THE PRINCESS, THE KNIGHT, AND THE LOST GOD

The princess of Chess Mountain must hide on Earth to avoid a war between the gods.

Kassie, an athletic, intelligent princess, lives on Chess Mountain among living wooden chess pieces who animate the chessboards of gods. She’s the daughter of Mars, the Roman god of war and king of Chess Mountain, and Caïssa, a powerful dryad and queen. Kassie is eager to celebrate her twelfth birthday and embark on her mythic quest, which will elevate her to god status. Unfortunately, when Dimitri, son of neighboring god of sports, Euphron, disappears, Euphron declares war on Chess Mountain, and Mars sends Kassie through a chess-puzzle portal to Earth with a knight chess piece named Maurice and an important book of chess solutions. After landing, Kassie, who on her home world glows and has inhumanly bronze skin, becomes a white-presenting brown-haired girl, and Maurice turns from a horse to a fedora-wearing clotheshorse. Kassie must integrate into an inexplicably chess-focused classroom in a culturally diverse elementary school in Queens. Light comedy centered on Kassie’s inexperience with snow, pizza, and cars abounds, as do lesser plots about a villainous classmate, Hunter, and suspiciously named teacher, Mr. Mercury, who seems intent on disrespecting the planet Mars, which makes Kassie think she’s been discovered. When the identity of the missing god Dimitri is revealed, Kassie must rely on her diplomacy to resolve the political crisis caused by his absence. In Winifred’s middle-grade novel, the prose can be stiff and protracted, and the book seems long for its reading level. The use of Roman mythology, however, is entertainingly original, and the chess-themed and idiosyncratic worldbuilding will excite young readers’ imaginations. In fact, even more can be done to capitalize on the chess setting of Chess Mountain. Despite humor and a happy ending, the story has a solemn bent, with the cast fulfilling preordained mythical roles. Galstyan’s occasional lighthearted, simple pen-and-ink cartoon illustrations don’t flesh out the fantasy visuals much; a map of Chess Mountain appears at the front of the book. There is a short chess vocabulary page, but most of the narrative’s descriptions of play expect readers to already understand the game.

A wordy but inventive mashup of mythology and chess.