness that Lydia has never felt before.
Only when she meets a sinister storyteller in the Village does she learn what it is—the Darkness, a mysterious force that lives in people’s minds and has destroyed whole towns and forests in the past. From the moment she shares the story with her family, life will never be the same because the twins have decided to venture into danger to destroy the Darkness—and only Lydia can bring them back. One way or another, change is coming for Lydia.
The classic adventure narrative offers the perfect metaphor for the journey every adolescent must face through rolling emotional turmoil as childhood gives way to adulthood, and kind and determined Lydia is the ideal heroine for readers to journey alongside. Florence creates a comfortable, comfortable, cozy setting for her story without feeling cliched, with tiny tree fairies who speak Latin, libraries big enough to get lost in, and herbalists’ kitchens filled with honeycomb light. It’s the perfect backdrop for deeper and more thought-provoking explorations of identity, anxiety, and depression.
Beyond Mulberry Glen is a story middle-grade readers will enjoy losing themselves in—and perhaps finding themselves in, too.
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About the Author
Millie Florence‘s earliest memories are of lying under the covers at night, long after her parents had told her to go to sleep, whispering stories to herself. She lives in a picturesque blue house in Illinois and loves adventures, good food, and just about all things yellow.
About the Illustrator
Award-winning author/illustrator Astrid Sheckels has always been telling or illustrating stories, especially ones involving imaginary animals. Her Scandinavian roots are evident in her artwork, which she describes as a “mix of classic realism and whimsy.”
Learn more at https://waxwingbooks.com/beyond-mulberry-glen/
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