Medium – Book
About the Book – Olia is the descendent of Russian royalty, though now an ordinary person, and she lives in the beautiful Castle Mila, which has a huge number of domes. She lives with her parents (her mother is a character from a previous book by Sophie Anderson), her newborn sister Rosa and her grandmother. One day, a huge storm comes upon Castle Mila and almost destroys it. Olia realises that she, like her grandmother, can see magic and steps into a magical world, tangled by magic, where her task is to defeat a scheming wizard and save her castle. She soon learns that she must try and save the magical world as well, and joins with her new friends to try and protect them from danger as well as protect the home she loves so much.
My Rating – 4/5
My Thoughts – This is the third of the Sophie Anderson books that I have read and another that I really enjoyed. I can’t say that I found it quite as gripping as ‘The Girl who Speaks Bear’ (review here) or ‘The House with Chicken Legs’ (review here), but I did find that it had a similar feel to the other two books, and I liked the Russian, fairytale setting. The storyline was interesting – it almost felt that it was at an end half-way through, but then extra information was added to continue the story and add to the anticipation and excitement. I really enjoyed the ‘Land of Forbidden Magic’ that Anderson created, with all the different domes and spirits which corresponded to all the domes on Olia’s real-world castle. There’s no real sense of when the stories take place, which is nice – they feel quite timeless with no modern technology.
It was nice to see a couple of returning characters in the books and to see some of the same Russian fairy-tales represented, such as the Yaga Houses. I really liked the character of Olia, and of the house spirit Feliks, and the water spirit, Cascadia, all who added their own magic to the story. I did feel that at the end of the story, the dialogue became a little preachy – lots of monologues with lessons and good intentions. There is nothing wrong with that – I just think they could be broken up a little so they didn’t seem quite so earnest! I do hope Sophie Anderson writes more of these Russian themed fairy tale books, as they are enchanting.
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