In A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, a magical teenage baker finds herself at the center of a murder investigation, and quickly realizes that she's in for a deeper surprise.

I enjoyed everything about this book- from the animate gingerbread man and homicidal sourdough starter, to the masterful way that Kingfisher was able to seamlessly blend political commentary with a coming of age story. The characters are well-written within the constraints of their respective ages, and I liked that the characters' behavior is not adjusted up for older audiences. The world building was well-done, and the writing as a whole flowed very well.

While this book may have been intended for a younger audience, there is definitely room for the adults to connect with the characters and the underlying political themes. I loved this book and was able to finish it relatively quickly. I would recommend this book for anyone reading at or above a middle-grade level, as the plot may draw in a younger audience but there is much to be analyzed in the subtext.

Ella Minnow Pea is a deeply clever novel that takes a macroscopic approach to the effect of censorship on a larger population.

The thoughtfulness of the novel is evident even in the description- the double entendre "a novel in letters" refers to both the formatting of the book (the correspondence between characters) and the individual letters that comprise each word. While the formatting makes it difficult to truly know any one of the characters and thus build a connection to them, it allows readers a glimpse into the collective psyche of a community as censorship increases.

Dunn's unique use of language is a defining component of the book- while some may argue that the vocabulary is an ostentatious and obvious literary device, I would argue that this is what makes the book so brilliant. While I concede that the vocabulary (at least that of the initial letters) may render the book inaccessible to those lacking a dictionary, it is a clear representation of the freedom of residents' thoughts. The Nollopians take great pride in their command of the English language, as evidenced by the ornate vocabulary that freely fills the beginning of the book. The initial letter loss is, understandably, not truly viewed as a loss but rather a challenge to those who are eager to demonstrate this command. As the book progresses and more letters are lost, Dunn's writing illustrates the suffocating limitations the Nollopians are under as they work to limit their letter use and thereby censor their own thoughts.