A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher – Review

Published: July 20, 2020

Publisher: Argyll Productions

Series: Standalone

Pages: 308 (Paperback)

My Rating: 4.0/5.0

Synopsis:
Fourteen-year-old Mona isn’t like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can’t control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt’s bakery making gingerbread men dance.

But Mona’s life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona’s city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona’s worries… 

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T. Kingfisher is quickly becoming a favorite author of mine and this is one of her cutest stories! It’s perfect for upper middle grade readers all the way to adults who are looking for a fun story about a girl saving her city using bread magic. 

Mona enjoys a simple life working in her aunt’s bakery, coming in early to begin baking breads and sweets, feeding her sourdough starter named Bob, and making gingerbread men dance, much to the delight of the many customers. Unfortunately for Mona, when a dead girl is found in the bakery she’s initially accused of the crime and hauled before the duchess for judgment. From here Mona’s life quickly spirals out of control until she eventually ends up crawling up a latrine shaft to warn the duchess that someone is trying to overthrow her. Somehow she’s taken seriously, even though she’s basically just a kid and she’s covered in unspeakable substances. Suddenly Mona is the only wizard not dead or fled and she’s responsible for the defense of the city!

This was an excellent fairytale fantasy with a heroine who proves that even the smallest among us can make a difference. Mona had a talent she thought was useless outside of a bakery, but her circumstances and the encouragement of those around her helped to prove that sometimes all it takes is a little ingenuity and the rousing of an entire city to make dough to save the day! I greatly enjoyed this and it would be an excellent story to read as a family if you have kids (maybe like 10+ years old). The audiobook narration was great, and would be great entertainment for a road trip!