ACROSS THE GREEN GRASS FIELDS

The sixth novella in the Wayward Children series introduces yet another child who tumbles through a portal to a magic land and is forever changed.

Three years ago, when she was 7, Regan Lewis rejected her sweet and quirky friend Heather in favor of mean queen bee Laurel. But the gravity of her mistake doesn’t really strike home until Laurel viciously rejects Regan when Regan, now 10, reveals something her parents have just told her: Regan is intersex, which explains why she isn’t maturing like the other girls. A distraught Regan flees into what’s left of the local woods and inadvertently passes through a magical door to the Hooflands, populated by fauns, minotaurs, kelpies, and all manner of other hoofed beings. A kindly band of centaurs takes Regan in, and she gladly becomes part of their simple life herding unicorns, discovering true friendship with the centaur girl Chicory and satisfaction in her apprenticeship to their healer. But her contentment cannot last, because all denizens of the Hooflands know that human visitors to their realm will ultimately become heroes and save them from dire threat, whatever that happens to be. Can Regan defy her destiny, or must she inevitably meet the mysterious Queen Kagami and defeat a hitherto undefined evil? McGuire revisits her well-known themes: the cruelty demonstrated by some children as well as the strong and beautiful friendships that more open-hearted children can build, the pain of trying to conform in a society that punishes outliers, and the rewards of following one’s own path and finding that place where one fits and flourishes. Because she is the only human among them, Regan is free to express her humanity in any way she chooses...up to a point, anyway—the point at which the story turns. This is probably the most literal iteration of McGuire’s ongoing argument that biology is not destiny. The author can’t seem to stay away from transmitting these messages over and over, both in this series and in her other works, but she does transmit them beautifully, and some people may need to read them over and over, either for reassurance or to let the ideas sink in.

Possibly preachy, but usefully so, and eloquently expressed.