Review by Booklist Review
The Forest creeps steadily forward, and with it comes deadly creatures, poisonous pollen, strangling vines, and clawing roots. At Greyman's Gate, residents wage a daily battle against the foliage's encroachments up the towering stone wall on which they live. Nervous energy propels Feather down the Wall on this day, not to forage as she should but to deliver a spyglass to a stranger (the first she's ever met) named Merildun, who has promised to teach Feather how to draw a map of the land beyond her home. Her naivety is rewarded with a treacherous shove from the Wall's ledge and the theft of her community's precious spyglass. Miraculously, Feather's fall is broken by a tree, and she and her scaled ferret, Sleek, manage to scramble back onto the Wall before setting off after the perfidious Merildun. As they did in Island of Whispers (2024), this creative duo fashions a slender, atmospheric tale that accomplishes much in its small page count. Hardinge's evocative prose shares space with Gravett's detailed black-and-white drawings that are fittingly accented with green, and together they build a world that effortlessly takes root in the reader's imagination. As Feather's breathless adventure unfolds, she encounters the Forest's sinister nature alongside eye-opening discoveries that make the journey worthwhile. Small but sophisticated, this dark fantasy will entice reluctant readers and genre fans alike.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
An intrepid girl braves a sentient, predatory wilderness to save her community in this uplifting fantasy from previous collaborators Hardinge and Gravett (Island of Whispers). For "a long while," the Wall--a towering stone structure stretching hundreds of miles--protected the cities and towns of the plains from the "voracious encroachment" of the Forest and its lethal flora and fauna. The insidious green eventually punched through, however, forcing folks to move inside strongholds such as Greyman's Gate, home to young Feather and her people. Because "ragged, undulating ruin" now separates the strongholds, nobody travels the Wall--or so Feather believes. Then she encounters a coast-bound stranger while Feather and her scaled ferret, Sleek, are foraging in crevices. After the stranger tricks Feather and makes off with Greyman's Gate's lone spyglass, guilt and devotion drive the girl to give chase, seeking shelter within other settlements along the way. Lush, quixotic worldbuilding and elegant yet visceral prose immerses readers in this kindhearted tale, which champions compassion and eschews isolationism. Green and graphite pencil-and-watercolor art amplifies the story's shifting whimsical and unsettling tenor. Characters are depicted with varying skin tones. Ages 10--14. (Aug.)
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Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 5 Up--Feather lives in a world where a haunting and hungry Forest has taken over. Living in a part of a crumbling Wall that extends to an unknown ocean, Feather and her community work to stay safe from the encroaching Forest. When Feather finds she must venture out into the unknown to retrieve her community's precious spyglass, she does not know what will be in store for her along the crumbling Wall. Feather travels with her pet scaled ferret, Sleek, avoiding the dangers of the Forest. Along the way, she meets other communities living along the Wall and finds she is more tenacious than she thought when she began her journey. In her second highly illustrated novel, Hardinge delivers a dystopian tale that nevertheless uplifts beauty, resilience, and the notion that people are stronger together than they are as individuals. With gorgeous illustrations throughout, this story weaves imagery and narrative to create a haunting middle grade adventure. VERDICT Readers who love fantasy and adventure will be drawn to Feather and the dangers of a menacing and destructive Forest and crave more details about the communities Feather encounters.--Rebekah J. Buchanan
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Review by Horn Book Review
Hardinge and Gravett pair up again (Island of Whispers, rev. 7/24) in a short, atmospheric tale told through Hardinge's skillful fairy-tale prose and Gravett's art, which intertwines, illuminates, and sometimes takes over pages altogether. The tale evokes mystery and danger, this time amongst humans whose stature is now comparatively tiny next to the surrounding wilds. Feather and her community live inside the Wall, a decaying stone structure that snakes away from their home in two directions. Their enemy is the Forest, "pushing forward like an army" with its rampant, savage growth and the hazardous creatures it hosts. It's Feather's task as a gatherer to forage outside the Wall; when a stranger steals the community's valuable spyglass from her, she embarks on a quest to retrieve it. Her discoveries of other settlements along the Wall alert her to the possibilities of cooperation, trade, and shared technology. In this quasi-post-apocalyptic story, a travelogue of sorts, nature is the enemy more than the provider, threatening to invade, dismantle, and subsume humans and their hard-won homes. Softly shaded illustrations emphasize the natural world's overwhelming magnitude to Feather, sometimes in close-up views of insects and birds; sometimes opening out to expansive vistas; sometimes dissolving into impressionistic flecks of light and greenery. Deirdre F. BakerSeptember/October 2025 p.65 (c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
After an encounter with a sinister stranger, a young girl strikes out on her own. Feather was born into a community perched high atop an ancient Wall, surrounded below on all sides by the malevolent Forest that threatens to swallow up their home. Supplies are dwindling; eager to map her strange world, Feather steals her people's only spyglass and brings it to a new arrival named Merildun in the hopes that he'll help her. Instead, he shoves her off the Wall. She resolves to get the spyglass back, and as she sets out in search of Merildun, accompanied by a scaly ferret companion, she encounters community after community of previously isolated human encampments spread out along the Wall--and learns that cooperation may hold the key to everyone's survival. In a scant 128 pages, Hardinge immerses readers in a world of dangers and wonders, where nature isn't neutral but actively hostile, waging an eternal war against the few remaining humans. The author makes adept use of lush imagery, which comes to the fore when her protagonist must dive into the Forest proper at last. Though the book contains echoes of classic children's dystopias such as Zilpha Keatley Snyder'sBelow the Root (1975), Hardinge's lavishly imagined setting is wholly original. Gravett's ink drawings temper the horrors but none of the magic. Most characters are pale-skinned. Sumptuous worldbuilding and deft plotting make for a harrowing dystopian story that nevertheless thrums with hope.(Fantasy. 8-12) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
