I would like to share a new Middle School Fantasy book with you called Bibi Blundermuss and the Tree Across the Cosmos by Andrew Durkin (Author) that I received a copy of from Voracious Readers in exchange for this review.
Bibi Blunderbuss never quite understood why her parents uprooted her from Portland to their new woodland house, and she won’t be getting any answers from them anytime soon as they vanished six months ago, which was around the same time her nightmares started. Being in seventh grade is hard enough without a crippling phobia that is unknown to most people known as hylophobia, a fear of trees or forests.
Since all her friends stopped calling her after her hylophobia started, she seeks comfort from Grandma Ivy and her cat, Ekaterina (Eek). On one eventful morning, however, Bibi’s medication management routine doesn’t go quite as planned after she witnesses Eek being chased into the forest by a swarm of bees.
With Eek in danger, Bibi makes the decision not to take her medication as it makes it hard for her to think straight, and Eek needed her fully focused. To find out what happens next you will need to pick up a copy of Bibi Blundermuss and the Tree Across the Cosmos this middle grade fantasy created for fans who like and/or need a lot of action in the story but adults will enyoy the story just as much as children.
Charlie and his friend Bradley read the book as part of Charlie’s Homeschool Reading Class and they wanted me to let you know there is a lot of delightful strangeness that will appeal to fantasy fans, but might not be the best experience for those trying the genre for the first time which is what Bradley was doing.
About the book: Twelve-year-old Bibi Blundermuss is terrified of trees. Being around them makes her dizzy and sick to her stomach-even comatose. So, when her only to chance to find her missing parents means climbing a magic tree in the forest near her home, she almost doesn’t take it.
When Bibi grits her teeth and scales the trunk, the tree grows-so violently that she and her cat Eek are catapulted into another world. Here, she befriends a herd of elk, on the run from a pack of vicious white lions. And she discovers, to her amazement, that her mother is a witch who has been protecting the elk with a poison flower spell, which keeps the lions away.
Yet the longer Bibi stays in the world of the elk and lions, the less sure she is that her mother is truly on the elks’ side-or even on Bibi’s side. In the end, a dangerous journey into the lions’ lair and a reunion with both parents uncovers a secret that changes Bibi’s life forever. Drawn into an epic snowbound battle against an army of zombie trees, she must face her greatest fear to discover her greatest power.
It’s action and adventure It’s action and adventure
About the Book: Andrew Durkin
Andrew Durkin is an author, songwriter, composer, and editor based in Portland, OR. His first book, Decomposition: A Music Manifesto (Pantheon, 2014), was one of Los Angeles Magazine’s “Best Little Music Books” of 2014. For more than ten years, he led the Industrial Jazz Group, a Los Angeles-based big band that released five critically acclaimed recordings, was featured on NPR, and toured the US and Europe.
At Inkwater Press, he edited No God Like the Mother by Kesha Ajose Fisher, winner of the 2020 Ken Kesey Award for Fiction sponsored by the Oregon Book Awards. Currently, he is the editor-in-chief at Yellow Bike Press, and author of the Bibi Blundermuss middle-grade fantasy series.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
