The Beanstalk Murder

The setting of this highly unusual book is in a storybook village, where Anwen is apprenticed to her grandmother, Eira, and learning how to be a Meadow Witch, practising everyday healing and gentle magic.  Another girl, Cerys is learning High Magic and planning to go to the Academy, and is very scornful of Anwen and her low-key efforts. When a well-dressed giant from the Sky Kingdom crashes onto the market square, squashing Old Stump, the remains of an old beanstalk,  and proves to be dead, Eira and Anwen try to work out who he is and what might have happened. Eira produces an old magic bean, and plants it so that they can send a letter to tell the giants about the death: of course it grows immediately, accidentally taking Anwen, and Cerys, up with it, and on into the royal Palace. Their adventures in the Sky Kingdom, where the giants immediately suspect an invasion of the filthy creatures from below, bring them into an uneasy partnership, where Cerys’s form of magic can project their explanatory letter in giant-size, and increase the volume of her voice, and Anwen enlists useful helpers, but also has to learn how to amplify her voice to communicate more effectively. Their small size means that they can hide and listen to significant conversations, but also puts them in jeopardy, not least from the palace cats.  They are given a dolls’ house to stay in, which is a lovely idea and great fun. We chase a few red herrings before the true murderer is revealed, and at the end it is clear that relations between the Sky Kingdom and the Land Below will be much more harmonious.

P.G.Bell is the author of the The Train to Impossible Places and its two sequels. He has a very lively imagination and sense of the absurd, and this a very enjoyable and funny whodunnit, with a subtle message about tolerance and understanding of those who are different.