The following book review was written by Miss Erin, Grade 10. WORD is proud to welcome Miss Erin and we hope she will bring us many insightful book reviews in the future.

Wildwood Dancing
Juliet Marillier

Jena and her four sisters have plenty of everyday worries, with their mother gone and their father ill. They do have something they can look forward to during each Full Moon: they have a portal into the Other Kingdom, the world of fairies and dwarfs. But dangers lurk there, too. When the Night People pay a visit to the fairy court and one of Jena's sisters begins to fall in love with one, Jena begins to have doubts about their monthly visits.

At first the language of the story seemed flowery and heavy, which is not necessarily a bad thing, just something you have to be in the right mood for. Once I got a little way into the book, I was completely entranced. The author has weaved an amazingly visual and absorbing tale. Jena is a very sympathetic heroine, you can feel her fear, her joy, her anger, her contentedness. In fact, she reminded me just a little of Pride and Prejudice's Lizzie Bennett. Wildwood Dancing is a thrilling and beautiful book that I couldn't stop reading.

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