Maggie Blue and the Lost Child

The end of Maggie Blue and the White Crow left readers on a cliffhanger with Maggie Blue a prisoner in the Dark World, in pain and separated from her friends and mother. A somewhat eccentric rescue party is on its way in a borrowed yellow 90s Volvo, comprising Maggie’s Aunt Esme, her friend Jean, of constantly jiggling knee, Ulrich the warrior shifter and Hoagy, Maggie’s best friend, an irascible but loving and very cool old cat. It’s a series that demands to be read consecutively and so wastes no time in plunging readers back into the action. Some of those would-be rescuers are hurled headlong into the Dark World as Maggie realises that the strange baby she is clutching when she comes round is the latest incarnation of the all-powerful Great O. The Dark World is facing imminent destruction as the Great O, with Maggie’s reluctant help, takes steps to obliterate those who have repressed and damaged the natural world for the sake of their own greed and desire for power. With notable parallels to our own world, the threat facing all living creatures is terrifying but nonetheless there’s a sense that that some things will recover, and a new and better world emerge. For Maggie too there is both darkness and hope as she is forced to acknowledge memories she has been repressing nearly all her life, causing herself harm in the process. If this seems to describe a tale full of gloom and death, there is on the contrary much that is light and indeed funny too. No book could be all darkness if it contains characters such as Aunt Esme, whose response to fear is often to laugh, and who finds joy in doing a wee in the wild with ‘the wind on your bare bum’, while Hoagy is an expert at the dry humour that gets people through the worst situations. Readers of the first two books in the series will be more than satisfied with its conclusion and are treated to new characters too, notably Tovum, a girl who, like Maggie, wants nothing more than to get back home, while Lion, Maggie’s mother’s ex, makes an appearance and provides another key to Maggie’s recovery.

This sophisticated, original and thought-provoking story offers a great deal to readers. The first book in the trilogy, Anna Goodall’s debut Maggie Blue and the Dark World, was shortlisted for the Costa Children’s Book Award and the judges’ assessment of her as an outstanding writer is more than borne out by the conclusion to the trilogy.