Wolfish
by Christiane M. Andrews
Intermediate, Middle School    Little, Brown    416 pp.
11/22    9780316496063    $16.99
e-book ed.  9780316496070    $9.99

A boy, born eleventh in line to the crown, finds himself to be first after a series of mysterious and unlikely accidents—and then he becomes king. Alba, an oracle’s apprentice, is stricken by the way her harsh predictions affect that gormless boy king. And Rae, a shepherd couple’s foundling daughter, grows up happily in the high wilds of the mountains, wondering why she feels a strong connection to a nearby wolf. Focusing on these three characters, Andrews’s narrator weaves a fable-like story of betrayal and love, revenge and destiny, in sure, poetic prose. “Mountain-found,” “wind-cold,” “empty-bellied,” a hand as “soft as plum blossoms”—every word draws us into a tactile, living world, one in which insects, worms, grubs, and beetles are as vital as a huge wolf, a royal advisor, and even the act of writing. With a magical Romulus-and-Remus theme and some fairy-tale features, this leisurely tale is richly atmospheric and nicely surprising. Chapter-opening framed decorations (akin to medieval illuminations) by Yuta Onoda make the book an attractive object in itself and suit Andrews’s writing perfectly—­delicate and earthy at once, both realistic and magical.

From the March/April 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.