THE VARIOUS

A Nesbit-style fairy adventure made dark awaits Midge, the only child of her single mother, a musician. Midge has to stay with batty Uncle Brian while her mother goes on tour. Though she’s furious at coming second with her mum, Midge loves Brian’s farmhouse, especially when she finds Pegs, an injured winged horse, in an abandoned farm building. As Midge nurses Pegs back to health, he tells her of his people, the elflike Various, who live in Brian’s forest. But Brian plans to sell the forest to developers. Midge and Pegs break ancient taboos and bring her into the enchanted wood to warn the other Various. The Various, conflicted by their own internal politics and bigotry, can’t act effectively. After a slow-moving start, through an impenetrably dense thicket of pseudo-Victorian language, Augarde’s story finally picks up to a suspenseful if incomplete conclusion. (Fiction. 10-13)