BUDDY THE KNIGHT AND THE QUEEN OF SORROW

A valiant teddy bear vows to protect his Person and battles monsters under the bed in David’s middle-grade fantasy adventure.

No one is going to hurt young Mieya on Sir Buddy the Knight’s watch. The human girl is Buddy’s Person—his charge—whom he’ll defend against any Monster that crawls out from The Realm-Under-The-Bed (“it was one of only a few Places where Monsters and magic and many other fantastic things called home”). His stuffed body is a smorgasbord of battle scars (patches and stitched repairs), and he wields the magical Aura, a wooden sword that turns into steel in his paws. Although Buddy’s latest fight ends in victory, he’s still worried. Each Monster’s unique rune vanishes after a Monster is destroyed; this time, however, a Rune of Taking continues to hover over Mieya. The wise Oracle, an old dusty owl who speaks in verse, sends Buddy on a quest to track down the Queen of Sorrow in The Realm-Under-The-Bed. Joining the courageous bear is his companion, Esteban, a black emperor tamarin (a monkey sporting a long, curly white mustache) who’s never without his mandolin. The vast realm teems with assorted Monsters (such as shockingly rude unicorns) and includes a mazelike rainforest. Luckily, Buddy and Esteban have a Runic thread that will hopefully lead to the Queen, and they discover a new ally in Sasha, a stripeless white tiger and Warrior-Princess. For every Monster they must fend off, there’s usually someone, like Sasha, whom they can depend on for help. The Queen of Sorrow, meanwhile, is a formidable villain who harbors sinister motivations and a world of secrets that promise to shatter everything Buddy thought he knew.

David limns a colorful, consistently entertaining world. The Realm-Under-The-Bed, where most of the story’s action takes place, is harrowing and vividly described; the Desert of Lost Wishes is a thoroughly creepy setting, especially when readers consider the source of all those lost wishes. It’s a land readers won’t soon forget, with its seemingly endless dunes and a colossal, tentacled Monster in the mix. There’s no question that all of these toy characters are alive and chock-full of such human qualities as fear, loyalty, and menace. The author nevertheless includes endearing reminders that they’re definitely toys, like when a river drenches Buddy, Esteban, and Sasha’s “fuzzy bodies”; it’s clear that when they’re wounded, they’re losing stuffing (which can still be fatal). The cast is top-notch: Buddy doesn’t hesitate to protect Mieya; Esteban’s mandolin-plucked songs can be used as defense in combat; and Sasha may not want to leave the forest she’s always known. Of course, magic plays a crucial part in the toys’ tiny world, to which humans are oblivious (Buddy learned how to craft runes and spells from his mentor The Nameless Wizard, who likewise outfitted him with Aura.) Readers young and old will delight in this breezy, relatively short adventure.

This riveting tale of plushy heroes has a lot of heart.